Page 16 of Behind Frenemy Lines

Kriya

“ I am so, so sorry,” I said. “I know that was super weird.”

Kawan Baik seemed remarkably unfazed for someone who had just discovered he was apparently his office roommate’s boyfriend now, at least in Arthur’s mind. Probably in Farah’s mind, too, despite what he’d said about not telling her. Arthur was never as sneaky as he thought.

“I owe you an explanation,” I said.

Charles said, “Did something happen with Arthur in Hong Kong?”

“Oh my God, you’ve heard?” A horrific thought struck me. “Have people been talking about it?”

Shame crashed over me. It was no good telling myself I hadn’t done anything wrong.

Arthur’s behaviour wasn’t my fault. But if there was a rumour going around that something had happened between us, I knew which of the two of us would have the worst of it.

Who was going to believe the Indian woman with the funny accent over the senior white guy?

“What are they saying?” I said. I didn’t want to know—I could imagine it, all too easily—but if people were gossiping, I couldn’t afford not to know what they were saying.

Charles shook his head. “I haven’t heard anyone talking. Made me wonder, that’s all.” He gestured at the door through which Arthur had vanished.

My heartbeat slowed. “Oh. Yeah. I guess he made it obvious.” I scrubbed my face, sinking down into my chair. “Arthur’s his own worst enemy.”

I couldn’t believe the unhinged conversation we’d had. All Arthur had needed to do was apologise and go back to treating me as he had before. I was fully on board with moving on and forgetting Hong Kong had ever happened.

No doubt he’d told himself he was questioning my office setup out of concern, that it was no more than a good boss would do. I knew better than anyone how good Arthur was at justifying himself.

“He approached you?” said Charles, tentatively.

“Sexually harassed me. Yeah.” It was the first time I’d said it out loud, in those terms. The words felt so stark I found myself hastening to caveat them. “He didn’t touch me, or anything like that. He just, you know, he came to my hotel room and hit on me. So I told him I had a boyfriend.”

“And you told him this boyfriend was me?”

It was almost funny how carefully non-judgmental Charles’s voice was. I wished I felt like laughing.

“No! I don’t know where he got that from,” I said. “He knows I broke up with my ex recently, but I have no idea why he thinks I’m dating you.”

Even as I said it, an image rose up before me—of Arthur, in our office the day before, staring at the plate of cookies Charles had placed on my desk.

I covered my eyes. “Oh God, of course. It was the cookies.”

“The what?”

“The meeting room cookies you offered me,” I said. “Arthur’s gone round the bend. One perfectly normal human interaction and he decides we’re in love.”

Charles made a strange choking noise.

I lowered my hands, worried. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Frog in my throat.” Charles took a sip from his mug of green tea. He looked a little flushed, but he did seem fine. “Quite a leap on Arthur’s part.”

“Right? I mean, the cookies would have been thrown away otherwise.”

“That’s what I thought,” agreed Charles. “Are you going to report him?”

I stared at him. “What?”

“I’d be happy to be a witness, if you’re planning to raise it with HR,” said Charles. “Obviously I wasn’t present for the original incident. But the conversation we just had with him makes more sense with the added context of what he did in Hong Kong.”

“I… thank you.”

It wasn’t like I didn’t know going to HR was an option.

But it held at least as much risk for me as for Arthur, even with Charles on my side.

As Charles said, he wasn’t in a position to corroborate my account of what had happened in Hong Kong.

And even though he could vouch for the fact Arthur had been unhinged about us sharing an office, that on its own wasn’t self-evidently out of order.

Maybe firm policy did frown upon romantic partners sharing an office.

I hadn’t read the policy, since it wasn’t relevant to my situation—or rather, it hadn’t been, until Arthur had decided it was.

“I thought about it,” I said. “But what would I be reporting? Nothing really happened.”

Charles raised an eyebrow. “You said he hit on you.”

“Yeah. And when I said no, he went away. He didn’t try to force me, or push back, or anything.”

Charles’s forehead wrinkled. “I’d hope HR would have a more nuanced view than that. He came to your hotel room, you said? It was inappropriate.”

“He’s apologised,” I said. “Maybe I should have recorded it. If you think about it, it was an admission.” I rubbed my temples.

I couldn’t believe this was my life now, that I was regretting not taping my boss.

“Say HR take our view of it—I agree with you, by the way, that it wasn’t a great thing for him to do. ” Understatement of the year.

“Arthur’s going to deny it,” I said. “He’s going through an expensive divorce, he’s moved firms because he wants to reset his career. He can’t afford to be labelled a sexual harasser. And if it’s my word against his, who are they going to believe?”

Charles didn’t try to reassure me. “You’re not obliged to report it, if you don’t want to. It’s your decision.”

“It was a single incident,” I said. “He did back off after I told him I was seeing somebody. All of this is really out of character for him. I’ve worked with him for eight years, and he’s never done anything like it before.

Definitely not to me, and not to anyone else that I know of.

He’s been under a lot of pressure recently… ”

My voice trailed off. I could hear how unconvincing I sounded.

But what could I do? If I was wrong, if this wasn’t a one-off I could put behind me, that would mean my career, as it was, was over. Even if I went to HR and they believed me, and it was Arthur who lost his job instead of me.

I didn’t know what my career would look like without Arthur. I’d have to rebuild it from scratch, and I didn’t have a model for that. I wasn’t prepared to sink my career as I knew it over one mistake—a mistake Arthur had owned up to and had promised not to repeat.

“I think he’s learned his lesson,” I said.

I could tell Charles wasn’t buying it. But all he said was, “It’s up to you. My offer stands. I won’t say anything about it without your agreement.”

“Thank you,” I said.

Charles was being so decent. I felt bad for calling him Kawan Baik all those years, though it was barely an insult. After how he’d behaved today, it didn’t feel like he deserved to be the object of a running joke.

“I’m sorry you got dragged into this,” I said. “I’ll tell Arthur he got it wrong, since he’s got it stuck in his head that you’re the guy I’m seeing.” I sighed.

“Can’t you tell him who it is you are seeing?” Charles recollected himself. “Of course, you probably don’t want to share personal information with him.”

“I mean, yeah, that. But I’m not seeing anybody!

I only said it because I wanted to let him down gently.

” I ran my hands through my hair. “I’ll tell him I met somebody on the apps.

That should sound plausible. He probably thought it was you because he knows all I’ve been doing is working lately.

I’ve hardly had time to keep on top of my laundry, much less meet someone new. ”

“You don’t have to,” said Charles.

“Don’t have to what?”

Charles was pink. “If it makes things easier with Arthur, you don’t have to clarify. I don’t mind.”

I wasn’t sure if I’d understood him. “You mean… let him keep thinking we’re dating?”

Charles shrugged. “You’ve already denied it.

If he doesn’t believe you, that’s his lookout.

It makes no difference to me either way.

I’m not in a relationship, so there’s nobody to object.

I wouldn’t have to do anything differently, it sounds like.

Arthur seems perfectly capable of inventing the evidence to prove his hypothesis. ”

“Oh.” It would be one less thing to worry about. I didn’t even know how I was going to persuade Arthur I wasn’t dating Charles, given that several outright denials hadn’t worked.

If anything, the denials I’d issued had probably cemented it as truth to Arthur. I could see everything I’d said to the contrary was exactly what I would say if I were dating Charles and didn’t want him to know.

There was no way to win. Even if I’d agreed to surrender my office, that would simply have confirmed for Arthur that he was right. And it would have left me out of an office, simply because Arthur had decided to go on a weird interfering rampage.

“Are you sure?” I said. “People might gossip.”

“They won’t to me.”

I could see people wouldn’t. There was a kind of natural severity about Charles’s manner. You felt that if you were to talk about anything other than work, he’d judge you.

“But they might talk behind your back,” I said.

“So?”

That was hard to counter.

Charles looked away, at his screen. I thought he was about to wind up the conversation so he could get back to work, but instead he said, quietly, “I’d like to help, if I can. It seems to me you’re in a difficult position.”

My eyes stung, my vision going blurry. I bent my head, glad Charles wasn’t looking at me. He’d dealt with enough drama for the day. He didn’t need to have me dripping tears on my desk, on top of it all.

“It would help,” I said, when I was sure I could speak without my voice going wobbly. “Just till Arthur’s through this phase. I’m sure he’ll get over it and things will go back to normal.”

I wasn’t sure. But I wasn’t ready to look at what it would mean for my life if Arthur kept acting like this and made it impossible for me to continue working for him. I had to hope he’d get… whatever this was out of his system, and go back to being the guy I knew.

“Hopefully it won’t take long,” I said. “But if you start feeling uncomfortable about it, or if you change your mind, for whatever reason, I can let him know we’ve broken up. Does that work?”

Charles nodded.

“Thank you.” I took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Sorry for all the drama.”

“Really,” said Charles. “Don’t worry about it. It’s fine.”

It was fine. It would be fine. I just had to believe that.