Page 14 of Fun Together (Make Romance #1)

Eli

“I think you’re ready for your first role assignment.”

I’m in my first one-on-one meeting with my manager, Melissa.

She’s not much older than me, but she carries herself in a way that makes me a little terrified of her.

Sitting here in her office, I feel like a little kid being sent off to spend the day with their scary great aunt who thinks sorting coins is a fun activity.

I sit up in my seat. “Awesome, that sounds great.”

“There’s an opening for a project manager role in the operations department. The last person in this role was let go for insubordination.”

“Wow, what happened?”

She puts her glasses on, like she needs to get a better look at me, and I feel a little uncertain.

I’m not someone who hates attention by any means, but the way she’s looking at me feels like I’m under a microscope and she’s searching for something that I will never be able to understand. “Does that matter?”

“I guess not. Just . . .” I shift uncomfortably in my seat and wipe my palms against my pants. “Curious, that’s all.”

She continues, “Looking for someone with a background in tech, preferably. You’ll find details on pay and benefits in the portal.” She pauses, glaring at my hands that I’m way too slow to realize are empty when they should probably be writing this down.

“Sorry, can you give me just a second? Forgot my notepad at my desk.”

“Hurry back,” she says while turning her chair to face her computer screen.

I jog out to my cubicle and grab the neon blue Millionfish branded notebook sitting on my desk. I got it in a welcome package on my first day, along with a water bottle and a sweatshirt with Guppie, the company mascot, on the front.

Melissa is talking on the phone when I step back in her office. “Mm-hmm, yeah, mm-hmm, got it. Okay, mm-hmm, perfect.”

“Everything okay?” I ask after she hangs up.

She sighs. “Look, I’m going to give it to you straight. We are embarking on a rapid growth initiative and need more bodies.”

“More. Bodies.” I nod along and write the words in bold in my notebook.

“The problem is that we’re struggling to be competitive with other big companies in a similar space to us. Employee retention is at an all-time low and management is scrambling to not only hold onto the talent we have, but hire more people to align with where the company wants to be.”

I remember Faye mentioning that her boss said something about this to her, too. “I see. So is the company making changes to their offerings?”

“How so?” she asks.

“Well, benefits or other perks?”

“Oh, well, that’s the other thing. We don’t really have the revenue right now to offer better health benefits or anything like that. But we do have our annual company party coming up that usually provides a little boost.”

“But nothing long-term?”

Her eyes harden and I remember that I’m scared of her. “Eli. You have a job, and I have a job, and we know what we have to do. Right?”

“Right. Sorry, just anticipating potential questions a candidate might ask.”

She seems to like this answer, and I relax a little. “That’s good thinking. Just stick to the talking points. You’re just doing intro calls, so there shouldn’t be too much detail given.”

I resist the urge to mention that health benefits would be the first thing most people ask about during these intro calls. I guess I’ll figure out how to navigate that when the time comes.

“What is the timeline for when they’re looking to have someone in place?”

“Ideally within a month,” she says.

That’s soon, considering how long these things usually take between working with schedules and finding candidates that are a good fit for the role.

“Okay, no problem.” I can do this. I can make this happen. No need to stress about a repeat of my last performance review at my previous job.

Unreliable. . . No growth mindset. . .

“I think you’ll be a great fit here, Eli. You should have access to the applicant portal so you can begin screening. I look forward to hearing about your progress.”

This bolsters me up a little, and I feel more confident. “I’ll get started this afternoon.”

I make about ten phone calls before I start to feel like I’m going to lose my mind if I have to leave another voicemail.

Two people have called back so far, and both said they weren’t interested when they found out the pay for the role.

One woman was so shocked, she said she thought I was joking when I told her the salary.

Focusing on a single task like this goes against every fiber of my being. I feel so full of pent-up energy, I could sprint laps around the office. I think a little afternoon exploration break is needed, so I send a Slack message to Faye.

Eli: What are you doing?

Faye: Working?

Eli: Come with me to the duck pond.

Faye: Can’t. I’m swamped.

Eli: Are you making a pond joke?

Faye: Not intentionally, but that was pretty good though.

Faye: We have a duck pond?

Eli: I heard there might be baby ducks.

Tom told me about a small pond located on the property that may or may not have a family of ducks living in it. And I know I’m curious about it. Who can resist the pull of potentially seeing some baby ducks? I see dots pop up and go away a few times before she responds.

Faye: I guess I could use a break too.

We meet in the lobby five minutes later. This is the first time I’ve seen her today. She looks pretty in a flowy skirt with flowers all over it and a white T-shirt.

We head outside and I lead us toward the path Tom told me about.

“Are you sure this is even on company property? I feel like an old man is going to come out of the trees any minute screaming for us to get off his land.”

“According to Tom, it is. I’m surprised you don’t know about it, since you’ve been here so long.”

She shrugs. “As you can tell, I very much stay in my cubicle-shaped bubble.”

“Well, I’m glad you broke out today. Although, it’s fucking hot out here.” It’s stifling, like the air itself is as bored as I was.

“Summer’s last, dying, humid breath,” she says, puffing the collar of her shirt up and down. I tear my eyes away from the little bits of skin that are revealed each time she lifts the fabric.

The tall grass brushes against our legs as we keep walking along the overgrown path. We finally reach a point where I can see water sparkling through the trees. “There it is.”

“This is actually really nice,” she says. “I wonder why they never told us about this place.”

There’s an old picnic table by the water that we precariously sit on. No sign of the ducks yet, but it’s still a relief to be out of the office for a bit.

“How are things going so far?” she asks.

“I actually got my first role assignment today.”

“That’s awesome. Hitting the ground running.”

“Yeah, I only have a month to get it filled. And based on the calls I made today, I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

“What’s the role?”

I tell her about it, and I watch her visibly perk up. She doesn’t say she’s interested, but I can tell she’s intrigued by it.

“You interested?” I ask.

“In what?”

“The job. I can send you the posting if you want to take a look.”

“Oh my god,” she says, frantically pointing at the water. “Babies!”

A duck swims into view, and sure enough, there are about eight or nine baby ducks swimming along behind it.

“I thought Tom was messing with me when he told me there were baby ducks.”

She smiles. “There’s even a little straggler falling behind. This is so cute, I can’t stand it.” The ducks swim by us, and we watch as they make their way to the other side of the pond where a tree has fallen into the water.

In my periphery, I spot two swans along the edge of the water by the trees. “Holy shit, look over there.”

“This is crazy,” she says in awe. “Where am I right now?”

The swans move slowly, gracefully, through the water. “Did you know swans mate for life?” I ask.

Do her cheeks flush or is it just the heat? “Oh yeah?”

“Saw in on Planet Earth , I think.”

“That’s sweet. And surprising.”

“Why is it surprising?”

“I don’t know. I wonder why they only have one mate. Like, evolutionarily it doesn’t make sense.”

“Maybe they’re in love,” I say.

She snorts and almost smiles. Almost.

The swans do this push and pull sort of thing, dancing around each other in the water.

“It’s kind of mesmerizing,” I say.

“Yeah, it is,” she says.

They continue their dance until finally wrapping their necks around each other. I look over at Faye to see if she sees this too, hardly able to believe I’m witnessing this at all.

I expect to see the wonder that I’m currently feeling. But she looks almost sad when she says, “I feel like we’re watching something not meant for our unworthy human eyes.”

I look back at the swans, still wrapped up in each other, completely unaware that we’re even watching them. “Maybe they aren’t real, and are just some kind of mirage.”

“Maybe they’re an omen or warning,” she says in a doom-filled voice.

“Maybe they’re casting a spell on us,” I say.

She looks at me, then, her blue eyes big and serious. “Maybe we’re cursed.”

“Oh no,” I say, not breaking eye contact. “How do you think we break it?”

She shifts her focus back to the water. “I’m thinking blood sacrifice.”

“Or a nice, high-quality baguette.”

She laughs, the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard, and I add it to my mental tally.

“We should probably head back,” she says, hopping off the bench and brushing the backs of her legs off.

I take one last look at the swans before following her back up the path.