I expect him to laugh or roll his eyes, but instead his expression softens. “I shouldn’t be telling you this—nothing has been officially announced yet—but...” He hesitates.
“You know it’ll go no further than this room.” And it won’t.
He sighs. “They’re merging our team.”
I tense, something cold and uncomfortable settling in the pit of my stomach. There’s only one team that it would make sense to merge with ours. I ask anyway. “Who with?”
He confirms my suspicions with a grimace.
“Fuck.”
“I’m sorry. I raised as many objections as I could professionally get away with. I’m not keen on the idea of a merger either, because you know where that usually leads.”
“Redundancies.”
“Possibly. Or aredistribution of personnel.”He does roll his eyes this time.
“Is that why you’re telling me about a job in Sheffield?”
He quickly shakes his head. “No. You’re one of the best people on my team.”
I hold out my hands. “Then why . . . ?”
“Professionally, I’d be an idiot to let you go. But as yourfriend, Reed, I can’t sit on this opportunity when I know what’s coming. You’ll be working with Karl. Maybe not directly and maybe not every day, but we’ll all be part of the same team, so some interaction will be inevitable.”
I go to interrupt, but he’s not finished.
“These past couple of months, you’ve finally seemed like your old self after...everything... and I don’t want this move to jeopardise that.”
“I can handle it,” I say quietly, but the truth is, I don’t want to. Maybe one day Karl and I can be the friends we used to be, but I’m not there yet. Work is the one constant that hasn’t changed since we split, and I’ve clung to that. It’s bad enough running into him on the occasional lunch break. If I have to come to work knowing there’s a chance he might be in my office all day, then I’m going to dread coming here. I know I am.
But I’ve worked here for the last six years. The thought of starting somewhere new... I’m not sure I fancy that much either.
I wonder if Chris can read the trepidation on my face because he adds, “It’s the same set up as here: one to two days in the office and the rest working from home. And you already know the team leader.”
That piques my interest. “I do?”
“Yep.” The name he offers up is a guy who used to work in this office a few years ago. I didn’t know him all that well, but I remember liking him. “He remembers you. Was keen to have a chat with you, if you’re interested.”
Am I interested?
I think I am, but it’s not a decision to take lightly. Even one or two days a week, it’s not a commute I’d want to do from here. I’d have to move house.
“The company would help you with moving costs,” Chris says, like he can sense me wavering.
“Can I think about it?”
He nods quickly. “Of course. The job hasn’t even been advertised internally yet, so you’ve got a few weeks to decide. But don’t leave it any longer than that.”
“I won’t.”
I leave his office in a bit of a daze and spend the rest of the afternoon going back and forth between wanting to try something new and never wanting to leave.
Sean and Vic’shousewarming party comes round surprisingly fast. It seems like only yesterday I was sat in Chris’s office while he offered me an opportunity I still don’t know what to do with.
I spend the drive to Charnwell going over and over it in my head. Rumours have started circulating about our impending team merger, and this last week alone I’ve bumped into Karl three times. Once it was both him and Harrison as I left work, and it might be a year since we split, but it’s still not easy to see them together. To see how happy they are.
Maybe a change of scenery would be good?
