Chapter Nine
The bell rang out, signaling the end of the three-way flash competition between R&D’s Implementation team and the Engineering and Marketing departments. The head of each sector had set the parameters for what they deemed would count as a win for their teams. Implementation met their benchmark; the other two did not.
“Okay R&D, conference room,” Barrington Jacobs called.
He was her senior by only two years, but Samiah willingly gave Trendsetters’ CEO his due. The man was a genius, and one of her inspirations. He readily admitted that he’d played the kid-stuck-in-the-middle-of-a-nasty-divorce card to get the seed money he needed from his parents, but he’d used that money to grow this company by leaps and bounds.
What she admired most was that, despite the hard work he’d put in to building Trendsetters, Barrington was the first to acknowledge that his privileged background had given him a leg up and eagerly sought to help those less privileged.
Her thought reminded her, she needed to talk to him about donating old computer equipment to the senior center on Lamar. Barrington championed any philanthropic project Samiah brought to his attention. It was mutually beneficial: Trendsetters received great press and deserving local organizations received much-needed help.
He stood before the conference room, a goofy smile on his face. “Who’s ready to spoil their lunch?” Barrington asked before stepping out of the way and leading them inside.
Samiah stopped short. Had she missed the wordheavenetched across the glass door? Because that’s where she was right now. Hands down, this was her vision of heaven on earth.
The table that stretched across the length of the room was laden with all the makings of the perfect ice cream sundae. The line started at the left side, with an array of glass sundae and banana split bowls waiting to be filled. Next were square platters that held bananas, mixed berries, brownies, and blondies, followed by six large cylinders of various ice cream flavors, including a nondairyvegan vanilla. She whisked past that one and heaped two scoops of buttered pecan ice cream into her sundae glass.
She sprinkled on candied pecans and butterscotch chips from the two dozen toppings offered, then drizzled on warm caramel. She’d skipped her half-hour gym appointment for the past three days, but there was no way she could justify missing it today. She added another drizzle of caramel and some whipped cream. Better make it worth her while.
“How amazing is this, huh?” Keighleigh asked as she approached Samiah with a cup of plain vanilla ice cream, no doubt the vegan one. She probably wasn’t even vegan. Just wanted to be seen as different. “Better than the massage the team from Software won, if you asked me.”
I don’t know about that.
She’d trade this sundae in a heartbeat for another hand massage from Daniel.
“Implementation is finally starting to get the recognition it deserves,” Keighleigh continued. “You think Barrington is taking notice? He has to, right? This is the second flash competition we’ve won since the summer.”
It was on the tip of Samiah’s tongue to point out thatshe’ddone the lion’s share of the work for both the flash competitions they’d won. But she wanted to be a team player, so she nodded and stuffed another spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. She’d decided that when it came to Keighleigh Miller, keeping her mouth shut was her best tactic. If she didn’t share anything with her, she wouldn’t be able to glom onto Samiah’s work and claim it as her own.
She now recognized that she’d only empowered Keighleigh when she didn’t call her out after the Pflugerville Independent School District incident earlier this year. She’d shared her thoughts on the school system’s software issue with a couple of team members at lunch. The next day, Keighleigh presented those same ideas to their supervisor. It was brazen, given that two other team members could vouch for the idea being Samiah’s. And it was the first time she’d had solid proof that Keighleigh had usurped one of her ideas and passed it off as her own.
But she’d kept quiet because she knew how it would go down if she’d caused a fuss. Tears would be shed. Fingers would be pointed. And whispers would start floating around the office about how Samiah attacked a coworker. And if she tried to defend herself, they’d ask why she was so angry. It was the same shit over and over again.
Team player, she reminded herself. She would be a damn team player.
After finishing her ice cream, she joined in a discussion about an upcoming implementation project for one of their long-standing clients, but when they asked for her opinion, Samiah pivoted to another topic. She would test just how well they did without her input.
Her coworkers had come to expect her to run point, even when she wasn’t the official team leader. Of course, she shouldered much of the blame for that. She tended to take over a project, because if her name was on it, she wanted to make sure it was done right.
Not anymore. She would do her part andonlyher part; the rest of her energy belonged to the creation of her Just Friends app.
When she noticed that they were starting to clear the sundae fixings, she went over to the table and heaped a scoop of both chocolate and vanilla into a bowl. She topped it with chopped walnuts and bite-size chocolate chip cookies, and covered it all in hot fudge sauce, whipped cream, and two maraschino cherries. She thanked the HR team for arranging today’s prize, then carried the sundae down the corridor to Research and Development’s software wing.
She found Daniel hunched over his computer with headphones covering his ears, his fingers flying across the keyboard. She remembered a time when all she did was make cool things happen on her computer. She missed those days. She missed actuallycreatingstuff. Working on her app would bring back some of that excitement.
Samiah tapped Daniel on the shoulder and cleared her throat.
His body jerked as he whirled his chair around and pulled the headphones off. She felt the smile that lit up his face in her very bones.
Seriously? It’s just a smile.
God, but it was such a great smile. He killed her with those dimples.
“Hey. What’s up?” he asked.
She ignored what was happening to her nipples as she held the sundae out to him. “Unlikesomepeople I know, I am happy to share the bounty when my team wins in a flash competition.”
His eyes went wide as his mouth dropped open. “No way! You all got sundaes?” He grabbed the glass bowl from her hands.
