“We aren’t in a relationship,” I say carefully. As he continues to look at me, I realize he’s talking about Aaron and me, not he and I. “Aaron and I were just talking.”
“Flirting can lead to more intimate behavior—"
“Holy shit,” I cut him off. “We weren’t flirting. I’m sorry, I know I should be more professional when I talk to you, but I’ve been working for over twelve hours and you just happen to walk in here while I’m not working—the one, single minute I’m not working—and then you accuse me of trying to seduce my co-worker just because I was talking to him. I don’t want to talk to Aaron or you about anything other than the work. I just want to work.”
His face returns to its stoic expression that I’m learning to despise. “How is the design going?”
“Great,” I say. “I’ve almost had a breakthrough.”
It’s not quite true, but I’m still not the biggest liar in the room.
A progression of minor guitar chords faintly plays. Mark pulls out his phone. The chords stop playing when he taps on the screen.
“Hello, Angela,” Mark answers. “What’s going on?”
There’s a long pause as he listens. I shouldn’t stare directly at his face, but it’s easy to get ensnared by the perfect architecture of it. Yet, while the view is glorious, it changes. First, there’s dawn, where the shadows are held at bay and his face shows a polite interest. Slowly, dawn changes into daytime and his face changes to an expression of inscrutability. Dusk comes quickly, the shadows returning, and I see tension stiffen his whole body. Finally, nighttime floods through his expression, his face darkening with a mix of anger and stress.
“Thank you, Angela. No, I’ll deal with it,” he says, his tone remaining light and unperturbed. “Just take the rest of the night off. We’re not going to rush into a response without having a thorough plan. Thank you for calling. You’ve always been willing to go above and beyond for the company and we wouldn’t be the same without you. Thank you, Angela. You too. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He hangs up, sliding the phone back into his pocket. He stares past me, his eyes shifting back and forth. He’s brainstorming, flipping through every possible option and decision. I’d seen the same look on his face six years ago when we heard the police sirens.
“Considering Angela deals with social media…” I say. His gaze pierces me. I clear my throat. “Uh, well, considering her job, I’m going to assume something happened on social media. Are our users angry?”
“No,” he says. He takes a deep breath. “Or not yet, but once the news starts spreading, they could become indignant.”
I wait for him to expand. He doesn’t, jumping back on his train of thought.
“Okay,” I say. He glances back at me again. “Well, I have to get back to work, so good luck with your problem. It sounds like you’ll need it.”
I turn away from him. He grabs my arm. His grip isn’t tight, but it stops me in my tracks. “Forget about your previous project,” he says. “This takes precedence. Do you know about Tunest?”
“Sure,” I say. “They’re the top music streaming service. I used them before I started using 2Resonance a year ago.”
“They are the top music streaming service, but we’re quickly becoming a threat to their dominance,” he says, his mouth forming the last word with enough force to cause something under my skin to tremble. His hand is still on my arm. It feels like restraint and comfort.
“From their last move, they clearly already consider us a threat. They just released three advertisements that are attacking us for tracking our users’ locations and acting like we’re encouraging two strangers to meet in a dark alley over shared music tastes. We’re going to need to get out an advertisement within the next few days to get back at them or we’ll risk losing our current users and prospective users. We need to reassure them that our service is as safe as any other service. Even safer, considering our encryption.”
I should keep my mouth shut. He's simply venting, so I should offer my condolences over his situation and focus on my work. I have nothing to prove to him and my urge to prove my worth is an impulse I have absolute control over.
“I wouldn’t focus on encryption,” I say, the words bursting out like confetti. “Most people don’t know anything about data protection, so reassuring them about it won’t do much. I’d focus on the human aspect. Convince the users that we trust them to make smart decisions when meeting people—the same way they would if they met a stranger on the street or a—"
I stop before the wordhostelslips out. That wouldn't be confetti. That would be an incendiary bomb that would end up burning me significantly more than him.
I clear my throat, avoiding his eyes, which scorch me in a more permanent way than any bomb could. "Instead of telling them that we’ll protect them—which you wouldn’t trust any stranger behind a computer screen to do—we tell them that we didn’t come this far as a society only to make bad decisions like meeting someone in a dark alley.”
He nods once, releasing my arm. “That’s smart. It will make it seem like Tunest is treating them like children. You should take the lead on this.”
“Wait, what?” I ask. “I… I didn’t mean to try to take over. I was just giving suggestions.”
“And they were good suggestions,” he says. “You’re skilled at creative solutions and you are discerning when it comes to what people want to hear in comparison to what we believe they want to hear. It makes sense for you to take the lead.”
It’s a suspicious request. He just tried to fire me. But I don’t think I can refuse without giving him an excuse to fire me. Maybe that’s his intention—to give me an impossible project when I’ve just started here. He believes I’ll fail, and he can prove that he was right to try to fire me.
“Absolutely. I’ll do it,” I say. It won’t be the first time someone underestimated me. It won’t even be Mark’s first time.
“We will start working on it tomorrow. Meet me in my office in the morning,” he says, moving past me. I turn around to watch him go down the hallway.
He wants to work on it together. He and I. Working on an intense project. Together.
