“It’s nothing, Steven. She is just someone that I talk to on the phone. She works at that company we are going to buy later this month. She has been feeding me their financial information for the last few weeks.”
“Oh, I see. So, she could be some ugly dog and you wouldn’t know it? You shouldn’t get your hopes up for a woman that you have never met in person. You know how you are, Harold.”
“How I am? What does that mean?”
Steven just shrugged and then smiled. “Come on, don’t make me say it.”
Harold said that Steven was going to have to because he had no idea what he was talking about. It was clear that both of them were doing their best to hold back. Harold especially didn’t want to say what was truly going on in his mind. It was too muddled, and he didn’t even know what it all meant. There was no way that he was going to be able to explain it, and he certainly didn’t have a desire to do so, either.
“What?”
“You are shallow, man. I hate to say it like that, but you have a type, and I don’t think I have ever known you to go outside of that before, not once.”
Harold shrugged and said that Steven didn’t understand. It was nothing like that. He was just having some fun. It was just a girl at the new company, just a voice on the phone. Why was he so wrapped up in it all? He wasn’t worried about her being ugly, he wasn’t worried about her being his type.
His friend was right, though. He did have a type. What if she wasn’t it? What would he do then? What would he do if she was his type? She already had the personality. If she had the looks, too, it would be a big problem. Harold didn’t like problems, especially not the ones of the female variety. He tried his best to stay out of it and that meant not getting attached to women, at all, ever. No matter what.
“You are acting like we are going to go out or something. We are just working together, that’s all. Just because a woman makes me smile, doesn’t mean that I want to have anything to do with her sexually.”
Steven just nodded his head. “And you want to what, be her friend? How many women have you been friends with before, I mean seriously? I don’t even think that is a thing that you need to worry about. Come on, Harold. You have never been friends with a girl before. You have them around for one thing and one thing only.”
Harold didn’t want to believe it was true, but he knew that it was. He knew that there was nothing in what his friend said that was false. He was shallow, and he didn’t have women around for any other reason but to fuck and suck his dick. It was easier that way, and Harold had kept his mental status sane because of that. When he was younger, foolish, he had done crazy things for women that he thought he fancied. It all went tits up though, and it was easy for him to drop that part of it. He had seen and felt the consequences firsthand. That was all he had to do, remind himself, when he felt f,himself getting attached.
“Like I said, Steven, I am not trying to make this girl into anything to me. She is just some chick that has a fast mouth, and she entertains me.”
Steven just nodded his head. It looked like his freckles had multiplied since Harold had seen him that morning. The man’s skin was so white. He was almost glowing when he was all worked up the way he was.
“Uh huh. I don’t believe you.”
Harold told him that it didn’t matter. “You work for me, so you don’t have to.”
Harold walked away before he could give away more than he wanted to. He was trying to be serious, but it was hard. Steven was right. He was fighting with fire, and Harold realized that he was going to have to be careful with the likes of Sarah. She was dangerous, in more ways than one.
Chapter 5
Sarah
When Sarah got off of the afternoon call with Harold, she was smiling from ear to ear. She didn’t quite know why. It wasn’t like he was nice to her, speaking sweet nothings in her ear. She was frustrated to no end every time she got off the phone, but then at the same time, she would admire him even more. It was a mixed bag when it came to Harold, and she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do about it. Or even what she wanted to do about it. All Sarah knew for certain was that she wasn’t going to be able to keep the smile off her face, even though her boss was coming down the hallway toward her. Sarah had a coffee in her hand from the breakroom. She should go to lunch, but Sarah was working on something to help with the company’s accounting records. There were a lot of redundancies that she’d noticed, and Sarah was doing the figures on how much they could save, taking some of the necessary ways out.
Sarah was excited about it and when Greg passed by her, she asked him if he would have time later to talk about it. He was in a rush by the way he was looking, and he disagreed, saying that he was going to be busy. Sarah wanted more and she said that she had found a way to save many man-hours in the accounting department.
“The accounting department? Why would you be looking into that? That is not your job.”
Sarah could tell that her boss wasn’t happy with her extra time and energy that she was putting in. It wasn’t her job, he was right about that, but it was something that she could help with. Sarah wanted to be indispensable, and the way to do that was to offer value. She wanted to do that by saving them money, so that they would never want to get rid of her. She hadn’t seen it as a bad thing.
Greg told her that she basically just needed to stick to her job and do it well. Sarah asked if there had been a complaint to how she was doing things.
“No, but with Harold, you don’t want him bitching. If he says anything to me, it will be to drop the deal. That’s just how he is. He won’t take any pushback in business. He will just run me over like I’m not even there and move on to the next company. This place has to get sold or we are all going to lose our jobs.”
Sarah didn’t know what to say. She was mad that nothing she said to help was working out. Her ideas were landing on deaf ears and that was a bit soul-sucking, but she also didn’t believe that it would matter too much, anyway. If the company that she was working for was going to be bought out, maybe she should get out while she could, while the place was still up and running. Sarah didn’t want to be attached to a failing company that was bought out before it went under. Since she was management, that might look bad on her, failure from all the way up at the top.
“So, this has what to do with Harold?”
“He is the one that is looking to buy it.”
“Oh.”
Sarah wanted to say something, something profound, that was going to make him see what Sarah thought about it, but nothing came out, just that one syllable that didn’t sound like it was that big of a deal.
