He was so charismatic that I couldn’t tear my eyes away. The way he moved through the crowd and knew every person’s name, their significant others—I even heard him asking about someone’s children.
It was an hour before he navigated over to where I sat.
“You look like you’re trying to figure it all out,” he said.
I pushed him a plate with two slices of pizza I’d grabbed for him before it ran out, then took a sip of beer and inspected him to the point that he smiled almost nervously.
I wasn’t used to seeing him nervous, yet now I’d seen it twice in one day.
“How do you know everything about everyone here?” I asked.
“Ah…” he sat back in the chair and looked around the room. “Most of them have been working with me since day one, and after ten years, they’re practically family.”
“These people have been here since the beginning?” I asked in disbelief. “That’s wild for a company nowadays.”
Gavin shrugged. “You treat people with as much respect as you wish to receive, and sometimes it works out.”
“Most employers only care about the work getting done, no matter how it gets done,” I said.
“I’m not most employers,” he said. “Can’t imagine you would only care about that with your employees.”
“No,” I said. “No, I’ve worked for enough assholes over the years. That was one of the reasons I had quit completely and started doing contract work like I was doing when we first met.”
“How did you end up with Ezzie?” he asked.
“I actually met her at a convention in Toronto. She was running around on the phone and had three clients signing there. For some reason, she spotted me and asked me if I could help her round up one of her celebrities who had decided to get up and go to the taco truck outside instead of staying in and doing his job. Our no-bullshit attitudes got along great, and when my workload became too much, she was who I instantly called. At first, it was all remote. We had never even met some of our employees until the offices opened. You should have seen how we did interviews when we moved out here. ”
I laughed at the memory, and Gavin smiled.
“Is there a special way to conduct them?” he asked.
“We were sat in the middle of the thirteenth floor with only our laptops and a few cushions,” I said. “The ones who came in either took one look at us and turned around, or they stayed to hear what we had to say. We heard their stories and concerns about working for a startup, too. We had barely enough in the bank to cover rent, electricity, and payroll, and for the first six months, we all worked on those little food tray tables or the floor in the back corner. Construction was done on the fourteenth floor first, and we all moved in there while the other floor was done.”
I sighed, remembering those first few scary months when we didn’t know how things would work or if they would.
“It was our dream,” I said.
“I wish I’d seen it,” he said, and I met his eyes.
I gave him a small smile. “I think things worked out. If I had been with you then, I don't know that I would have met Ezzie, and maybe I would have moved across the country earlier than I was meant to.”
“Do you believe in that kind of thing?” he asked. “Fate. What’s meant to be and a predestined life and everything.”
“Are you asking if I believe in the universe and patterns or if I believe in the three women called the Fates who control our destinies?”
Gavin chuckled under his breath. “There are many things wrong with that statement, but I’m going to let you slide this time,” he said.
“Oh, really? Will you give me a thorough education on Greek mythology one day?”
“Maybe I will,” he said. The rim of his bottle touched his lips, and he sipped the beer as he said, “Depends on if you’re a good girl or not.”
My mouth twisted, not out of annoyance, but in an attempt to hold back the flirt that threatened my lips.
And he knew it.
That dimple shone with his crooked smile, and he sat up in his seat. “I’m asking if you believe in either,” he said.
I eyed him again, took another drink, and pondered his question. “Lana is always going on about listening to the universe and manifesting your own destiny and everything. I’ve never really thought much of it. Although I think… I think it’s possible. Maybe there are a thousand predetermined destinies, and our choices send us off on one of those paths. And maybe those who actually give the universe a chance to speak are the ones who have some insight into those various paths, so we see that path and all the steps it takes to get there.”
