“They’ve moved beyond passive aggressive fights, now?” he says, barely looking up from his notepad as he uncaps his pen and begins scribbling something out. He really thinks I'm about to tell him they just bitched about each other again. I guess he hasn't had reason to expect otherwise.
“In a dark corner,” I clarify. “Sort of...entwined.”
He slows down his scribble as realization dawns in his features. He glances up at me exactly once.
“Ah,” he says, and then nothing else. He’s quiet for several minutes. “Isn’t that...against a rule, somewhere?”
I hold him in a stare. “Yeah, you’d think.”
We’re quiet after that, and I wonder if he’s mentally tiptoeing around this as well. If it’s against the rules for them to entwine at work, then shouldn’t it be the same for us?
But we haven’t broken any rules. At least, not yet. And this is a work trip. It’s not strictly during work. We’re not personally invested in each other the way Kathy and Ted are. I mean, I doubt most people have Kathy and Ted’s specific relationship, but we’re not like, involved with one another. Not to mention, we haven’t actually entwined anything, we’ve just been in the vicinity of each other’s personal entwining.
But separately entwining nonetheless.
I shrug after too many beats go by. “I mean, they’re not each other’s direct reports. And they’re not fighting as much when they’re... well. I think they’ll behave for this trip, at least. And when they stop behaving, maybe I’ll just resort to blackmail.”
It’s not entirely serious, but it is a tempting thought. And maybe there's a chance they'll just behave better knowing that I know.
“Was there anything else you wanted to go over?” I ask, taking a sip from my drink and glancing at the notepad with only a few scribbles on it.
He sighs and drops his pen down on the paper. “Honestly, I thought that would take a lot longer. Considering the length of their file.”
I snort. “This revelation is honestly making me rethink everything that’s in there. It does shed some light on why nothing I did made them any less volatile.”
“They didn’t exactly cover arguing as foreplay in any management courses,” he rolls his eyes, but there’s a gentle smirk hiding in the corner of his mouth as he takes a sip of his drink. I watch his face, the way the tiny candle on the table throws shadows and light into the crevices of his features, carving into his pensive look.
“Honestly, it should be in there, because it’s come up a number of times in my job,” I return. “Nothing really prepares you for seeing your coworkers’ asses out on security footage.”
That gets a laugh out of him, and I savor the sound of it.
I catch a reflection of us in the glass partition between booths, and it’s a moment before I realize it’s us. There’s something about the relaxed body language, his arm draped over the back of his chair, mixed with the semiprofessional attire we’re both in. It reminds me of coming home from the office and kicking off my shoes to sprawl across the couch, stress melting away.
“So, this must be a fun introduction to the company,” I offer, a weak attempt at conversation.
“It was something of a last-minute decision. I had it penciled in to take the time off. I’ve never been much for all the handshakes typically involved.”
I remember the kind of crushing handshake battles that would happen between gargoyles when I was an intern. I can only imagine a younger version of him trying to avoid it.
“What made you change your mind?”
His answer is in his eyes before he even says anything. “I wanted to meet everyone I’d be working with closely, make some friends,” he shrugs, and it's obviously a sidestep away from the emotions in his eyes. I can see I’ve struck something too painful for light conversation.
“I've been a boss for too long. Barking orders for people to get things done, burning through people's passion for their projects in the name of productivity,” he continues, half talking with his hands and the delicate wine glass dwarfed by the size of them. “I wanted to be present, to meet people and get to know them genuinely.”
“It’s easy for companies to claim that everyone who works together is like family, to decide that if we say we’re a close-knit group, that we’ll be one,” I offer, nodding along. I swallow, hoping to take this back to something a little easier for him to talk about. “But it's rare that it means anything.”
His grip tightens on his wine glass just enough to send a hairline crack up its side, but not enough to shatter it. “Exactly.”
I'm shocked silent by this as he puts the glass aside, barely acknowledging what happened.
After a moment, he continues, his voice low and gravelly with memory, “The last company I worked at was a startup I helped grow to be a decent competitor in its field. I was close with every member of our team. But when I needed to take time off for my health...it was easy to find someone who could do everything I did.”
I watch the red wine seep out the crack, dripping down, silently bleeding into the tablecloth. After several heavy moments, I look up to Vlad's face. I want to reach across the table and reassure him he's not replaceable in the least. I don't know if it would mean enough, coming from me.
He doesn't need to continue for me to see how devastating that must have been when it happened. He gives his head a little shake and moves on. “It’s rare to find a real friend.”
I haven’t had time to separate my first impression of Vlad from the marble man before me. But he is there, even if I couldn’t see it at first past all the Peak-District-Suit-y-ness about him. He is so genuine in everything he’s ever shown me. He didn’t have to tell me about any of this, but he’s been forthright from the moment we met.
