His first boyfriend—his only real boyfriend—had been Marty, his best friend in high school. When they’d realised both of them were gay, one thing had led to another, and their friendship had quickly become more. When he looked back on it, though, it was more a case of friends with benefits. Jason was now sure that he and Marty had turned to each other as boyfriends of convenience, probably because they were shit-scared to open themselves up to finding anyone else. Jason wasn’t sure if it was luck or fate that made him befriend the only boy at school who would easily accept him, but he wasn’t going to argue with whatever power had brought Marty his way. Marty had been the first guy for many things as they’d experimented together. From the first shy kisses to the first lingering glances at each other’s naked bodies, to finally getting more hands-on. By the time they were at university, they were well attuned to each other sexually. But they were never meant to be, him and Marty. They realised that when Marty moved away to complete his study out of state and the long-distance relationship took its toll. Things petered out, and they went from boyfriends to just friends. This made much more sense, because the “benefits” part of the relationship was so much harder to get when they weren’t even in the same city. Still, Jason had fond memories of their time together.
After Marty, Jason had focused on completing his degree and then getting himself established. He’d prioritised attaining financial stability, so the search for love had taken a backseat. Sure, he had encounters—one-night stands and even the odd couple-of-week stands—but he’d never found anyone worth making room for in his life. Maybe now the time had finally come?
Sean had been on his mind for so long. The attraction wasn’t going away, and he knew it was more than the physical. He’d come to know Sean over the last year, more so in the last six months, and he liked what he saw. Quiet, committed, and caring were words that described Sean perfectly, and the respect he had from his team members reinforced how highly Sean was held in regard. People genuinely respected his expertise and his ethics. Sean’s focus was not onlywhathe did buthowhe did it, doing everything with integrity.God, Jason sighed as his mind once again started rattling off Sean’s good qualities,I sound like the president of the Sean Vargos fan club.
With a groan he turned back to his reports, placed them into a pile, and tamped the edges to straighten the stack. Finally he woke his computer and powered up the e-mail client—nothing like responding to inane e-mails to bring him back to earth.
Just before 2:00 p.m., Jason, Sean, and the other marketing managers headed upstairs to the boardroom, which was located on the floor above. This floor was more enclosed than the one below. The stairs opened onto a landing that looked like the foyer of an upmarket hotel: sleek wood-panelled walls, a couch along one side with matching armchairs, glass coffee table, typical bland modern art on the walls, and a smiling receptionist behind the reception desk.
“The meeting has been moved to Boardroom A,” she announced at their arrival. “We have a few more attendees than expected and needed to relocate to the larger room.”
They trooped down the corridor in single file, hardly making a sound due to the deep-plush-pile carpet.
When Jason and the others entered the room, it became all too clear the meeting wouldnotgo well.
The additional, unexpected attendees were from the finance department. Stephen Chan, head of finance, had already taken his place at one side of the conference table. He wasn’t sitting at the head; rather, he was positioned in the middle of the long side, surrounded by his accounting team. Laptops at the ready, they were perusing reports, and Stephen was scrawling notes onto a spreadsheet while his colleague whispered rapidly in his ear.
Jason, Roger, and Sean, plus the rest of the marketing team—Mary, Joanna, and Simon—looked at each other warily before taking their seats. They sat in a row on the side of the table facing Stephen and waited for the head of marketing, Alison Smith-Higgins, to join them.
Jason fiddled with his pile of reports, mouth suddenly dry. It felt a lot like facing a firing squad.
* * *
“So, that went well,”Joanna said sarcastically as their small group traipsed back down the staircase.
Her glum expression belied her words, and Jason knew exactly how she felt—they’d been given a thorough grilling. He took a couple of deep breaths and pulled his folders tighter against his chest while keeping pace with Joanna as they descended to their floor, mind already running through options.
“Ridiculous! How can they holdusresponsible for the sales results when they won’t give us the advertising budget?” She continued muttering under her breath at Jason’s side as they reached their floor of greenish-grey office cubicles. The bland interior of the office, so different to the plush executive levels above, further highlighted their place within the company—expected to achieve results but reliant on the powers above to give them the budget and approvals. She stopped and turned back to them. “In this economy we’ve got toinvestmoney to make money.”
Sean nodded in sympathetic agreement. “We’re all in the same boat, Joanna. It’s been a really tough quarter, and it’s definitely not getting any easier. I’ve had a few thoughts about some low-cost ways of reaching new markets. Why don’t we get the team together and brainstorm a few ideas? I know you’ve spent some time thinking about this yourself, and between all of us, we should be able to come up with a plan. We’ve got nothing to lose, right?” He gave her shoulder a friendly squeeze, and her lips tilted in a small smile as she nodded.
Jason smiled at the show of camaraderie. As he’d come to expect from Sean, he was already looking beyond the current situation and trying to find a way forward. He and Joanna made a good team, having worked together for a long time. Jason bit back the flare of jealousy; Joanna was the one exception to Sean’s “no socialising with workmates” policy. The two of them often went out for lunch together, and Jason gathered they sometimes met for dinner or over the weekend. Despite his envy, Jason was glad Sean had at least one good friend.
As Joanna wandered back towards her desk, Jason found himself following Sean into the small kitchenette. They seemed to have the same idea—a mid-afternoon coffee pick-me-up.Jesus, do I need a coffee.
He glanced with relief at the almost full pot before addressing Sean. “So you really think we can get over this slump? With limited budget?”
Sean looked at Jason as if surprised by the question. He took a coffee mug from the overhead cupboard and put his hand on a second. “You having one?”
“Yeah, thanks.” Jason reached for the coffee pot. “Fingers crossed it hasn’t been sitting there for too long.”
Sean grunted out a laugh. “So long as it’s caffeine, I’m not too picky.”
Jason poured the steaming coffee from the pot into the two mugs. “But getting back to what you were saying to Joanna about having some ideas to increase our reach without a huge expense. Anything that will really work?”
Sean considered him for a moment. “I don’t think we’ve tapped the full potential of social media. We’ve made some inroads but not enough, in my opinion. We should be moving away from the more traditional and costly methods of reaching our customers and focusing our efforts there. Not only will it cost less but we’ll have access to a younger audience. I think we can reach an untapped market of people willing to give our products a try. We’ve had a good initial response to the restaurant-booking app and the local focus it provides, but the take-up rate would be improved if we could enhance the content on the app itself. It’s a competitive market and we need to differentiate. We need to target the content to the user—it needs to be relevant and useful, and give our customers something they don’t get from any other app. It’s all about the customer experience and making the product sticky—something they won’t want to stop using once they give it a try. We should be using social media to create a community and using our own customers to promote the product.”
Jesus. It was obvious Sean had given this a lot of thought already, and his thinking was a lot aligned to Jason’s; in fact, Jason’s team was already headed down this path.
“Yeah, I hear what you’re saying. A combination of the right features and the right marketing strategy is almost a guarantee for success. And anything we can do with next to no budget is worth trying.”
“Exactly.”
Jason retrieved the milk from the fridge, holding up the carton towards Sean. “Full cream okay?” At Sean’s nod he splashed the milk into the mugs.
As he turned to replace the carton in the fridge, Jason wondered if he should have shown more enthusiasm. In reality, he admired Sean’s passion and the way he never admitted defeat, but he needed to see actual solutions before he’d feel reassured they were on the right track. Still, it was worth pursuing, and he was keen to see if Sean had fresh ideas that he hadn’t considered.And getting to spend more time with Sean has nothing to do with it.Yeah, right.He shut the fridge door and turned back to Sean. “New features might be harder to implement, particularly with cost cutting, but I must admit we haven’t mastered the social media side, at least not with my products. There’s not a lot to lose, and it’s a relatively low-cost marketing strategy, something we should be able to implement quickly. I like it, and I wanna hear more, if you’re willing to share your ideas.”
Sean nodded. “You don’t even need to ask, Jason. I’d be happy to share our plans with you. I’m going to arrange a meeting with my team to work through all the ideas. Why don’t you come along and bring the key members of your team?” It was a generous offer and not entirely unexpected from Sean, as they had done some similar things in the past. Sean gave one of his friendly smiles, the kind of smile that made Jason’s day.
