“That time,” he said.“I thought you didn’t remember.”
Oh, shit.He was talking about the job fair.I could immediately tell from his face alone.
I cleared my throat.This wasn’t something I had wanted to bring up at all, but now I had, I was going to have to deal with it.
“I’m sure it was nothing,” I said quickly.“You were probably having a bad day, or…”
Mr.Harvey waved his hand.“It was mistaken identity.There was a troublemaker going around.Ace told me he had dark hair and wore a dark jacket.When I saw you I just assumed.That’s all.”
I felt a bit of relief flooding through my system.It was rapidly followed by chagrin.If Oliver Harvey wasn’t the asshole I thought he was, all of this was for nothing.“A troublemaker?What were they doing?”
“Smearing the company’s name,” Mr.Harvey sighed.“We had turned him down for a job.He said it was homophobic discrimination.Ace was the one who took the interview.”
I frowned.“Isn’t Ace gay?”
Mr.Harvey nodded.“Very few people knew it then.We had to release a statement to clear any suspicion of discrimination.Ace started to attract gay athletes after that.”
Realization dawned on me.“That’s why Ace has three gay football players on his roster.So, it turned out to be a fairly good business move after all.”
“You had already gone when I found out who the real culprit was,” Mr.Harvey said.To his credit, he really did look apologetic.“I asked my old secretary to track you down with no luck.I never imagined you would turn up for an interview here.”
I smiled.“Funny how things work,” I said.“I’m pretty sure Ace only decided to hire me because I’m gay, too, so in a way, that whole incident is what got me this job.”
“No,” Mr.Harvey said without a trace of emotion.“He hired you because there were no other options left.”
It took me a long, slightly horrified moment to realize that he was teasing me.
The very smallest corner of his mouth quirked up and I found myself grinning, then laughing out loud, in response.
Mr.Harvey had a sense of humor.Who knew?
Ace barreled back into the office – apparently, the takeout place was fast – and started laying out cartons and plastic containers on the coffee table, sweeping the contracts into one pile.Mr.Harvey beckoned me over and I sat tentatively on the other empty chair between him and Ace.
Ace and I grabbed utensils and containers and started diving in, me following his lead more or less.A movement from Mr.Harvey caught my eye and I watched, half-frozen, as he took off his suit jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his turtleneck to his elbows.There was something strangely intimate about it; we were hardly in the eighteenth century anymore when the sight of a man in his shirtsleeves was supposed to be shocking, but Mr.Harvey was usually so buttoned-up, even his bare arms seemed provocative.
Bare, muscular arms.I half-imagined what they would feel like to run my hands over.What the rest of the arm looked like – the biceps that could probably knock me out if he tensed one of them under my jaw.The fabric of the turtleneck clung to the defined muscles of his upper arms, but only enough to tease.I hungered to see more.
I averted my eyes and tried to focus on my food, not wanting to lose myself in the kind of daydreams that would be inappropriate in this workplace.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, though, I knew I was saving the mental image for a later date.
We ate in an occasional silence.Now and then, Ace or Mr.Harvey would speak up with things that seemed like non-sequiturs to me: names or places or things that I didn’t understand at all.The other would nod or make a kind of humming noise as if they weren’t sure, and we would carry on in silence again.
When the food was gone, Mr.Harvey sighed deeply.
“Alright,” he said.“We’re getting nowhere.Go home.I have a meeting early in the morning so I won’t be in the office.Keaton: come in at the regular time.”
I nodded eagerly, wiping my mouth with a cloth napkin that had come in the takeout bag.“Sure thing,” I said.I figured that he would probably need me to get on with my regular tasks, take his calls and visitors, and maybe even be on hand to provide him with files or documents from the office if it came up.That wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.
I was about to ask more – who the meeting was with or what kind of work he might need me to do before he arrived – but he flicked a summary hand at both of us, leaned back in his chair, and looked away.
Dismissed.
And Ace hurried out of the office so fast that I knew I could be expected to do nothing but follow him.
Olly
I could barely muster the strength to nod to Keaton as I slumped behind my desk far too close to lunchtime.My morning meeting had taken more time and more energy than it should have.
