So, I had decided.Clara had even helped me write up a frankly stunning letter of resignation, apologizing for the fact I had only been working there a short time and expressing my need to pursue my real career.A sort of last-ditch attempt to get him to ask about my filmmaking and maybe see my portfolio, just in case he was in the market for someone to hold a camera.
But then he had shredded it up, just like that.
The way I had argued with him ought to have been enough to get me fired in the first place.But then, he had seemed… almost amused?Like he enjoyed seeing me get worked up and say something genuine?
Who knew what was going on inside Oliver Harvey’s head.Certainly not me.
“Alright,” he said.It was already past the time we should have left the building on a normal day – not that there seemed to be too many ‘normal’ days at the Harvey Agency.Everyone else would have gone home, I knew, except maybe a few of the more dedicated senior agents.Ace was probably still working overtime on the Ridley Angus thing.There had been enough goodwill interviews and press appearances over the weekend to fill a whole news program.“We should get going.I don’t want to keep Coleman waiting.”
And just like that, my heart sank.
Coleman.
Of course.
I had been right with my suspicions.
We were going to have dinner with Coleman.
“Wait,” I blurted out.“You want me to go on a date with you and your boyfriend?”
Mr.Harvey stared at me for a very long and very uncomfortable moment.
I tried disappearing into the fabric of my chair seat, but for some ungodly reason, it refused to open up and swallow me.
“Caleb Coleman is my boyfriend?”he asked.
I resisted the urge to retort that he ought to know the answer to that better than me.
“Isn’t he?”I asked instead.
All the signs had been there.He was gay.He and Coleman had their strange little way of communicating via their eyes.Coleman had hinted about Brody Driver and landed his own employee in trouble.And there was the shiftiness when he’d come into the office and realized that I wasn’t leaving.Now they were having dinner after hours, in a secret meeting that was concealed by a code even on Mr.Harvey’s own calendar.
I watched Mr.Harvey.For a second I thought his face would crack open like thunder and he would yell at me to leave.That I would get my wish after all and be fired.
But then the strangest thing yet happened.
The corners of his mouth – they moved.
Lifted.
Oliver Harvey smiled at me.
No – grinned.
“Just wait and see,” he said, and his expression sobered back to the normal blank mask he so carefully wore.
Wait and see?
Didn’t he know how impossible that was?
But, still, I waited.I put on my coat and grabbed my bag and waited for Mr.Harvey to put on his own coat – a great swirling, swishing overcoat that probably cost more than my car and looked better, too.I waited in the elevator next to him as we traveled down to the parking lot under the building.I waited in the passenger seat of his flashy sports car as he drove us to some unknown location for this dinner with Coleman.
I waited.But patiently?
Not in the least.
My leg jiggled up and down so much on the car ride over that eventually, Mr.Harvey reached across and clamped one huge hand onto my knee.
