“So,” I said.The word broke the silence that had been hovering through the room.“I take it you’ve dropped this foolish idea of moving to Ace’s office.”
Keaton looked up at me.He opened his mouth and seemed for a second like he would say something else.He closed it and finally spoke with a different expression.“Yes, I’m not going to ask to work with Ace again,” he said.I couldn’t tell what that note was in his voice and in his face.Resignation?Acceptance?Amusement concealed under the surface?
I wished I could read him better than I was managing to.
“Good,” I said.Silence stretched on again.Keaton was diligently organizing the files I’d asked him to look over this morning.
I ached to talk to him.To try to get more information out of him.I wanted to know everything about him.I wanted him to know everything about me.
Telling someone else about Caleb had been… liberating.
I’d spent a long time – a decade – protecting myself.Protecting my clients.My assets.
I hadn’t realized until last night that I had isolated myself somewhere along the way as well.
I refocused on my work.I needed to take the cue from Keaton’s initiative.He was a hard worker.I opened up my calendar to look at the week’s meetings.
And frowned.
“Keaton?”I asked.“What happened to my calendar?”
“Oh, I color-coded it,” he said without looking up.“It started to look like there were a lot of things on there – too many things, with all the dinners and lunches and extra meetings you have with clients this week.I thought it might be easier to read if you could see at a glance what kind of meeting you have to prepare for next.”
I ran my eyes over the colored boxes on my screen.“Red for clients,” I said.“Blue for sponsor company representatives.Green for agency staff.”
“And purple for personal events,” Keaton said.He glanced up as he clipped another file into the right place in the folder.“Not that you have any on there right now.Just thought I’d let you know what the codewillbe when it happens.”
I resisted the urge to sigh morosely.I didn’t have a personal life.“I don’t think you’ll find many to add.”
“Last night counts,” Keaton said.He was studiously keeping his eyes on the files now.I bored my eyes into the side of his face but he didn’t look up.“And any other times you might need to take a lunch or dinner with a friend.Or a family member.Or, you know.Your boyfriend, or whatever.”
A cold shock of water went down my spine.Twice he had mentioned it now.Caleb and now this.It wasn’t a coincidence.He knew.
I was the one keeping my eyes steadily trained on my desk this time.
“Ace told you,” I said.It wasn’t a question.There was no one else here who knew.
“Oh,” Keaton said softly.“Um.Don’t… get mad with him, or whatever.I wasn’t trying to get him in trouble.I figured you knew I knew, after what I thought about – you know, about…him.”
“You can say Caleb,” I told him.“We’re sports agents.Not secret agents.No one is listening in the walls.”
“Right,” he said.“Sorry.I mean – well, I mean, I’m sorry.About the other thing.I just… is it not okay for me to know?You said you were letting me into the inner circle, so…”
“I was,” I grunted.“Ace didn’t know that.”
I looked up at Keaton’s face.He was blanched white.“I really didn’t mean to get him in trouble,” he said.“He told me not to mention it to you.I think he was just trying to convince me to stay a bit longer, in his own way.Like if he knew we had something in common, I wouldn’t want to quit.”
I digested that information for a moment.Ace had been right.He hadn’t managed to pull it off but his instinct was the same as mine.
I sighed and put the documents I had been working on approving into my outbox.There wasn’t much I could say to Ace.I could threaten to fire him as much as I wanted.He knew I needed him.
So long as he didn’t screw things up so much that he was losing me more money than he was making.
Even then…
The inner circle was very small.I couldn’t imagine it could survive losing a member.Not even with a new one coming in.
I was tired today.I couldn’t figure out what it was exactly that was worse than usual.I had existed on barely any sleep for over a decade.Something about last night had taken more out of me than I realized.Or maybe it was this Ridley Angus thing.I needed more caffeine.
