“I was just waiting for…” I looked at my screen and trailed off.The system was all set up.I had apparently taken my eye off the ball for a second too long.
“No distractions,” my boss said, eyeing my phone like it was made of acid and he couldn’t believe I’d bring something so dangerous to work.
“… Sorry, sir,” I said.I put my phone face-down on the desk as if that was going to make a difference.He’d already caught me, and we both knew how easy it would be for me to just turn it over once he was gone.“Um, do you need something?”
Harvey’s eyes slid towards the corridor.“I’m waiting for Ace Park,” he said.
Did they have a meeting, or…?
“Oh, okay,” I nodded when he didn’t elaborate.“Do you want me to just let him straight in when he gets here?”
Harvey nodded twice.Sharp and brisk, just enough to convey the message.“Offer him a coffee.”
“Right,” I nodded.Secretary kind of stuff.Easy enough.Then I hesitated.“Where’s the coffee machine?”
He jerked his head to the side, indicating the inside of his office.
Great.
So it wasn’t so much ‘scurry off to get a coffee and avoid the boss’s oversight for a moment’ as ‘stand right in front of me so I can put you under extra unnecessary pressure while you do menial work’.
I put a fake smile on my face.“Okay, sure thing,” I said.“Do you need anything else?I was just about to take a look around the system and familiarize myself with your calendar.”
He gave me a long look with his piercing grey-blue eyes.The kind of look that made me feel as if he was looking into my soul.I wanted to shrivel up under it – but I couldn’t stop staring back.
And if he really could read my mind, then what he was reading was the following:
Holy shit, Oliver Harvey is hot in person.
Red-hot.
Burning your hands on the width of his shoulders kind of hot.
“No fake smiles,” he said at last, breaking the spell and almost making me jump.
The expression on my face faltered.“I’m sorry?”
“Good,” he nodded and walked away, closing the door to his office with a gentle click.
No fake smiles?
But this was a customer-facing position.Fake smiles were, like, half the job.Fake smiles were how you made people go away instead of demanding an audience with your boss right now when they were pissed off.This, I knew from experience.
No fake smiles?
I must have still been wearing that startled expression when Ace came around the corner, because he approached my desk with a wry chuckle.
“Already, huh?”he asked.
I blinked.“Uh,” I said, and then my brain connected.“Oh!Mr.Harvey says you can go right in.And, um, do you want a coffee?”
Please say you don’t want a coffee so I can just stay right here.
“I’ll take a coffee,” Ace nodded with a pleasant smile.“Americano, black.Come on, newbie.Time to enter the lion’s den.”
I swallowed, hard, as I got up from behind my desk.It seemed like everyone was reading my mind today.Ace couldn’t have possibly known that was how I was already thinking about the office in my own head.
If only I believed that he was talking in hyperbole.
