“Maybe not. I’m allowed to be unreservedly on your side on this.”
He's openly laughing now. “What would I do without you, Glasses?”
I beam up at him. “Lucky for you, you'll never have to find out.”
A few minutes later, Keegan heads out, and I'm left alone with my thoughts.
My mind trips back to that moment when I was so sure he was going to apologize for not wanting me the way I had once wanted him and I breathe a sigh of relief that he didn't get the chance. I cut him off at the pass. We averted disaster.
He will never have to feel bad for not wanting me. And I will never have to worry about losing my best friend.
I do, however, still have to worry about the pitch meeting on Tuesday, so I pull the vacuum out of the hall closet and resume my show down with it.
My gut tells me that this pitch is a tipping point in my career. If I can nail it, everything will change. I'll finally be team leader and solidify my position at the company.
chapterfour
Unrequited love isfor foolish girls.
I am not foolish or a girl. I am an intelligent, well-educated, grown-ass woman. Ergo, whatever I'm feeling right now is not unrequited love, despite Keegan's fears that I amin over my head.
I refuse to be one of those silly girls who pines for some guy who is out of her league. I learned my lesson about that a long time ago.
Moreover, I'm not foolish. I have a degree from one of the best advertising programs in the country. I graduated magna cum laude, for Pete's sake.
I'm not silly. Okay, I'm a little silly.
My point is, I'm twenty-eight. I'm a competent, adult woman. I'm a homeowner. Buying my townhouse put me in crippling debt, but it's mine. It's close to downtown, and it's within biking distance of a Trader Joes. Basically, it's perfect. Not to mention, I saved enough for a down payment in this economy, despite the fact that Ollie rarely paid his half the rent. That shows how very mature I am, right?
That is how I know what I'm feeling right now isn't unrequited love.
Because no mature, competent, responsible woman falls into unrequited love with her boss. Her younger boss.
Just to be clear here, Reid Forester—the hot, twenty-six-year old son of my former boss, Jonathon Forester—is super hot.
But if I've learned anything from my friendship with Keegan, it's that there's no point in pining after some hot, unattainable guy I can't have.
If my life was a novel, the title would be:Meg and the Unattainable, Unfortunately Attractive Guy. Possible subtitles could include: “A brief history full of heartbreak,” and “How to get your dream guy to notice you but still not fall in love with you,” or possibly, “Is it still celibacy if you're masturbating?”
My point is, I know what I feel for Reid is pure fantasy.
But what am I supposed to do? I work at an ad agency. My imagination is my stock in trade. My imagination literally pays the bills. If I don't give my imagination free rein at least some of the time, it might break or stop working or ... whatever happens when creative people lose their mojo.
You know what happens to people at ad agencies who don't have good ideas anymore? They lose their jobs. Then, they go into debt and eventually lose their townhomes that they can barely afford as it is. After that, their credit sucks, and they have to move to the suburbs where they have to drive to a Whole Foods. It's all downhill from there.
My point is, fantasizing is a very important part of my creative process. Especially on a day like today, when we have a meeting with all the uppity-ups to pitch our idea for Butler.
The idea that isstillabsolute shite.
So instead of sitting at my desk and trying to polish the shite into a pearl, I go meditate.
Our office has a series of meditation rooms set aside for employees to use. Tad, the youngest member of the three-person team I work on, uses the rooms to nap off hangovers. Teresa, the team lead, actually meditates. I use my reserved time to fantasize. Not because I'm a perv who can't make it through the day without fantasizing ... but because it's good for my creativity. I get all my best ideas when I'm fantasizing. Plus, it's a documented fact that the theta brain waves you experience when dreaming are the source of creativity.
Okay, so, I can't point you to the actual documentation for that, but I'm sure I read it somewhere.
Frankly, I'm hoping those theta brainwaves will kick in and inspiration will hit.
Also, I need to clear my head. I'm still feeling unsettled by what happened Saturday evening with Keegan.
