Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 85593 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85593 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
I glared at her.
“Don’t be mad that I can see right through you, dude. You’re fucking glowing. How many was it, like fifty?”
Something like that, I thought. But I shook my head at her, feeling guilty. I’d told her if there was anything to tell about me and Dominic, I’d tell her. Instead, I found myself reflexively lying. “If any orgasms came, they were at my own hands. Okay?”
“Well, good for you, then. Self care is the best kind of care. That’s what my grandma always said, at least, and now I’m wondering if my sweet little Grandma Bobo was diddling her dingleberry every night at the retirement home.” Elizabeth looked distant for a moment, then shivered. “I hope she washed her hands regularly.”
We stepped into the elevator. “So did you hear Dominic’s dad is supposed to be here today?” I asked.
“What? No. Where did you hear that?”
Stupid. If I was going to be a shitty friend and a liar, I needed to do a better job of not letting privileged information slip. “Oh, I’m not sure,” I said. “Maybe in the break room last week?”
Elizabeth looked skeptical and a little hurt at the same time. She probably could sense I was hiding things from her, and I hated that I couldn’t just make myself tell her the truth. But what would happen if word got out? Especially now that Dominic’s father was going to be around the office. I couldn’t afford to be careless, even if it meant lying to my best friend.
As soon as the doors opened, I could sense a change in the air. When Jasmine was replaced, everybody had been terrified to speak for over a week. The office was like a graveyard ruled by three hot overlords. Little by little, things had returned to some version of normal. It was never as crazy as it had been with Jasmine around, but people learned it was okay to talk again, even if most conversations were more work-focused than before.
Today, it was like stepping back in time to that first week. About half of the staff had arrived already and were at their stations. Nobody was talking and nobody was moving their eyes from their screens.
I saw four shadoweded figures behind Dominic’s half-closed blinds. From the size and builds, I pegged three as the bosses right away. The fourth was a big man, but hunched over at the neck and a little rounder at the edges. I guessed it was Mr. Gregor Lockwood himself, Dominic’s dad.
Elizabeth and I shared a silent look, then split to head to our work stations.
I was tempted to keep staring toward the windows of Dominic’s office to get a look at his dad, but I knew I needed to play it cool. I needed to be smart. That meant keeping my head down and working my ass off.
Thankfully, I had plenty to work on. Even though Dominic had shot it down, I was still working on tweaks to my pitch. He complained it was too local, and maybe there was some merit to his complaint. I’d been mostly focused on local scholarships and programs in my example within the pitch. If Dominic wanted the magazine to be more global, I needed to show him I could scale my pitch to match his vision.
Admittedly, I’d taken it personal when he first turned down the idea. I knew Jasmine was going to approve it because she trusted my eye for stories, but it didn’t make sense to expect Dominic to trust me like that already. If I wanted to seriously think about becoming more than just an employee to him, I needed to learn to separate work from our relationship–if that’s what it was. So that’s what I was doing. I was taking his criticism objectively and trying to think about ways to make my pitch more global.
When I wasn’t working on my weekly assignments or poking at the slowly growing interview piece, I was scouring the web to find the best scholarships across the country. I was emailing professors and academic advisors at colleges from the UK to Dubai and gradually compiling a list of the best of the best opportunities.
Whether he liked it or not, Dominic was going to approve my pitch. He was many things, but he really did care about what was best for the magazine at the heart of it all. Pretty soon, I knew I’d have a revised idea that he couldn’t turn down, even if he wanted to.
I was a few minutes into work when an email notification popped up on my screen. The subject line told me all I needed to know. “Come to my office, now.”
It was from Dominic, of course. When I glanced toward the window, I saw all four figures were still, as if they were waiting for me.