Going Solo

Part 21

Nicole knew she needed to thank Mr. Lee. If she'd spent one more second around Troy, she would've lived up to her threat to effect his reproductive system. Gathering her wits about her, she stood from her chair, smoothing out her navy blue skirt.

Nicole came across Troy in the hallway flirting with some other employee. Once Hugh left, and he figured no one was keeping an eye on him, Troy was back to hunting his prey. Nicole attempted and failed to restrain herself from rolling her eyes at him.

Once she'd made it to Mr. Lee's office she let Mason know that she wanted to thank Mr. Lee after the situation he witnessed earlier that day.

"Sure. He's still in. I don't think he'd mind you going in." Mason smiled.

As Nicole lifted her knuckles to knock on the door, it swung open, banging her head in the process. Nicole emitted a squawk and stumbled back, eyes wide. Mr. Lee stood tall as usual, with a firm grimace sketched across his face.

"Sorry." he said gruffly, before rushing away.

"Ugh!" Nicole growled. "Why must we always meet this way?"

Shrugging it off as coolly as she could, Nicole decided to head home since the day was coming to an end. She hadn't heard from Tony in forever. Which, was to be expected after having told him off the other night. Hanging up on him that night had killed her. Had she finally put an end to it? She missed going over and keeping Abigail, cooking and waiting for Tony when he got home. She'd pretend Abigail was hers and that she and Tony were married. It's like they were playing house. It was bound to end badly.

The next day had been the same as usual. It was a Saturday, but they were all there as if it was a regular weekday, because of the event the company was hosting. Nicole began gathering her things to go out to lunch. After bypassing Troy and his offer to take her to lunch, she ran into Mr. Lee once again. Quite literally ran into him.

"At least there was nothing for you to spill this time." he smirked, resting his hand on top of her head. "Watch where you're going." he said, walking away and dragging his hand with him, in the process disarranging Nicole's hair.

Nicole rolled her eyes. "What's with him?," she wondered. He was acting a bit too friendly for her taste. A bit too... calm. That would have been the perfect chance to say something about yesterday, but of course, he'd stalked off into his office before she'd had a chance to start an actual conversation.

After stopping by a small eatery two blocks down from the office and picking up a sandwich and coffee, Nicole decided to make her way over to the conference hall. She'd been assigned the task of renting out a space for this conference, with the company's credit card of course. Fortunately she'd found a large, reasonably priced space at The Guinevere Hotel, and it looked made for a fashion show, rather than a conference. The stage looked like a runway, the seating area was spacious and the furnishing was white and black. 

Upon arriving at the venue, Nicole stepped out of her beat up Volvo and headed inside. She'd arrived a bit early to make sure that everything was set up for the conference. 

"On the large table towards the front of the stage, I want to put a glass of water and microphone at each seat. That's where Mr. Lee and the head of departments will sit." she said to the hotel employees assigned to assist her. "Thank you." she added as they scurried off to complete their tasks.

It was about 1:30 when she was finally sure everything was in place and that the conference hall was ready. It was right on time, because the conference started at 2 o'clock and people had begun pouring in. 

Mr. Lee and Mr. Nahm entered, together as usual, looking around at the venue. Nicole wandered off towards the hors d'oeuvres table.  After picking up a small plate and packing it full, Nicole sat down with the Disease Prevention team. Looking to her left, Nicole noticed she wasn't the only one who had piled on the hors d'oeuvres. The woman next to her smiled as she noticed Nicole's plate as well.

"Might as well make the most of these things." she smirked. Nicole smiled knowingly in reply. She was sure she'd seen this woman before. Of course, she had seen her around the office since they worked in the same department, but even seeing her in passing at the office had brought her a sense of familiarity or déjà vu. 

A hand landed on Nicole's shoulder. 

"Nicole." It was Hugh, "I put you in charge of renting a venue... right?" 

"Yeah. What's wrong?" 

"Uh. Nothing. Right now." he said, looking a bit worried.

"Right now?"

"Well... The Guinevere Hotel... Is a little..."

"What's wrong? Is it not enough? Is it too small? Is there not enough seats? I can get someone to bring more chairs-" 

"No, no, no. Listen. I should have told you how many people would be coming. It's not that this is not enough, it's... too much. And Jin is very... frugal with the company's money."

"But you said..." 

"I know, I said that you don't have to worry about money. And really it's not a problem... right now. Usually you really wouldn't have to worry about money, it's just..." Hugh looked around ensuring that others near them were occupied with their own conversations and lowered his voice.  "He was in contact with Jasmine yesterday and today he's got to deal with Iris..."

"Who's Iris?" Nicole asked.

"Never mind, the point is he's in a mood. So now he wants to nitpick and micro-manage." Hugh rolled  his eyes in exasperation. "Anyway, just... stay out of his sight, till I calm him down."

"Okay..." she muttered, as Hugh walked back over to his table. 

The light changed and so did the time. It was 2 o'clock.

A/N: You guys, Going Solo has 22K reads, and over 1K votes. Thank you so much for your support!