Jennie
"Best day ever!" I could hear Mino and Hoony shouting from down the hall. I closed my eyes for a moment before glancing at the clock. Seven o' clock. Rosé had given me several hours of peace. I would have to think of a proper way to thank her later. She entered first, giving me a wide eyed what-have-you-done-to-me look as she did, moving to the side to admit the hooligans behind her. Hoony came first, fist pumping and cheering. Mino followed, no less of a display, beer in hand that made me wonder where he even got it. "Boys," I greeted and they turned, smiling, to face me.
"Jennie, it was incredible. Rosé showed us the cafeteria, the weight rooms, even the locker room. Though no one was in it, of course," Hoony was telling me. I nodded, biting my lip as I looked over to Rosé who rolled her eyes. I mouthed an apology that the boys didn't see due to their reminiscing about seeing Coach Yoo from afar when Rosé took them past his office.
"I'm going to take them home," Rosé sighed, flipping her car keys in her hand as she pushed off of the bookshelf she had been leaning against. "They both found the bar a little too interesting."
I nodded in understanding. "Thank you, Rosé," I told her as she ushered them through the door and toward the exit. "For everything!"
"You owe me," she called back as I sat back down to my desk and returned my focus to my computer, but it was muffled a bit by Mino's far louder cry.
"See you at home!" he shouted.
"At home?" someone else asked and I looked up to see Lisa Manoban standing in my doorway. My lips parted a bit in surprise and my heart flew into my chest at the sight of her, straight out of the showers after weightlifting with the team. Her brown hair was still a bit damp, I noticed, as her megawatt smile burned into me.
"Uh, yeah," I answered, stuttering like a fool as I stood back up. "Those are my friends. We live in the same building. They're... I'm sorry about them. What can I do for you, Ms. Manoban?"
"You're the new Director of Player Relations," she said and I nodded without answer. Had she come here to summarize my afternoon announcement? "You took over for Jung Ji-hoon."
"I did, yes. Did you work with Ji-hoon often?"
"I did."
"Well, I can imagine that I have big shoes to fill but-"
"Ji-hoon was an asshole."
I blinked at her in surprise, "I- Pardon?"
"He was married. Two kids. But he still hung around the cheerleaders every chance he got. The guys on the team used to joke about where you could find old Ji-hoon if you needed him," he explained and, for whatever reason, I felt my cheeks heating for the third time today.
"Oh, I- didn't know that. He sounds like a..."
"Scumbag?"
I smiled, "Something like that."
She smiled back and we stood there for a moment, neither of us speaking, just looking at one another as if trying to size each other up. She broke the silence first.
"You cost me $20 million this morning," she told me but her tone was lighter than anyone should be when talking about that kind of money. It caught me off guard almost as much as the abrupt change in topic and I cleared my throat to regain my composure and what little professionalism I might have left after openly ogling at her in the locker room before.
I nodded as heat flooded to my cheeks, "Ah. I hope you don't intend for me to pay you back."
"Dinner," she said and I blinked at her again, wondering if she had just said what I thought she did. It wasn't possible. And yet, she repeated it. "Let me take you to dinner and we'll call it even."
I was quite certain I was forgetting to breathe. I made a concentrated effort to remember as we locked eyes and I saw the meaning behind hers. She was serious. She actually wanted to take me to dinner. Lisa Manoban was actually standing in my office, asking me out. Oh, right. My office.
"Did you ever take Ji-hoon to dinner?" I asked, raising a brow. She barked a laugh and shook her head.
"Ji-hoon wasn't my type."
Damn. She had an answer for everything.
"Ms. Manoban," I started, placing both hands on my desk in front of me, hoping it came off more as a professional power move and less what it really was, steadying myself so I wouldn't pass out right here on the carpet. "I would be happy to attend dinner with you if your intention is to discuss your role within the organization." There. That should be enough distance.
"A business meeting," she said, eyebrow raised and smiling. I held my ground and nodded. I waited for her to consider my offer, trying my best to ignore the way her eyes slid over me as she thought.
"Well, if that's the only way I'm going to get you across a table from me, I'll take it." She reached out a hand and I offered a professional handshake but then she used her grip on my hand to pull me closer so that we were leaning over my desk between us, faces mere inches apart. Her lips curled into a devilish grin and she pinned me there with her gaze. When she spoke again, her voice was deep and throaty and I actually felt my knees wobble at the sound of it. "Though, if I'm being honest, Miss Kim, I'd rather get you on the table."
I shouldn't have allowed it to get to me, I knew that's what she wanted, but I couldn't help it. Her words shocked me into a stunned silence and, before I could think of a response to her blatant flirtation, she had left my office, shutting the door tightly behind her and strutting with all the confidence in the world through the room on the other side.
I stayed later than I had hoped that night, too distracted by my strange interaction with the quarterback to focus on any one task for too long. As a result, very little work got done in the end and I finally gave up on my theory that if I just stayed at work, I would actually do some work. When I returned to my apartment, I tried to call Rosé several times, convinced I just needed to talk this out to come to some sort of understanding of the incident, but she never answered and I fell asleep confused and flustered.
The next morning, I awoke and went through my daily routine, picking myself up a fancier than usual coffee as some sort of recompense for my previous night's suffering. By the time I reached my office, however, I had a splitting headache from the combination of my exhaustion and caffeine intake. I set my briefcase on the corner of my desk, rubbing my temples as I booted up my computer. Before I could even log in, Rosé was striding into the room.
"I'm so sorry I didn't answer your calls last night," she was speaking at top speed. My brain scrambled to keep up. "My phone died and I didn't see them until this morning. The guys took me out for drinks last night to thank me for the tour. I told Mino to invite you and he swore he called you like five times but he was so hammered that, by the time I finally checked his phone to see that he had been calling Hoony the whole time, it was too late." I nodded in understanding.
"What happened?" She asked, brows creasing in concern as she paired my dozen phone calls from the previous night with the current look of tired distress on my face. I crossed the room to close the door behind her. Her brows only furrowed deeper as I locked it. I took a breath.
