Make Me (Editing)

thirty seven

"Ally?"a voice called my name from out of nowhere.

Turning towards the direction of the voice, I noticed one of my colleagues from the top floor coming over to where I was sitting. I'd only ever said a few words to her here and there, but she'd always been nice to me whenever I had.

"Hey Lucy!" I called out, gesturing for her to take a seat beside me on the bench. "How's it going with you?"

"It's been better," she chuckled. "But I wouldn't want to bore you with the details."

"No no please, I'm all ears."

"Alright then," Lucy began. "It's actually about James from down in Sales. I'm not sure if you heard that we started dating a while back; two months ago to be exact?"

"Oh yeah," I smiled. "News travels fast in the office."

I vaguely remembered Conner passing on this particular story to Nikki and I way back when I'd just started on the job. He'd mentioned the possibility of a vicious love triangle, but I struggled to recall the exact nature of the claim.

"It certainly does," she agreed. "But I don't know, I'm starting to think he only did it to make that Paige from Accounting jealous. It's like I'm only a big deal to him when she's around to watch, and stupid me has only just started to catch on."

"I'm so sorry," I genuinely felt for the poor girl."If it counts for anything, you could do a lot better than him and everyone knows it. In fact I've heard Brian from Advertising has been interested in you for a while, and he's twice the man that James will ever be."

"I appreciate it," she chuckled, "but I'm not sure I'm looking for another office romance. It's much more effort than it's worth."

"I can only imagine," I replied as though I wasn't well acquainted with the concept myself.

"So the rumours aren't true then?" She asked curiously.

"Which rumours would they be?"

"The ones about you and Mr Gray," she clarified. "The entire building thinks you're sleeping together. I'm sorry, I thought you knew about that."

"Well I can confirm for the record that there's nothing like that going on between us," I replied truthfully. I mean we hadn't ever slept together, so I technically wasn't lying. "I'm actually seeing someone else in the city, and it's going pretty well if I do say so myself."

"Oh I'm so happy for you!" she squealed excitedly. "You've gotta let me know if he has any hot friends."

"I'll certainly keep my eye out," I laughed, finishing off my last sushi roll.

"Well I'd better head off," she stood to leave after talking a little while longer. "I've got an appointment to break James' heart in just under twenty minutes."

"Best of luck," I gave her a supportive thumbs up. "And whatever ever you do, for god's sake don't go easy on him."

"Thanks Al," she grinned widely. "You enjoy the rest of your night."

---

I showed up to work the next day right on seven o'clock. Tyler's car was still missing from his executive parking space, which made it pretty certain in my mind that this would be day two without a CEO. There was always the possibility that he'd walked to work, or found ulterior transport. But I knew from experience that the chances of either option were extremely low.

"Still no boss?" I asked Nikki as I walked by her desk, receiving a simple shake of the head in return.

I still had enough work sitting around to keep me busy for the morning, but not enough to hold me back from a lunch break. So just after one in the afternoon, I met up with my friends in the lobby and headed for the local café.