The week was awful.
I had to stare across at Ben all day while listening to how every woman in the office wanted to 'F' the living daylights out of him, although Vampira was the only one who came straight out and said it.
On top of that, it seemed like all of our clients had gotten together behind our backs and conspired to brief us all in the same week for their massive campaigns. We had print, radio, and TV ads coming out of our ears, and this meant many meetings. Many meetings with Ben. Many meetings where Ben walked around the room—he never sat in meetings—being ridiculously brilliant, coming up with one amazing creative idea after another while everyone just sat and gawked in awe.
I hated that. I hated having to sit there taking notes pretending I wasn't hating him or pining for him.
Ben wasn't helping the situation either. On Tuesday, I caught him looking at me longingly from his office like he was a dog that had been left out in the rain, and, for a moment, I totally forgot myself and stared back. When I realized that the look had actually encouraged him and saw him get up and start walking towards me, I quickly looked away. It was incredibly awkward when he got to my desk.
"Sera."
"Ben."
Ness was leaning in by this stage. She had been acting strangely that week too. So had Samantha, in fact, since coming back from the shoot, everyone had been out of sorts. There was a strange silence for a few moments, which I feared might arouse Ness' suspicious. Ben eventually broke it. "Did you speak to the client about when we can present the radio options?"
"Yes. Yes, I did." I forced myself to look up at him like anyone else would do if their boss were talking to them. "On Friday morning, at ten. I'm sure traffic will put it in your diary," I said and smiled up at him like a good hard-working employee.
"Thanks," he said and started walking away. But then he suddenly turned, "You're very efficient, Sera. I appreciate it immensely. I really value you." I saw Ness look up with wide eyes and I was sure Vampira would fly in at any moment. Unfortunately, Samantha too happened to be hanging around. I glanced around and could see the eyes looking at me with confusion.
His eyes flicked around and then he quickly corrected, "And Ness, you too are highly efficient. Samantha, also. Very hard working and all that.... Um... In fact..." He looked around, seeming a little strange now. He was using words I'd never heard him use before. "Everyone is doing a superb job. Really impressive stuff. Keep it up." Weird pep talk completed, he gave everyone a two-thumbs up—which looked odd—and then disappeared back into his office and closed the door. I watched for a moment and saw him curse himself as he sat down and put his head in his hands.
On Wednesday morning, when I arrived at work, I found a bag of M&M's in my drawer. They had been opened and the blue ones had been removed. There was a little drawing of a sad face inside.
My heart did a few summersaults as I power walked as fast as I could to the bathroom to splash water on my face and take a moment to regroup. After that I went back to my desk, picked up a file and walked to his office.
"Hi."
"Sera?" He sounded excited. "Come in?"
I shook my head. "Please don't give me chocolates again," I said without making eye contact.
"There's no rule that says I can't give something to my staff."
"There is if it's only one staff member. Please, if anyone finds out, they'll assume..." I trailed off. "Just please don't. Don't make this any worse than it needs to be. Please."
But the next day when I arrived at work he'd given every single person in the office chocolate. Desks everywhere were covered. I still got a bag of M&M's and the blue ones had still been taken out and there was another little note.
X,Y,Z
I allowed myself one short glance over at him. He looked so smug and pleased with himself. It was ridiculous. It was also ridiculously hot and despite the fact that I'd vowed to hate him for all eternity, I melted. Worst of all was that he chose that exact moment to look up at me. He smiled as if he'd just won the lotto and then looked back down.
But something else was going on in the office too - I could feel it. Women can sense things, and I was getting the distinct impression that both Ness and Samatha suspected something. They were doing a lot of talking together, they usually never spoke. They also seemed to be looking at me strangely, unless I was just being paranoid.
But there was no escaping Ben that week. On Thursday morning, I found him fiddling under my car bonnet—Was he ever going to give up? I'm sure if I looked up the definition of stalker in the dictionary, I may find his smug little face there.
"Um, Ben... what are you doing?"
"I was just checking something quickly."
I looked at him and tried not to gawk. He was dressed casually: jeans, a pair of worn Adidas sneakers and an old t-shirt that let me admire all those tattoos which I hadn't seen since that night in the car.
"And what did you discover?" I asked, deliberately prying my eyes from his arms and looking down at my feet.
"It's the starter motor, and it's quite a serious problem. I can't fix it and you're probably going to need to replace the thing."
My heart dropped when I heard those words. I'd suspected it was going to be something big and expensive, but I'd been ignoring it, hoping it might go away. In that moment I forgot how much I was desperately trying to hate Ben. "Crap, You're serious?" I looked into the bonnet as if I knew what I was looking at—I didn't.
"Yup," Ben said, wiping his greasy hands on his shirt.
The absolute terror must have shown on my face, because Ben quickly added, "I know a good mechanic, he owes me a few favors actually. I could phone him and—"
"I don't need your charity, Ben. I'll figure something out."
"It's not charity. I'm really good friends with a mechanic and he seriously owes me a few favors."
I gave Ben the once over. The whole thing sounded dodgy. "You know that makes you sound like you're in the Mafia or something!"
Ben burst out laughing. "I've missed that sharp biting wit of yours." He looked at me with eyes that, if I stared at for too long, would make me forget every reason for not letting him flip me over my car and then marry me twice on Sunday.
"Thanks for the offer. But I'll be fine." I turned and started walking away.
"Maybe this will help." Ben called after me and I turned. He was holding another envelope in his hand and my mind immediately imagined panties. I gasped.
"No. It's not that." He smiled and walked up to me extending the envelope.
I took it and looked inside. There were more $100 notes in there than I had seen in a long time. "What's this?"
"From the shoot. It's what we owe you."
"Uh..." I pulled the notes out of the envelope and something about holding a handful of money that had been given to me by Ben made me feel a little sick. Like I was a cheap whore or someone who could be bought.
"I can't take this." I put the notes back into the envelope and thrust them back to him.
"Sera, this is what you are owed. For a job you did."
"I didn't do the job, though. You stopped the shoot, you're probably not even going to use my pictures. I didn't do anything, Ben."
Ben shook his head looking exasperated. "This is money you worked for. You earned it. It's yours. Besides, it looks like you really need it now anyway."
"I don't need anything from you Ben." I snapped and started moving off.
"I didn't mean it like that. God, why do you always think that? You have serious money issues by the way."
"What?" I turned and glared at him. "And you have serious boundary issues. Not to mention a whole bunch more which I just don't have time to get into now because I have to get to work."
"Fine!" He crunched the envelope in his hand and shoved it in his pocket. "Don't take it. But let me take you to work."
"I'll borrow JJ's car, "I said making my way to the lifts. I pressed the button and folded my arms waiting for the thing to come down. It felt like it was taking ages, which was unfortunate because Ben took it as an open invitation to continue talking to me. He came and stood next to me in silence as I watched the floor buttons lighting up as they made their way down from the 10th floor.
"What?" I finally turned to him.
"Please don't date anyone else until you decide to give me another chance."
"What?" I almost shouted the word out. "You can't say that to me. Even if I don't want to date anyone else, you still can't say that to me."
The lift finally arrived and the doors opened with a ping.
I looked at Ben once more before climbing in and closing the doors behind me. "Fuck." I cursed loudly and leaned against the wall.
What was wrong with this man? How dare he think I would ever go out with him after all that?