Page 6 of A Conflict of Interest

Who was I kidding? I didn’t care about the job at all. I could get fired this instant and walk out happy that I’d gotten to talk to Kelcey again.

She replied with heart-eyes emojis, one of her favorites. Always there in the top row of her recently-used emojis, and I’d see them whenever I’d come up behind her texting and put my arms around her from behind, and she’d giggle and inevitably make a typo in her message because I was distracting her.

Jesus Christ, I wanted to distract her again. I wanted to go back in time and punch myself in the face when I was about to go push her away for the third time.

coffee and a muffin is exactly how I like to approach business too!! I can see why you’re the outreach guy, you’re so good at this, I’m totally getting a coffee and a muffin too

Ah… she thought I was a man. I guess Nic could be neutral. Well, whatever made her less likely to think I was Veronica.

Coffee and muffins and a cozy little imaginary lodge with Kelcey. I knew there was a reason I’d stuck with this job even though Danielson kept telling me to do work.

Chapter 3

Kelcey

Anna arched her eyebrows high, and that was the biggest compliment that existed.

“Uh… really, now?” she said, her voice coached. “Just like that?”

I nodded, sitting up taller in the chair across the desk from her, hands folded in my lap, just about bubbling with excitement. “Mm-hm. Picked up what the previous video contractor we’d worked with was, looked up their team and followed one of their leads to his own independent small firm, and we had a great conversation to start things off. My contact with them told me we could get a good deal on the project because they’d really just want to win our future patronage… the firm is still pretty young, so we’re getting the same skills at a much better price, because they’re trying to develop their name in the market. Talked over the goals for the videos with my contact there, and we’ve started sampling the script already to help me pitch it to you.”

Anna looked over at where Lucy had turned away from her computer, raising her eyebrows at me now too. “I’m… impressed,” Anna said. “This contact of yours really is going the extra mile.”

I stifled a nervous little giggle. “He’sreallynice. We’ve been getting along really well. His name’s Nic, outreach manager for ECR Animation.”

“Nic, huh.” Anna exchanged another knowing look with Lucy, and I flushed under the attention.

“What? Do you know Nic?”

“No… don’t think so.” Anna smiled. “But I’m glad you do. It sounds like he’s quite reliable.”

“Seems like you’ve found your stride, huh, Kelce?” Lucy said, kicking back in her chair. “We’re both looking forward to what you and Nic come up with. You can send us what you’re doing with the script and some clips from their portfolio and we’ll have a look.”

I scrunched up my face. “Don’t you two go staying all night! You have a cute double date to attend to. And anything else you might attend to.”

Anna pinched the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes with a sigh. Lucy smiled wider, enjoying Anna’s reaction as much as I did. Lucy always was the more open of them. I wondered if it was weird to tease my bosses about their sex life. Probably not.

“We’ll make sure we have a good time,” Lucy said. “Now… I’m sure you’d like to get home for the day. Unless you want to stay talking to Nic all night.”

“Ah. Um. No, not really.” I looked at the window, out at the city lights below our office, dressed up for Christmas. “No. I wouldn’t really… not really.”

They exchanged a look again, and Anna cleared her throat. “Well, do what you like. We’re both impressed with your work today. Keep it up.”

I nodded quickly. “I will. Thanks, Boss Wives.”

“Anna,” Anna said. “It’s two syllables. Four letters. You can manage it.”

“Okay, Boss Anna.”

Still, even once I got back to my apartment—a cute cozy little place dressed up in elegant neutrals, dusty mauve and beige tones, up on the north side in a high-rise with a gorgeousview of the city, complete with a bedroom just a little over-the-top, the way I liked it, with the wood floor transitioning into plush white carpeted steps up to a raised platform with a white-laced canopy bed next to a full-wall window—normally I was content to cozy up in that bed and relax for a bit before I set about getting dinner, but this time all I could think about as I lay in bed was Nic. And if he was doing well. And if he was thinking about me.

We’d spent basically an entire workday talking, and not even just about the job. It felt like we’d known each other forever and only just got to talking again—he justgotme, and it was so easy and fun to talk to him. It wasn’t super professional of me, and I shouldn’t have been talking about my personal life on my work Slack account—Anna had pulled me up on it before, just like our previous boss Sean had—but I guess I had a bad habit.

He'd knocked out a sample script in no time when I told him what we were working with for the video goals—he’d apparently worked with freelance writing before. He had a big repertoire of random things he’d done before, and I overstepped boundaries and asked him about tons of them, and he let me overstep boundaries and gushed about them.

I wondered what he looked like. I bet he had brown eyes… I had a thing for brown eyes.

But—I wasn’t going to have a crush on our freelancer! I couldn’t imagine what Boss Anna would say. She’d never treat me like an adult again—she’d put me on this for me to prove I was a professional and could handle professional business, and I wasn’t going to immediately step in it by finding a promising freelancer to work with and then hitting on him.

---