Page 8 of No More Billionaires

It probably didn’t help that I was always so stiff and tongue-tied around him. He wasn’t the problem. I was.

I closed my eyes and took a breath. “No. I’m sorry. I’m just… a mess right now. That’s part of the reason I don’t go out after work. I’m not in a good place for anyone to get to know me. But thanks for asking. It’s very kind of you. Okay… I’ll see you at the meeting.”

I turned and left without allowing him a chance to respond.

Way to make the work environment awkward, Kenley. Good job.

When I saw Larson at the afternoon team meeting, he didn’t look at me. In fact, he didn’t speak directly to me or look my direction all day. Or all that week.

The next week he spoke to me a few times about script questions, but there were no more compliments.

Which was great. Really, really super.

It was so much better to be amiable co-workers with a guy like Larson than to allow it to deepen into something like friendship, or worse, mutual attraction.

I mean, sure, I was attracted to him—so was every woman in the building and probably every female viewer WNN had.

But there were just different kinds of guys. Those I used to date, boys from prominent families with cushy futures and fat bank accounts— like Mark—the kind of guy I’d been trained since birth to seek, identify, and secure like some kind of cosmetic-enhanced, stiletto-wearing Navy Seal.

Larson, bless his heart, was the poster child for that group.

And then there were the guys I wanted to date now—nice, boyish, struggling to make their own way in the world.

Guys like Jason.

FOUR

Richie Rich

I met Jason downstairs in the WNN Center food court the following week.

The Center was huge, more like a mall than an office building, with an atrium ceiling, shops, and escalators. On the ground floor the bright, airy food court offered an array of lunch options as well as a brief respite from the tension of the newsroom environment, which had only grown since I’d warned Larson away.

As I stood in line reading the menu board at a sandwich place, someone leaned over my shoulder.

“I strongly advise against the barbeque.”

I glanced back at him. He was a young guy, a year or two out of school like me. He had floppy brown hair and huge blue eyes and wore a t-shirt reading: ALWAYS BE YOURSELF. UNLESS YOU CAN BE A UNICORN. THEN ALWAYS BE A UNICORN.

“Gas like you would not believe,” he said, somberly nodding before emulating a mushroom cloud with his hands and making a comical explosion noise.

I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to such a crude remark about bodily functions. My mother would have frozen him out with her official Southern Belle death-stare. I laughed.

The guy must have taken it as encouragement to keep going.

“Seriously, Chernobyl never saw toxic fallout of this magnitude.” He gave me a goofy grin, and I couldn’t help smiling back.

“Well, thanks for the warning. I’d hate to put the whole building on nuclear alert.”

I ordered my food—not the barbeque—and waited off to the side. After Unicorn-Boy placed his order, he came over to join me.

He stuck out his hand. “I’m Jason. Not usually surrounded by a gaseous cloud, by the way. Learned my lesson—see—I smell great today, right?”

He leaned super-close to me and offered his neck for a smell-test.

What an odd person.I found myself playing along, sniffing him and pronouncing him odor-free.

“I’m Kenley.”

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