3. Candice

CHAPTER 3

CANDICE

" F letcher Tech support. This is Candice, how can I help you?"

A sharp-voiced woman answers. "Yes, hello, I want to know why my cloud storage has been offline for three days after you assured me you were looking into it and you'd have it fixed as soon as possible. Don't you know how much damage this is doing to my business?"

She ploughs through her monologue, and I listen politely, offering her bland apologies and reassurances. "Could I get your name, please?" I ask, to which she scoffs.

Day one of working at a tech firm, and I'm answering the phone. Not exactly what I expected.

But I'm handling it better than some of the others, who have clearly never had to do a day of work in their lives. I had a call-center job for a while as a teenager so I know exactly how to tune out the angry tirades of customers who think they know better about everything, especially when they don't.

The key is to stay calm, something that Kyle's really struggling with. He's yelling at a customer right now.

I won't let smugness distract me, though. I have my eyes on the prize. I want to see innovation where it happens, and that means being quick and polite. No one's going to complain about me .

It takes me about three and a half minutes to figure out what's wrong with the woman's connection and to walk her through fixing it. She's not as eternally grateful to me as she should be, but at least I get a "thank you very much," which I take as a win.

I place the phone back down in its cradle, closing my eyes to enjoy the brief moment between people's problems.

"Hey," hisses Aiden beside me, leaning in over the desk like he's got a secret. "What's up?"

"Same as you, probably," I say, raising my eyebrow.

He has this cheeky grin that should spell trouble, but he's the only one who actually seems to want to talk to me like a human being at all, so I decide to give him a chance.

Plus, he's kind of cute.

"This is super annoying," he sighs.

"Tell me about it," I say, my own eyebrow raised. "You ever had a job before?"

He shrugs. "Kind of. My dad owns a company and I've done a bit of stuff for him — transcribing meetings, writing up minutes, that kind of thing."

I nod almost in approval. I bet it's more than any of the others have done. They all come from money. Aiden is the only one who seems like a normal guy. "What does he do? Your dad?"

"Oh, tech stuff," he says waving his hand like I'm a crumb he's brushing away. Interesting. The more evasive and defensive he's going to be, the more I'm going to want to crack him open. I enjoy a challenge.

I'm interrupted by my phone ringing again, so I pick up and help walk yet another baffled customer though a set of instructions that I would have considered easy. How hard is it to figure out that you're meant to follow the completely logic set of menus? At least this one's not yelling. I'll take the small wins.

"They're annoying, aren't they?" Aiden asks when I put my phone back down. He's typing with one hand, lazily replying to the live chat as he looks at me.

"Yeah. Don't you want to win the contest?" I gesture at his slouch, to which he shrugs again.

"Eh, I've sat in on meetings in the past. I figure it's best to give it to someone who cares about the prize. Like you."

I open my mouth and shut it again, not quite sure what to say until I stutter, "Well, yeah, but… it's not about the meeting, really. It's about the — I don't know, the pride?"

He laughs at that and I'm not quite sure why. It's not a nasty laugh, not at all like he's making fun of me. But it is a weird reaction. I turn in my seat to face him. "What, you don't care about the job at all?"

"Course I do," he scoffs. "But you honestly think Michael Fletcher is going to give the job to someone as uptight as Daniel or as arrogant as Kyle? No way. I've looked at the people he's hired. They're not it. They might be smart and they might be going places, but that place won't be here. I'm telling you that for a fact."

"First-name terms with the CEO, huh?" I say, ignoring the cocky confidence he has. It's amazing to me that these people can say such brazen things without a single ounce of humility. Not that I doubt myself, because I don't. It's just that, unlike some, I don't like to brag.

Aiden's face does something really weird at my teasing, and I put that in my bag of threads to pull on at a later date. Something about him utterly fascinates me.

"He's not that special of a guy," Aiden mumbles. Then, before I can ask anything else at all, he changes the subject. "Don't you hate it when they make all these demands but don't actually give you anything to work with?"

"Yeah," I chuckle. "God forbid they, like, give you their name or company or anything. I think they expect us to be psychic."

"Nah, not even that. We're little machines to them. They're the kind of people who would make a scene in a restaurant to get free food."

"They're the worst! " I agree, laughing with him until the phones ring again. "Here we go," I sigh, rolling my eyes dramatically to make him smile. And he does smile. It shines out of him, this grin that doesn't have a trace of condescension in it. Even once I've picked up the phone, he keeps looking at me, and it takes strength not to stare right back into those blue eyes.

Our conversation stays light after that, complaining about stupid customers and laughing about past hellish work experiences. Blair keeps glancing over at us and scowling like he's scared of fun, but I don't care. It's a relief to have a friend.

Even if he's a very attractive friend with the kind of honeyed, soft-spoken voice I could listen to for hours. Even hearing him on the phone is a delight.

Maybe having one or two feelings for the guy can't hurt, right?

When three p.m. rolls around, my throat hurts from all the customers I've served and I'm tired all over my body, despite having been sat down. It takes a lot of concentration to be nice to nasty people.

We're all rounded back up and taken away to a conference room while they decide who won the contest. I have to sit on my hands to stop myself from fidgeting. I think I have a pretty good chance of actually winning this — I must have answered hundreds of questions today. Despite Aiden's distractions, I worked hard. I have a chance at this.

Mr. Fletcher marches in, grinning like a shark. "Louise," he says, holding her in his gaze. She snaps to attention, blinking in surprise. "Congratulations. You get to sit in on the meeting."

She mouths a small me? but recovers enough to say, "Thank you, sir," without stammering.

I sink back in my seat, trying not to let my disappointment show. I guess I should be happy for her, but I can't bring myself to be. I really wanted to win.

Louise follows Mr. Fletcher out, and the rest of us are left to have a break before we move on to our next activity.

Aiden reaches out and touches me on the arm, sending sparks all the way to my fingertips. "Cheer up," he says, drawing a smile over his mouth. "It'll be you next time."

I smile weakly back at him. It's nice to have his support, but still, I have doubts. What if he turns around and stabs me in the back?