Chapter 6

Grace and Scarlett made sure they were first to arrive at the conference room the following morning. They had planned it all out the afternoon before. They were set up in the room by 8 a.m. and had put out bagels, muffins, and coffee.

Scarlett had made copies of their proposals, tabbed by ideas and mediums, and had the binders placed on the table, ready for her boss and assistant to arrive.

Sitting where Mr. Kennedy had sat the day before, she waited impatiently with a smug satisfied look on her face.

Power move completed.

"Good, you're ready," Mr. Kennedy said when he walked in a half hour early, ignoring Grace's efforts.

She knew better than to react and had expected him to behave this way. This was one of the reasons she excelled at her job. She had a talent for reading people and often was able to predict their actions and reactions. She had prepared Scarlett for this too, and her assistant played along, brushing off the two men's indifference.

"You prepared binders," her boss said as he sat down. "I prepared a slide presentation, but we can read through your book first. "

"The binder is a copy of my presentation, which I've also prepared. This way you can take notes and have a copy when you leave." Grace returned, trying and somewhat failing to keep the smugness out of her voice.

She looked up and watched as he quickly thumbed through her work, and noticed the corner of his lip twitch up slightly. Whether it was from annoyance or amusement, that was yet to be determined.

"That's one point for us," Scarlett whispered to Lucas, not as quietly as she thought.

He rolled his eyes in response.

"You realize we're working together and are on the same team, right?" Lucas barely whispered back.

"Someone should remind them," Scarlett said, nodding in their boss' direction.

Grace and Mr. Kennedy ignored their assistants and continued with their pissing contest.

Grace insisted Mr. Kennedy present first. He was organized, well-spoken and considered angles she hadn't. She would have almost been annoyed if they were competing rather than working together.

His ideas and slogans were great, but hers were better, and when she presented her material, he couldn't deny it either.

"That's great work," he admitted. "I shouldn't be surprised that you would have an edge over me, having lived here all your life."

"You presented great ideas too. I never considered a newsletter sign-up. It's so simple but effective. And it's also good to have an outsider's perspective. There are disadvantages to having never left. You have a clearer picture of how the rest of the world sees us."

Grace and Mr. Kennedy smiled at each other, pleased with each other's work. When they both realized that their smile lingered a little too long, they both started to shuffle papers and looked elsewhere.

After the awkward moment, they combined their ideas and divided the campaign, each taking on different mediums that they felt they had more experience with.

"I've made some contacts before I moved here, but do you have a contact for flyers? I keep getting redirected and I'm having the hardest time getting in touch with an actual person," Mr. Kennedy asked.

"I do…" Grace answered hesitantly.

"I feel like there is a ‘but.' If you don't want to share your contacts, that's fine, but I thought we were making some progress here, between you and me," Mr. Kennedy stated as he aggressively crossed something off a list.

"I hesitate, and you automatically think I'm trying to withhold information?" Grace asked, slamming her pen down on the table.

"If you wanted to handle the flyers, you could have just said so, it's not that big a deal," he said.

"The peace was nice while it lasted," Scarlett murmured to Lucas. To her surprise, he nodded back in agreement.

"What I was going to say before you interrupted–"

"When you hesitated," he corrected her, pointing his pen at her.

Grace rolled her eyes and continued.

"I have a contact," she started, refusing to be baited further into this stupid, abrupt argument. "But Gus is a little strange and finicky. He will only speak to me and has refused to speak to Scarlett or anyone else at this firm. And, he will only speak to me if I use my personal cellphone. I have no problem giving you his number, but let me reach out to him first to let him know that you'll be calling him."

"Okay, sounds good," Mr. Kennedy said, refusing to apologize for jumping to conclusions. "If he refuses to speak to me, you might have to handle the flyers, and we'll have to redivide some of the work."

"Or I could just deal with Gus, for you," she offered.

"Okay, that could work too," he said. "But I'd like to try and see if he'd work with me first."

"Yes, of course. Let me dig out my phone and I'll write down his contact information for you."

Grace grabbed her personal cell out of her bag, powered it on and placed it on the desk in front of herself and her boss who sat beside her.

"Scarlett, please pull up Mr. Kent's contact info for Mr. Kennedy. He should probably have that too," Grace said while waiting for her phone to boot up.

Mad_max69

Hey Beautiful

Thanks for swiping up

How's ur day going babe? I bet I could make it better ??

Grace's phone lit up with notifications from one of the men she matched with the night before. She quickly swiped the messages away, but Mr. Kennedy had seen them.

"We've been working for hours without a break. If you need to take a few moments to answer some personal messages…"

"I don't. That was nothing, it's fine," she curtly replied. She could feel her cheeks darkening and hoped no one else noticed.

Grace found Gus's contact information and put the phone back down to write out the information on a piece of paper.

"You can just forward me the contact," Mr. Kennedy offered .

"I could, but he has given me very strict instructions never to do that. I don't know how, but he always finds out when his instructions aren't followed. When, or if, he allows you to call him, you will also need to use your personal cell phone," Grace instructed. "Plus I don't have your number. Or need it," she quickly added.

"Gus sounds fun," Mr. Kennedy murmured.

As Grace wrote out Gus's information, her phone lit up with another notification.

"Why is someone sending you a picture of their thumb?" Mr. Kennedy asked.

"What?" Grace popped her head up and looked at her phone. Mad_max69 had sent a picture. "I have no idea why…"

"Hang on," Scarlett said, grabbing the phone off the table. She angled her head and turned the phone this way and that, before her eyes lit up with understanding.

"This isn't a thumb, it's a dick," Scarlett exclaimed, wide-eyed, then burst into laughter.

"Are you sure?" Lucas asked beside her.

She pointed the phone his way, holding it at a specific angle. He angled his head the other way, and his eyes lit up with confirmation.

"Yeah, that's not a thumb," he agreed.

"Give me that," Grace snapped, reaching across the table, and grabbing her phone out of Scarlett's hand.

She took a moment to study the picture herself. Mr. Kennedy leaned in closer, looking at the photo over her shoulder.

"Ah."

"Ew!" Mr. Kennedy and Grace said collectively.

"Well, we know one thing, your new date sucks at photography," Scarlett said seriously.

"What? I'm not going to date this guy. Especially not after this unsolicited pic. Gross," Grace stressed .

"Didn't your boyfriend just die, not two days ago?" Mr. Kennedy asked.

"He wasn't my boyfriend," Grace clarified.

"He wasn't her boyfriend," Scarlett repeated. "They had only been on the one date before they had their sexy video chat that got him killed, remember?"

"The video chat didn't get him–" Grace interjected, but Scarlett kept going.

"You see, Grace refused to date in her twenties, focusing more on her career, but since she turned thirty a few months ago, she realized that she could die any minute and dying single is kind of sad. We're branding this year ‘Grace's journey to find love.'"

"We aren't branding it anything," Grace assured everyone. "Scarlett, please, let's focus."

"It's nothing to be ashamed of," she said to Grace before she turned to Mr. Kennedy and Lucas. "Our poor girl is practically a virgin again. If it could grow back, I have no doubt that her–"

"Okay, good meeting," Grace said while jumping out of her seat. She started haphazardly collecting her things.

"What about all this food you had me b–" Scarlett started.

"Leave it," Grace snapped. Then after a deep breath, she calmly continued. "Just leave it and let everyone in the office know it's here and that they can help themselves."

With her arms full, she dared to look at Mr. Kennedy who silently watched her exchange with Scarlett. He was leaning back in his chair, with one elbow resting on the arm of the chair, his hand resting on his chin.

"Mr. Kennedy, I believe we covered everything thoroughly. If any questions pop up, I'll send word through my assistant."

Her boss took a few agonizing moments to respond, sitting there with an unnerving, all-seeing stare while he repeatedly clenched his jaw .

"Sounds good, thank you, Ms. Walker," he said in dismissal, as he started to collect his belongings.

Grace practically ran out of the conference room, feeling the need to lock herself in her office and hide forever. She left Scarlett behind and for once, she hoped that she would get sidetracked on her way back, so she wouldn't have to deal with her for a few hours.

If only.

She gave her ten minutes.

Scarlett knocked but didn't wait for Grace to respond before she came barging in.

"Sorry I'm late getting back. Susan walked by flashing the new Luxe Chic handbag. Like, literally walking around the office with it on her arm, for no reason other than to blatantly show it off. I said to myself, ‘bitch, you're being so obvious,' but of course, I gushed about it, because who wouldn't? It's a four-thousand-dollar handbag. Did you know there is a waitlist to get one? So of course I asked her about it, and did she not admit that her new boyfriend bought it for her."

Grace just sat there staring in silence, mouth open, eyes wide as Scarlett, once again, failed to read the room.

"So I asked her point blank who she's dating and she admitted that the relationship is very new. Plus, they aren't technically exclusive yet, so she doesn't want to say anything," Scarlett added and then gave Grace a knowing look, waiting for her to fill in what she wasn't saying.

"I'm sorry, is this supposed to mean something to me?"

"New guy? Doesn't want to say anything? Come on, Grace. Doesn't it sound like her sugar daddy could be Mr. Kennedy?"

"Ugh, Scarlett, I really don't care," Grace said, slamming her head onto her desk. She popped her head up a second later. "And no…it doesn't…I don't think... Maybe…"

"You seem upset," Scarlett observed .

"You think?" Grace snarkily replied.

"What could have happened on your walk from the conference room to here?" Scarlett asked, honestly confused.

"You, Scarlett. You happened. You not only told my new boss about my dating life, but about my non-existent sex life too. In a business meeting."

"Yeah, but to be fair, it started with a dick pic someone sent you, so it's not like I brought it up out of the blue."

"That was embarrassing enough. I had planned to apologize to Mr. Kennedy later about my unprofessionalism, but then you took it way too far."

"Okay, but to be fair, again, when you told me about Jake and your dating life, you didn't say it was a secret," Scarlett reminded her.

"I didn't think I had to. I assumed you understood that ‘girl talk' stayed between us," Grace said, making air quotes with her fingers.

"Shit, Grace, I'm sorry. Truly. It was never my intention to embarrass you. I thought I was helping to cover for you, help make the situation less embarrassing."

"It's fine. I mean, it's not. I have to go and make sure I still have a job, but moving forward, my dating life stays between just me and you, okay? Please?" Grace pleaded.

"Yes, of course," Scarlett assured her. "And you don't have to worry about facing Mr. Kennedy again today. Lucas messaged and said that his boss had to duck out early for a meeting and that if there's anything you need, Lucas will be in the office until the end of the day."

The tension in Grace's shoulders eased a bit and she took a deep calming breath. She hated waiting and putting things off for later, but this chat she would gladly postpone.

"Thanks, Scarlett. If you can hold any calls that aren't urgent for the rest of the day, I just want to put my head down and get to work. "

"You got it. Are we staying late again?"

"No, we'll leave at our usual time."

When Scarlett left, Grace sagged into her chair. She took a few minutes to feel all the feelings, shook them off, and then went straight to wor k.