“Yeah.” I grab my laptop and start to follow Hayden from my office. Normally he wouldn’t be at this meeting, but since we’re considering firing our marketing liaison, he’s graced us with his presence.
“Hold up,” he says at the last second, coming to a sudden stop.
I all but run into him.
“I need more than ‘It went well’ if you’re going to turn into a zombie on me. I can take the lead in there, but only if you give me more intel.”
I really picked a doozy of a business partner.
“Are you serious? Right now?”
“Deadly.”
I laugh at his sober expression. He really should have been an actor. Hayden doesn’t even crack a smile.
“We’re going to be late,” I remind him, looking at my watch.
“No.” He shoves me back into my office. “Because of your chronic insistence on being early for everything, we are not. Sit.”
He’s right—it’s early—but I still stare him down.
“I’m serious, Enz. You’re a space cadet. We have fifteen minutes. Sit, tell me about your girl. And then we’ll go in. Maybe you’ll be more focused if you get it off your chest.”
For about the millionth time, I find myself thinking there are pluses and minuses to working with someone who knows you so well. Only, maybe I’m more transparent than I thought. Gian called last night, and after five minutes, he asked me what was wrong.
“Fine.”
I sit, reluctantly. But only because he’s right. The last thing I’m thinking about at the moment is the botched social media campaign that led us to question the competence of our chief marketing officer.
“Talk to me.”
“Not much to tell.”
Hayden rolls his eyes.
“Seriously. I took her to dinner. Eight courses later, we went back to my apartment.”
“Eight courses? Where did you take her? Holy shit, did you eat in the Skybox?”
I nod.
Hayden whistles. “Trying to impress her?”
There’s no use denying it. “Maybe.”
“And then?”
“And then we had a pleasant evening. She went home after breakfast on Sunday. I had to get to the lab.”
“On a Sunday?”
I leave most of the chemistry to my team these days, but we have a new product in development, and I like overseeing that process myself. Our lab is in Jersey, so just an hour away without traffic, which is why I went on Sunday. I hate wasting time in traffic.
“Yes. On a Sunday.”
“I feel like you’re skipping a bunch. Did you have a good time?”
Of course, but it was so much more than that.