“You could always get a tattoo to cover it if the creams don’t work,” Cam reasoned. “And don’t try to tell me you don’t like tattoos. I saw your little secret,” he reminded me.
Yes, another glorious moment for me.
I’d fallen in my shower and sprained my ankle badly enough that I needed help getting out. And try as I might have to cover myself with the towel, Cam got an eyeful of hip and ass, which meant he saw the little tattoo I’d gotten very low on my hip, low enough that it was practically on my butt.
“That was a different me,” I insisted.
“Come on. The world is different. Plenty of wealthy people and CEOs have tattoos now.”
“Not that many,” I insisted.
“You’ve already proven you fit in with them, Randi,” he insisted. “You don’t have to keep proving it. If you want to cover it with a tattoo, cover it with a tattoo. Fuck anyone who has anything to say about it.”
He was right, of course.
It was absurd that I still ran every aspect of my life through the lens my peers would look through.
I had proven myself.
I had the job, the money, the house, the clothes, the charitable donations. I mean, I was single-handedly paying for the much-needed renovations on a library in the neighborhood I grew up in, with the hopes that more kids like me would be able to use it, gain some of the knowledge inside of it, and get out of that area like I had.
I didn’t have to care what they all thought anymore, that they might see me as an outsider.
“And, I mean, when it comes to the old money families, there’s just no way to get them to think you’re equal. Even if your fortune was fifty times theirs, they just think their names mean something. And those are the snooty people who would have something to say. Luckily, old money isn’t so prominent anymore and new money is taking over. Tech billionaires and guys who created social media sites.”
“That’s true. Well, if the creams don’t work, it may come to that. I can’t be covering up my arms forever. And I don’t know how I feel about creating a lie about it,” I said. “Oh, I almost forgot. Your morning meeting tomorrow is pushed to eleven. Shandy is having her baby as we speak, so we had to give John a couple extra hours to work on the presentation.”
“Oh, okay. That’s fine. We need to send Shandy…”
“Already in the works,” Cam cut me off.
“What would I do without you?” I asked, shaking my head.
“Still get it all done, but you’d have a lot more gray hairs and wrinkles,” he told me with a smile as he got up. “Have a good little day trip. Don’t work in the car,” he added as he got to the door.
“You know me too well,” I said, shaking my head.
The rest of the day was the usual putting out of fires and trying to talk project managers off cliffs.
Then, finally, it was time to head out, and I felt oddly self-conscious walking out of the office when everyone else was still steadily working.
That was another thing it was probably time to get over. I had a full staff. I didn’t always need to be the one who left last, who burned the midnight oil, who worked weekends and holidays.
At a certain point, you had to trust other people to each do their parts without being watched over.
And what was the point of working so hard for so many years if you didn’t eventually give yourself a chance to truly enjoy the fruits of that work?
I would get there.
Maybe.
But I would call it progress that by the time I got back to my building, I was no longer stressing about what my employees were thinking about me cutting out early.
And I didn’t bring a bunch of paperwork to go over on the trip, either.
Though I did tell myself that I would grab my home laptop to bring to check my emails and such in case it was needed.
Though I promptly forgot all about that as I slid out of my car to find Brock leaning against my building, looking casual, at home, even.