After gorging on a giant bowl of pasta and a cannoli — neither of which succeeded in drowning out all the noise in my head — I returned to my office. There was still a few hours left in the day and I needed to convene with Alec over how the show went and then go over my plans for the remaining weeks ahead. When I opened my office door, however, I found that my meeting with Alec was going to have to wait.

"Bout time you showed up! We were starting to think you took an early weekend. Not that anyone could blame you." Emily sat on the corner of her desk, while Ryan stood not far from her, watching me with a wary eye.

"Just a long lunch," I explained as I deposited my things onto my desk. "I'll probably be here a little later today, depending on what Mr. Radcliffe needs for next week."

"Yeah, now that we finished recording the commercial, half our team has suddenly freed up to do other things," said Ryan with a tired sigh.

"Oh right, you had that this morning too. How did it go?" I asked, turning to face him and Emily.

"Fine enough, with Emily's help here we were able to borrow some decorations to fill up the set. Made it look glamorous. Hopefully it will secure us some tickets." He nodded to Emily who brimmed with a pleased smile. "We did, however, take the time to stop and watch your interview."

"And?" I asked, not sure what to expect given my lofty promises.

"Well I can say all of us here in the office were just stunned by how well you handled Mariska," said Emily and Ryan nodded in agreement. "We thought she had you cornered for a moment, but I guess we should have known better."

Emily then gave me a knowing look from the corner of her eye and I gave her a flicker of a smile.

"It was interesting though," said Ryan, his eyes looking to the floor as a finger brushed the bottom of his lip, "what she was bringing up about the charity. At the set, we all started to talk about it and we realized that we'd been so busy selling the gala, we hadn't thought to pitch the charity in the commercial as well."

"Yeah, but the commercial is for the gala," said Emily. "You're trying to sell tickets, which in turn will get them to the event and we'll sell the charity to them there." She tried to give him a reassuring smile, but I knew she sympathized with him. We both did, but neither of us needed anyone else to get dragged into this mess. Unfortunately, Ryan had seen enough bull shit in his years to know what it smelled like.

"Maybe," he said. "Anyway, word is the top floor is a bit ruffled by your spur of the moment interview with the charity. Not that it really matters, it was clear that the audience loved your gracious attitude. In our field, that's all that's really important."

"Okay," I said, taking a deep breath, "I should probably..."

"You should do nothing," said Ryan with a fatherly smile. "I think you've done enough for today."

"We've both done enough," I corrected.

"Right," he said before taking a deep, calming breath. "Anyway, just relax. If Radcliffe shows up, then we'll have a meeting. Otherwise let the weekend happen and save your stress for Monday."

"Yeah, Friday is pretty much done," said Emily. "Most have already checked out. Speaking of which..." Emily went quiet as she looked over at the Pit. Her face tightened once she spotted something or someone and then she turned back to face us. "There's something I've got to do before the end of the day. So if you'll excuse me."

Emily left with no further explanation. Ryan, however, decided to stay. I figured he wanted to discuss how the commercial went, but when I smiled into his brown eyes, I only found quiet concern.

"Something wrong?" I asked.

"What's going on with you?" he asked with some hesitation. "Earlier this week, you were somewhere in the clouds. Now you look ready to fall apart."

"It's been a tiresome day as I'm sure you can understand..."

"Really?" he asked, eyebrows raised. "I thought maybe it had something to do with how you stormed out of the office yesterday."

I started to feel a headache swelling inside my skull and I took a seat while a hand massaged my forehead. Ryan took a few steps over to close the gap between us, but still kept his distance.

"I also saw how Radcliffe went sprinting to the elevator to catch you."

The swelling had quickly escalated and I felt certain my head may very well split with the force of a full blown migraine.

"Lex, did you know my daughter is fourteen now?"

"What?" I asked, the shock of the change of conversation pulling my hand from my head.

"It's like she suddenly grew a sign above her skull that says 'hey I'm hormonal and desperate for manly attention.' Every night that she goes out, a part of me dies with worry."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I said, not completely certain where this was going.

"Whenever we're out, say at the mall, and she sees a guy she knows from school, she'll wave and giggle, sometimes they'll even come over." Now it appeared Ryan was developing a headache and his hand ran through his hair as he sighed. "And then there's the times she sees a guy and she doesn't turn into a snickering schoolgirl. Instead, she gets cold and silent. She does all she can to move us along, to get away. What I'm trying to say is...I've seen this."

"Ryan, are you calling me a hormonal teenager?"

"No, no," he said with a tired laugh. "No, I'm really not. I'm just saying I get to witness this all in overload right now and I've seen that look. Whatever is going on between you two, I just..."

"I understand, Ryan, but don't worry there's nothing going on there." I turned from Ryan and took my attention to sorting through papers that didn't need sorting.

"Right," he said. "Well, if there was, I'd just tell you to be careful and that you're worth more than any trouble a man tries to put on you."

With that, he left. I don't know why I bothered, like I said, Ryan knew what bull shit smelled like.

For the next hour, I worked on cleaning out my inbox and brainstorming ideas for the next big marketing project. But, as the time ticked away, I grew frustrated with the process. I needed to talk to Alec so that we could all get on the same page about the future for the team. The ads were running, the commercial would be out by the start of the following week, our social media push was moving right along, and the interview was a thing of the past. Really, we just had footwork left. My team needed to knock on doors and get tickets into people's hands. I had ideas for what to do, but I didn't feel right starting work on them until I discussed them with Alec. At that point, I was so desperate to have something cemented that I didn't even care what tension might be lingering there between us. I just needed to get the job done.

I started checking Alec's online status with something akin to an obsessive compulsion. I even made frequent trips to walk by his office just to see if he failed to change himself from busy to available. However, it was always vacant and I could only pretend to go to the bathroom so many times before people would start looking at me funny. I was returning from one of those trips when I spotted Emily back in the office.

"I'm glad you're here," said Emily with a yawn. "I'm tired and want to go home, but I need to tell you something first."

I shut the office door behind me and gave her a nod, though I hesitated to give her anymore clearance than that to continue. I, quite frankly, didn't really want more on my plate.

"I've been doing some research for you," she said with a devious smirk.

"Research?"

I took my seat and Emily rolled over to meet me, before leaning forward so that her elbows rested on her knees.

"I bribed Cynthia to cough up some information. I had to actually bribe her, can you believe it? So you know this has to be good stuff."

"Oh really," I said with a laugh, "what did you have to give up in return?"

"I just gave her something else to run with." Emily paused with an uncomfortable smile on her face.

"Like what?"

"I told her that Theo might have his eyes on a much older lady and that lady might be me..."

"First off, you're not that much older and second, why would you do that to yourself?!"

"Because," she said, throwing her hands up in the air and sending her gaze to the ceiling, "it might actually help me figure out my feelings. I keep using this excuse of him being eight years younger than me as a reason this is ridiculous, but he makes me laugh Lex. He's like a freaking puppy. He's just so eager and loyal. And maybe if this was out in the open, I would be forced to confront it."

"Well, I can understand your frustration with not knowing the status of your relationship," I mumbled. We both sighed and before we could fall too deep in our own self-pity, I decided to bring Emi back to her point. "But, anyway, I think Cynthia was lying to you to get some new gossip out of you. I mean, she always spills."

"Really?" Emily looked at me from the tops of her eyes, her lips twisted in a pitying smirk. "Have you asked her about Tamara recently?"

I stopped and looked at Emily in full, her cynical smile had turned into a knowing frown.

"I know you would've gone to her first thing after what happened in the elevator," she continued. "And, well, I went to her too and she wouldn't give it up so I figured you had the same luck."

"Yeah," I said, recalling her odd muteness on the topic.

"Well, after some persistence I got her coveted little tidbits. Though I think in the end, she really was hiding it for your sake."

"Why?" I asked, leaning forward as Emily drew me in.

"To protect you from the fact that your crush happens to be Tamara's ex-boyfriend."

***

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