Chapter 6: Mind Your Business

Monday

"Good morning, Ada!" Chris greeted the second I entered the elevator. "You're early."

I returned an exhaustive, but toothy, smile at 6:45 AM.

Five more business-clad women joined us in the metal ride with hot cups of coffee. I scooted behind him. Chris curved his attention around and down at me.

"How was your weekend?" he asked cautiously, looking at my hands. I had a bandaid on both of them.

I cleared my throat and explained over his shoulder. "I took my cat to the vet. I also concluded traveling sedatives for kitties does nothing for her except make her box humans harder."

"Yikes, I'm sorry," he grinned. "I had an angry cat when I was a kid. She fought a Rottweiler and won."

My god...

My voice trembled, "I'd love to laugh, but I might have the same breed of ferocity living in my house. And I did this to myself."

The door opened to the fifteenth floor and after the ladies took their conversation and aromatic coffee out of the elevator. I hadn't worked up the nerve to return to Papi's after almost driving my face into cement.

Chris sighed, "Well, with the exception of your hands, you look much better than you did on Friday."

Phew! If only Chris knew about Mr. Leoné's antics after hours.

"Well, I won't say that I got that much more sleep over the weekend reading up on the trading manual," I groaned.

Chris furrowed his brows and jabbed the 'close' button. "Huh?"

"Mr. Leoné gave me his schedule, the manual to the legacy application and a snapshot of client reports from last quarter," I answered looking up to him.

Chris licked his lips before curling them in and intensifying his look of confusion.

"You didn't know I was supposed to be looking at this project," I cringed.

"Well, you're not supposed to be," he stated, with a tight lip.

"I'm so sorry. I thought you knew, or that he had informed you," I panicked.

"May I see them when we get to the floor, please?" he sighed.

I followed Chris to his office and retrieved the paperwork from my laptop bag.

"What the fuck is this?" Chris complained lowly. "If you don't mind, I need to look over the rest of these documents. I will have a talk with Mr. Leoné about this as soon as I can," Chris attested, before I willingly surrendered the files.

There really wasn't anything for me to say. All I could do was hope that it wasn't too serious. I spent the entire weekend psyching myself into believing I could understand a bunch of financial and technological jargon. There were so many acronyms!

Thirty minutes later, I received a notification to attend a meeting with Mr. Leoné and Chris hours in four hours.

Did Mr. Leoné ruin my relationship with my manager already?

An hour passed, and I was in the middle of a work-related computer chat with DeShawn when I heard from behind. "Hey, Ada,"

Blinking a few times, I felt hit by Renee's psychedelic dress holding bright colors in various shapes. There were no brow lifts or questionable stares, since Renee's lovable personality allowed her to be the woman to get away with existing the way she did. I loved it.

"You okay?" she observed.

"I'm doing great," I lied, hiding my hands in my lap."Is Chris okay?"

"Not sure. He looked upset when I peeked through his window a second ago," she said with an exhale at the end. "But it's probably another rushed deadline or Willoughby getting on. Anyway, you know what I'm about to ask you?"

"Yeah, but I probably have to go over some papers with Mr. Leoné," I grumbled.

She tilted her head in question. "You do?"

My lips formed a thin line, and I nodded.

Renee smiled big and narrowed her eyes, "Mr. Leoné must really want to pick your brain."

"I guess." I shrugged.

And three hours later, I walked down the hall of shame to confirm Mr. Leoné's plans with my manager. Chris was already sitting across from the big boss', I knocked before I quietly slipped inside and stood beside Chris.

Mr. Leoné glared at my hands, but pointed his face toward Chris, "Now that she's arrived, what's raising an issue for you, Chris?"

Chris had his full attention. "I'm concerned about how much work Ada will commit to Best Trader Beta with her focusing on pieces of the legacy project now."

Mr. Leoné leaned back in his chair and folded hands over his stomach. "She has to know the systems."

"Sure, but the plan is to migrate most our clients into the desktop version which won't have half the features we agreed to disposing of."

"I agree, but the sooner she is well-informed about the system, the more we reduce the learning curve and training time."

"Mr. Leoné, I understand that, but we desperately need her invested in the immediate changes related to our tasks and bugs. So far, Ada's spreadsheet is an entire sprint or two. It might take us a few months to get to these fixes because we're already behind schedule with the app."

"Ms. Young," Mr. Leoné interrupted.

I looked up. "Yes?"

"Please, have a seat on the couch."

There was nothing strange to pick apart about his request. I turned, sat on the firm couch, and held my hands. This was awkward because neither of them were wrong in my eyes. But one was more right than the other.

"So are you saying that you don't believe she will commit to any of these days on this schedule?" Mr. Leoné pointed at his printed calendar.

Chris observed the sheet again and tilted his head. "It's not impossible, but I would really urge her time to be prioritized with the mobile development. This is the main reason we advocated for opening her position. She just got here, and she's great. Sorry for talking about you like you're not here, Ada."

"It's okay." I mumbled.

"Ms. Young, what do you think?" Mr. Leoné asked, swaying his chair side to side. "Have I overwhelmed you?"

"N-no." I stuttered, triggering a grin on his face.

His smugness disappeared quickly when I continued, "But I do have to agree with Chris on a development standard."

"And what is that?"

"Build mobile first." I answered. "You want to work your way up from the least amount of real estate to the most so you can see what has to be prioritized."

Chris let out a sigh of relief.

"But to be fair to Mr. Leoné's defense. I did learn a lot more about the old system and then when looking at the proposal, and I, now, have a bunch of questions for the both of you regarding the app."

"I'm glad my offerings have served any use," Mr. Leoné said shortly.

I followed Chris out of Mr. Leone's office and closed the door behind. I glanced back into the window, and Mr. Leoné folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. He saw me, and I skedaddled after Chris.

He immediately looked down to me and apologized, "I'm sorry I was short with you this morning."

"It's okay. I would be mad too if–"

"Mr. Quinones!" Both Chris and I jumped to a pause before we passed the elevator. We turned around and saw Willoughby sticking his head out his office door. Chris grit his teeth and faked a smile before returning down the hall. Poor Chris.

I retreated to my desk and carefully chicken-fingered my password. The desktop appeared, but within minutes I lifted my knuckles to bite down. The mail app flashed on the dock. I opened it and saw a reminder for a meeting, starting in one minute, I didn't recall accepting.

"Meeting: Lunch"

And the time was 11:59AM. I took in a deep breath after closing the door behind me. Mr. Leoné's eyes surveyed me and darkened as I took a seat.

"Why is your face long?" he murmured.

I looked away and squinted, "Did you create a RECURRING meeting for lunch for every workday?"

"And you accepted it." He nodded.

Bobbing my head side to side, I corrected, "I didn't click anything."

"If you respond, it will add to your calendar. If you don't respond, it will still alert you," he informed.

"Oh," I peeped. Damn.

His voice jumped up an octave to sound almost playful. "Are you ignoring me, Ms. Young?"

I looked away. "No."

Girl, you are a liar!

"But you saw the email?" He grinned.

"I didn't open it."

"So you ARE ignoring me."

"Not intentionally," I said through my teeth. "There are a few emails I haven't read yet."

"Are you sure you're not feeling overwhelmed already?"

What the...

I wore a crease between my brow. "No I am not, sir."

Still, I did not understand what he attempted to get at with weird ass questions like that. I doubt he checks every email that comes through, but then this man was — to put it nicely–special.

"What happened to your hands?" His tone regressed.

Instinctively, I squeezed them. "Remember that cat I have?"

"Get rid of it," he said without hesitation.

"What? No," I laughed with bent brows.

"Why would you keep something that does that to you?" he asked.

"Cats scratch things. She's only six months old and is getting the hang of her claws." I left out how she also hates me, and wants to slash my eyes out regularly.

"Still sounds like a foolish decision to purchase an animal that would harm you."

I countered calmly, "I didn't purchase a lion. She's just a small kitten, hence the small cuts."

Mr. Leoné sighed and rolled his eyes. He would get them stuck if he did that every time we spoke. He pulled at a desk drawer and retrieved a small box. "Here."

"Huh?"

"The aid on your right hand is falling off. It's been annoying me."

I looked at my right hand. He was right about the protection losing its tackiness. I reached for the box and slid it to me.

"About last Friday–" He began, and I froze. Oh, shit.

He wants to talk about last Friday? I didn't want to talk about him walking me downstairs to get my order and letting me go home. It could have been cute, had the circumstances been different. Especially the part where I wasn't walking home with more work to do.

"–how was the meal?"

I slumped with relief and popped the kit open. "It was okay. The fish wasn't amazing."

"I'll let them know," He grumbled.

I concentrated on discreetly pulling at the old bandaid. "Definitely... don't do that."

"I still suggest you get rid of that animal."

I threw him an icy glare while folding the bandaid and throwing it away in the bin beside his desk. The atmosphere became remarkably cold.

He didn't appear amused by my non-verbal response. "I don't understand. I considered you a smart woman, Ms. Young."

There was a sudden jerk in my stomach. I cocked my head back, and my next words were reflexive. "I can be smart while recognizing I have a bad habit of putting up with difficult behavior."

He was unbelievable. I didn't wait for the man who wore his callousness like a badge of honor to throw out another unsolicited remark. Without thinking twice, I sprung around and gunned for the door. For a while, I'd been trying to push my feelings aside. Yet, when they hurt, they hurt. I had to get away from him. But I wasn't able to. Mr. Leoné was quick on his feet and eased his arm between me and knob.

"What are you doing?" I mumbled.

"Ms. Young," he began quietly and clasped his hands together. "Just come to my desk and fix your hand."

He didn't wear anger or annoyance on his face like I expected, but that didn't slow my racing mind.

I pointed up and whispered, "Can I be brutally honest with you, Mr. Leoné?"

"Of course."

Taking a deep breath in preparation, I explained, "I don't want to be around people who belittle others. Last Friday you talked to me sideways, and you just insulted me again. I get that I've entertained the back and forth since day one, but I have feelings, okay? I want to enjoy my contractual time here, but it's honestly very difficult to leave my worst feelings at home when–"

I stopped. I said way too much.

"Go on, I'm listening." His tone was kind, and it forced me to realize the anticipation in his eyes. For a moment, I felt myself settle.

Shaking my head, I fought the balance. It wasn't possible for Mr. Leoné to draw the pain away from the moment. A man like him wasn't capable.

"I'm sorry. I rambled." I took a quick glance at the doorknob. "May I go back to work?"

"It's lunchtime." He saw the irritation crack my face. "But before you go you should fix your hand."

I raised my chin and widened my eyes. "Fine."

I followed him back to his desk, but I fixed my attention to the floor and not after him. Though, it was still tempting under the worst circumstances.

He circled around his desk and slid the little first aid box closer to him as he sat. Before opening it, he pulled antibacterial out of his drawer. What is he doing? He can't be serious.

Mr. Leoné unwrapped a fresh bandaid before pulling out a small antiseptic wipe. He opened his hand toward me and couldn't hold back the small scoff. He's serious.

Lacking enthusiasm, I walked around and in front of him. I didn't mind looking down at him. Any traces of balance fled, and the shift tipped in my favor. He almost touched the cut across the bottom of my palm with the swab, and I flinched. He looked up to me. I was squeamish, but I hated the stinging sensation. Then Mr. Leone gently grabbed my wrist. Oh, boy!

His hand was soft and warm. His thumb slid across my wrist when he urged me closer. I held my breath. The prickling all over my body surpassed the sting of the alcohol on my cut. I caved and looked down at his seating posture. He spread his legs and a single step forward would have had me between them. He had to let go of me to put the bandaid on. After he finished, I pulled back and scratched behind my ear.

"There you are," he said with a nod.

I shrugged my left shoulder. "Okay."

Inside I was racing to get out the door, but I walked out of his office at a casual pace. The second I shut the door behind me, I closed my eyes, pinched my brows, and exhaled while keeping my composed stride down the hall. I still felt his hand on my skin. 

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Chapter 7 Releases - 3/15/2020