Page 10 of A Matter of Time
The two of them exchanged amused smiles as we got to the coffee shop and got in line at the counter. “He’s going to try to make a move on her today,” Hal explained.
“What?” The word burst out of me before I could stop it. Just how many of my colleagues were interested in my ex-girlfriend?
“Outside of work hours,” Isaac elaborated, as though that made it any better. “He said he had a plan to get to know her better.”
“What kind of plan?” I didn’t like the sounds of that at all and I couldn’t imagine why our head of human resources would be standing there laughing about it.
“Just to take her out for drinks down in Corpus Christi after they finish out at the plant,” Hal explained as we got closer to the front of the counter. He leaned ahead to put in his coffee order and I had to wait until we were all finished to hear the rest of what he had to say. “He said he would try to convince her to stay overnight there, if you know what I mean. I think he’s already got a hotel room booked, just in case.”
Of course I knew what he meant. It would be impossiblenotto know what he meant with that shiteating grin on his face.
“And you don’t have a problem with this?” I asked Isaac incredulously as we took our coffees and found a table to sit down at.
He simply shrugged. “They’re adults, it’s outside of work hours, and she’s not technically an employee. Jason might not like it, I don’t know what his position on that kind of thing is, but that’s Bradyn’s problem, not mine. From an HR perspective, it’s all above board.”
“What about from a basic human decency point of view? She’s here to do a job, not get hit on.” I’d gotten so worked up, I couldn’t even take a drink. When I tried to pick up my take-out cup, I squeezed it so hard, the lid nearly popped right off.
“Calm down, Cam.” Hal gave me a funny look. “It’s not like she’s your sister or something.”
Did they even hear themselves? “She doesn’t have to be for me to feel like it’s still sleazy. She’s somebody’s sister.”
Somebody I knew quite well, as a matter of fact, but they didn’t need to know that.
“Sounds like someone else needs to get laid,” Hal muttered to Isaac, gesturing towards me with his head, and I forced myself to take a deep breath. I was still new at the company and I didn’t want to alienate my colleagues. Would I be laughing along with them if they were talking about anyone other than Tonia? I couldn’t say for certain, and that didn’t make me feel any better either. Maybe all men really were creeps.
We changed the subject and managed to dispel some of the awkwardness I’d created by the time we headed back to the office, but my uneasiness remained. Without even knowing what I hoped to find, I pulled up the company’s online banking information once I returned to my desk and quickly scrolled through the accounts showing all our corporate credit cards.
Under Bradyn’s card, I could see a room charge for a hotel room in Corpus Christi.
Damn it all to fucking hell.
I tried to put it out of my mind, I truly did, but by the time five o’clock came, I knew I couldn’t let it go. As soon as I’d gone home and changed, I found myself getting into my truck and setting out on the three-hour drive towards a hotel in Corpus Christi I’d never been to before, without the first idea of exactly what I intended to do when I got there.
~Tonia~
The drive down to Corpus Christi with Bradyn took longer than I expected. He consistently went at least 10 miles an hour under the speed limit, earning him a raft of dirty looks as people sped past us on the highway, not to mention making my mind race with the mental calculations of just how much time he must waste if he always drove like that.
Several times, I had my mouth open to comment on it, but each time, I zipped it back up again. I wasn’t there to give him a driving lesson.Stay in your lane, Tonia.My family and friends gave me that advice time and time again.
“What do you normally do while you’re driving between the locations you oversee?” I asked Bradyn not long after we left Houston.
“Well, I’m new to this company, as we all are,” he reminded me. “But in my last job I did a lot of travelling too. I mostly listen to music or sometimes podcasts. It’s nice to have the time to unwind and think about what I need to do.”
“Some downtime is important,” I agreed. “And so is thinking ahead. How do you keep track of the things that you think about?”
He glanced over at me with a rather sheepish, crooked smile. “Just in my head, I guess?”
I figured as much. “You’ve got Bluetooth set up in here, right? Then let me show you a great program that you can dictate into.”
Despite our slow speed, the rest of the trip passed quite quickly as I walked Bradyn through all the tips and tricks I had for how to make phone calls, emails, notes and more, all while staying focused on the road. By the time we pulled into the plant where he had his meetings scheduled, he looked both impressed and a little disappointed too. “I’m never going to have an excuse for just listening to my music again.”
I gave him a wink. “You can always say your connection isn’t working if you really need a break. I won’t tell.”
He grinned back at me before hopping out to come and open the truck door for me in true gentlemanly style.
Lunch awaited us when we got inside and afterwards, I accompanied Bradyn as he made a tour of the plant. However, when he went into the meetings he had planned, I excused myself to get some of my own work done, following one of my own key rules: never waste time in a meeting you don’t need to be in.
After double checking all my calendar appointments for the following week, and trying not to grimace as Cam’s name popped up among them far too often, I took the time to catch up with some personal emails. Dex and Shawna were inviting everyone over the following Friday evening to take a look at the new gallery space they’d purchased. My sister, Laura, two years younger than me and in her final year of her bachelor’s degree, had a paper coming up for a college class that she wanted some help with, so I quickly answered her questions about that, and then I replied to Billie, our youngest sister who was in her first year of college. I had offered a hundred times to help her set up a study schedule, but whenever she messaged me, she only wanted to talk about men.
