I thought about it. About walking down that hall, knocking on that door, forcing him to say whatever he’s clearly avoiding.But what’s the point?
“…nah,” I said finally.
Hartland tilted his head. “Nah?”
“I’m not chasing him,” I said, more to myself than him. “He got something to say, he can come say it.”
Hartland sat back, nodding once. “Fair enough.”
Then he looked at my screen. “So, what we working on?”
I turned the laptop toward him, pulling up the event schedule.
“We got two weeks to tighten this up before the next round of bookings,” I said. “I need confirmations locked in, staff assigned, and I wanna run through the guest experience again. Plus. If you have free time, I want you to review the staff wages. I need to reconfirm their incomes and make sure it lines up with the number of years they were here. Also, there’s the inactive employee number I can’t access. See if you can get bank records for it.”
He leaned in, scanning the screen. “You been busy, huh? No more playing around, I guess.”
“I told you I wasn’t,” I said. “Launch day is coming up and I refuse to look stupid in front of my dad and Marlon so we gotta make sure everything runs smoothly. Grab your notepad.”
I was halfway through reviewing vendor confirmations when the door opened again with no knock. I didn’t look up at first.
“If it’s not urgent, come back?—”
A file dropped onto my desk. I frowned and looked up to see Lavender standing there.
She couldn’t even meet my eyes and that alone told me everything. I reached for the file, flipping it open quickly.
The first page made my eyes grow.
Reassignment.
Department: Branding and Marketing.
Effective: Immediately.
“What the hell is this?”I demanded.
“I’m sorry.” Lavender swallowed. “I’m so sorry, Rory.”
I closed the file slowly, my fist tightening as everything clicked into place. Then, I pushed back from my desk and stood, grabbing the file as I walked out.
His door was still closed but this time unlocked. I didn’t knock.
“Dude, seriously?”
He didn’t even look surprised, like he knew I was coming.
“You’ve done your development,” he said calmly, like this was a regular business conversation, “and you’re supposed to learn all aspects of the business, so you’re transferring to marketing. We need a marketing manager anyway.”
I stared at him.
“And lemme guess,” I said slowly. “I’m there for the rest of the summer?”
“Your father cleared it.”
That made me laugh.
“Did he now?” I tilted my head slightly. “You tell him about our lovely lil’ summer together too?”
