“I think I’ve got a PA for you,” he said, handing me a folder. I opened it and flipped through the contents. The resume included a handful of assistant work, mostly in an office setting, but the focus was their social media experience. Whoever’s application it was, they even included a couple full social media plans, all of which gave me the chills when I thought of having to participate in them.
“I think you grabbed the wrong folder,” I told Hansen, moving to hand it back. But Hansen pushed it right back.
“No, this is the right one. She interviewed for the social media manager position, but … she doesn’t have enough professional experience. She does, however, have good assistant experience. And when we do get our social media program up and running, she’s got enough experience with that to get your ass set up.”
I looked back at him with a grimace.
“Don’t give me that look. You have to do it eventually, for the good of the team.” He pushed the folder at me again. “Just look over her resume and let me know if you think she’ll be a good fit.”
With a grumble, I flipped the folder back open as Hansen started to walk away, actually reading the resume this time.
And when I read the applicant’s name, my decision was made.
“Hansen! Hire her.”
A Disappointing Reunion
Olli
There were very few things about my childhood that I remembered. My father was in the Navy, so I spent nearly every summer moving. Everything started blurring together at some point, the schools, the teams, the friends.
But I did remember Kodi Davey.
From the summer after second all the way through third grade, we lived in Panama City. And Kodi was my neighbor.
We met in front of our houses, both of us rolling our bikes out of our respective garages. She dropped her bike, skipped over to me, and introduced herself with a long, rambling speech.
The crush was instantaneous.
After that, we spent nearly every day together. We rode around the neighborhood, played at the beach, and we even attempted to play soccer, though I was never able to get her to kick withthe inside of her foot instead of her toes. It was, hands down, the best summer of my childhood. For the first time in my life, I had a friend, someone who I could talk to when my parents weren’t around, a familiar face in school on the first day, all the things normal kids had.
But as things go when you're a Navy kid, it didn’t last long. Less than a month into my second summer in Panama City, we had to move.
We were both crushed when we found out. That night, we spent the whole evening in her tree house, planning how we could hide me at her place without her parents finding out. It was a ridiculous plan, but we were kids, best friends, and being separated felt like the end of the world.
And what made it all the worse was, when we saw my dad approaching the tree house to finally drag me home, she kissed my cheek and hugged me so tightly that something clicked in my brain.
I had a crush on Kodi. I had a crush on Kodi and I would never see her again.
It might have sounded dramatic, but in my defense, for the first eight years of my life, I had never seen any of my other friends. So it stood to reason that I wouldn’t see Kodi again, either.
Once my dad was able to drag me out of the tree house, I was grounded, essentially under house arrest, until the move. And once moving day came and went, I was left with nearly no way to contact Kodi. It was eighteen-some odd years ago and social media wasn’t really a thing then, let alone for eight-year-olds, so I went with letters. I sent nearly a dozen before I got the first one back with return to sender stamped on it.
That’s when I figured it was over. I’d lost my first crush before even getting the chance to do anything about it.
There’d been moments since moving to Destin and joining the Dastards that I thought maybe I’d run back into Kodi. Panama City was only an hour or so away and we’d talked about soccer enough that it’d be reasonable that she’d go to a game. But I always dismissed those thoughts as wishful thinking. It’d been years, she’d probably moved or changed interests, and I didn’t need any distractions from work. I had dreams, tournaments I wanted to play in, the World Cup, the Olympics, and all of those things required a lot of work and practice.
Plus, finding her again was unrealistic.
Or so I thought, until I saw Kodi’s name on the resume and my mind went into overdrive thinking about her and our history together.
Did she apply for the job because of me? Did she remember that kiss? Has she followed my soccer career this entire time? Was she mad that she never got the letters I promised to send? Was it even morally okay for her to be my PA after being my first crush? Were all those feelings going to resurface the second I saw her again?
All these questions buzzed in my head as I waited in Hansen’s office to ‘meet’ my new PA.
“Kean, you do know you can’t change your mind if you don’t get along with her, right?” Hansen asked, checking on me for the dozenth time since I told him I wanted to hire Kodi without a second interview.
“I know,” I grumbled. Hansen thought I was being uncharacteristically reckless, but there wasn’t a single universe where I wouldn’t hire Kodi at a drop of the hat.
