I have to get it just right…
With that, Channing steeled himself and strode out of his office as confidently as he possibly could. It was time to set up the room ready for the presentation.
A lot was depending on this moment.
For Channing it could be career defining, a fact that he was only too aware of…
* * *
‘What… the… hell?’ Channing cried, burying his head into his hands as he sought solace in the large, maze-like Japanese garden at Green Sky Future. ‘What just happened?’
The presentation had been a total disaster.
From start to finish, absolutely anything that could go wrong, did go wrong. If Channing wasn’t tripping over his words, he was struggling to deal with even the most basic of technology. Channing was usually super-calm and composed when it came to using computer software, but he ran into problem after problem during the presentation.
In the end, it had all gotten too much for Channing.
After a mumbled, borderline incomprehensible apology, Channing simply finished the presentation abruptly and ran out of the room.
Channing knew what it must have looked like to his colleagues. Worse, Channing knew that the senior directors were most likely wondering what the hell they were doing employing him in the first place, let alone considering him for a VP role.
I screwed it all up.
They’ll all think I’m a total joke.
I may as well quit now…
Channing lifted his head out of his hands and looked around the garden. Not even the wonderfully curated bushes and soothing trickle of the mini waterfall were of any solace.
To say that it had been a bad day at the office would be the understatement of the year by some distance. Channing had notonly performed poorly, but he had done it right in direct view of Kyle Peters.
Channing knew that Kyle would have relished every single moment of seeing him suffer like that, and it would give Kyle even more fuel to try to undermine him even more.
Things weren’t looking good.
More out of hope than expectation, Channing took his cellphone out of his pocket to check to see whether Max had finally decided to break his silence and get into contact with him.
Sadly, there were no messages from Max.
Max didn’t do social media either, so Channing hadn’t even been able to try to keep tabs on him that way either. As far as Channing knew, Max could have been lying unconscious in a side alley - or worse.
But part of Channing wondered whether this wasn’t just the real Max making a return. After all, Channing had lost count of the times that Max simply disappeared off the face of the earth back in their college days.
Perhaps for all his good intention in the last few weeks, Max was simply too set in his ways to every truly change. It was possible that Max had reverted to type and taken himself out of the heat.
But unlike other times when this had happened, Channing felt like this was the final straw. He may have said similar on other occasions, but Channing truly felt it now. Max had walked out and left Channing hanging during an important period in his life.
Channing wasn’t sure if he could forgive Max this time.
It’s always the same.Max leaves, I hurt.
Maybe a leopard never changes its spots.
Maybe Max was never truly a Daddy at all…
Chapter 20
MAX
