“Yes,” I answered with a sinking feeling.
Apparently, my trepidation was written all over my face.
“It’s nothing bad,” she added with a patient smile. Her eyes crinkled softly at their edges, the only indication she was ten years my senior. “I just need you in the conference room in ten.”
“Of course. Do I need my laptop for meeting minutes?” I asked, feeling slightly deflated. It was almost time to pack up and leave for the weekend. If a meeting was starting, that meant another hour at least. It was lame enough working on my birthday, but meeting minutes was a disappointment akin to being gifted the special movie edition of my favorite book.
“Not this time. It shouldn’t take long.” She smiled reassuringly again before sauntering in the direction of the conference room.
I let out a slow breath before standing up and heading to the bathroom. After washing my hands, I pulled my phone out and typed a quick note. I didn’t want to lose the thread of what I had been thinking about for my current story, but already it was fraying away as concerns of what Mrs. Jennings needed grew heavier.
Rationally, there was no need to worry. In the years I’d been working for her, she’d only ever been fair and pleasant. Still, if my mind wasn’t jumping to conclusions, it would never get any exercise.
I wasn’t ashamed of my writing. In fact, I linked my social media to my FanFavz account and had a good number of followers. But I understood that no one outside theTerraFormativebubble would ever take my writing seriously. And I didn’t exactly want that twitchy guy from our multimedia team to start asking questions about “the dirty stories” I wrote. It didn’t matter how in-depth and nuanced the stories were, once people found out sex was involved, that’s all they cared to talk about. It was more indicative of their issues than mine, but still pretty creepy.
I wouldn’t ever be a Real Author until I had a publishing contract. That had been the plan since I graduated college and took this administrative assistant job—temporarily—while I finished my book. I continued to write TF fan fiction because it made me happy, but I never expected it to blow up like it did. As my popularity grew, so did my passion for story telling in that world. Readers would tag me in prompts I couldn’t turn down. Gorgeous fan art would inspire a short story and vice versa. It was a whole world that I was happy to get lost in.
I gave myself a silent pep talk in the bathroom mirror to kill a few minutes. Finally, the anticipation got the best of me and I made my way to the conference room.
The door was shut, and I debated between knocking and interrupting the meeting or silently sneaking in to sit in the back. I waited until it had been exactly ten minutes since Mrs. Jennings first asked me to join her and turned the door handle. Rather than meet the eyes of everyone glancing up at me, I kept my back to the room as I silently closed the door behind me.
The door clicked like a clap in the quiet, announcing my arrival. I winced and turned around, an apology already on my lips.
“Happy Birthday!” the whole room shouted.
I jumped, causing my back to bump into the door handle. “Oh my god!”This is my nightmare.“What a surprise!”I want to crawl under my desk and hide.“Thank you all so much.” My lips pulled into a tight smile.
The room was filled with at least a dozen of my coworkers. A large cake sat on the table and Mrs. Jennings came forward to hand me a bouquet.
“Wow. This is so nice. You didn’t have to do this.” I hid my face in the flowers, pretending to examine the blooms.
The gesture was incredibly thoughtful. I was so grateful they remembered me, but to my poor introverted mind, this was only slightly better than having a middle-aged man ask me about my sex scenes as he licked his lips.
No. Never mind. I definitely preferred this.
“It’s not much, but we wanted you to know we appreciate all that you do around here,” Mrs. Jennings said, a teasing smile playing on her mouth. “Should we sing to you?”
“No!” I snapped and quickly covered up my rudeness. “No, thank you. You’re so kind. Let’s just get to the cake!”
She winked at me, and I let out a breath.
The cake was cut and passed around.
“I’m sorry. I know this isn’t really your thing,” Mrs. Jennings said softly to me a few minutes later. She came up to me where I stood in the corner, hiding like a little coward. “It was Kline’s idea from HR. And I couldn’t really think of a reason to say no.”
I frowned at my cake, feeling bad for being so ungrateful and so completely obvious in my awkwardness. “It’s really sweet. I appreciate it.”
“And we appreciateyou. It’s been almost five years and you’ve done so much for our firm. I would be lost without you.”
What was a normal response to direct praise? Ridiculously specific internet memes were more my love language. “Of course. I love working for you.”
My smile stayed firmly in place even as I did the math. It was not possible that it had been five years since graduating college and taking this admin position until I launched my writing career.
That couldn’t be right.
But … it was.
A few of my coworkers drifted past to say their birthday wishes, including the cute guy, Pete, from sales, so that was nice. Several people invited me to join them for happy hour and graciously pretended to believe me when I said I had plans. Maybe someday I would join them to chat and gossip about office stuff, but today I had been walloped upside the head by unexpected birthday blues. After just a few minutes of being social, I was ready to leave for the day. I excused myself with as little fanfare as possible without being rude.
