AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I pictured myself doing old school NSYNC dance moves in the middle of a flash mob. The funny thing was, it didn’t sound terrible. Not even a little bit.
Marcel chuckled at my reaction. “You’re a weird dude, Denver. Nothing scares you. That’s good. A company like ours needs all types.” Marcel swiped his keycard and stepped into the office, holding the door open for me. “You get the desk over there. Next to—”
“Me.” Across from us, Sadie swung around in her chair and launched a dodgeball right at my chest. By some miracle, I caught it, and without thinking, launched it right back at her, hitting her in the knees.
“Dang you!” She swung her chair back around and hunched over her desk.
Marcel rubbed his forehead. “So, you and Sadie will be working together. Like we’ve mentioned before, we always work in teams so everything is above-board. Try not to kill each other. If you have any questions or concerns, ask Wendy or Rob. They’re going to train you.”
I looked behind me at the two desks tucked against the opposite wall, where two people were sitting and staring at us. They were both middle-aged. Wendy had a motherly, caring aura about her, down to the flowery dress she was wearing with her orthopedic flats. Rob was more of the computer geek stereotype I’d expected. Hair a little overgrown. Shirt tucked in with no belt. Ancient sneakers paired with fun socks.
From the looks of surprise on their faces, I had a feeling they hadn’t been expecting Sadie’s sneak attack on me either. It was nice to know I brought something out of her no one else could. Like a personality.
Marcel leaned down and retrieved the dodgeball from the floor. “Dodgeballs stay downstairs from now on, Sadie.”
“Yep. Won’t happen again.” She gave him a salute that would have been pure mockery from anyone else, but knowing Sadie, it was the best she could do at the moment. Then Marcel left, and it was just the four of us.
Wendy rolled her desk chair over to where I was still standing and put out a hand to shake mine. “Welcome, Denver.”
I gave her hand a firm shake. “Thanks. How do I get started?”
“Oh, we’ll walk you through everything, dearie. Don’t you worry. What Rob and I do is report on how the groups are doing and what they’re up to. Marcel sometimes calls it a vibe check. We’re not moderators. Those guys work from home, and they’ll watch comment by comment, making sure everyone is following the rules. No inappropriate language. No asking for phone numbers. That sort of thing. You’re going to get to know the group as a whole and check on its health.”
She and Rob helped me get set up and showed me how to navigate between chat rooms, how to find their event calendar, where to put my notes, and how to flag concerns. All their meetups needed to be safe, legal, and in public places. We gave them a list of suggestions, but they were allowed to choose their own. Hence, the newsraiding activities.
Sadie gave no input except a few huffy noises when I cracked jokes. Her loss. Anyone who didn’t like my jokes had to be a monster.
Wendy clearly enjoyed teaching, and when she was done, she beamed at me like a proud mom. “And now you know as much as Sadie. The two of you will be sharing screens today. We start you with three groups to watch over. When you’re old pros like us, you’ll check on dozens at a time.”
“That many?”
Wendy gave a modest shrug. “We know what to look for, and these groups practically run themselves. When they’re paying to be here and hoping to meet up in person, people tend to behave. It’s a troll-free zone, we like to say.” She gave a little giggle. “If you do have any problem people, you bump them up the chain to Marcel. Understood?”
“Understood.” It was all pretty straight-forward, especially since I knew the handbook backwards and forwards already. I knew what was against terms. I knew the goals. And I knew my restrictions: no mentioning users or anything they might say outside of this room.
“Ready for this?” I asked Sadie, allowing myself a real glance in her direction since we’d be collaborating. I’d been careful about glances ever since the fateful drop-off of Makayla’s mixer. It made no sense, but I still got a swirly sensation in my gut when I let myself look at Sadie too long, and today was no exception. I couldn’t unsee. No, that wasn’t the right word. I couldn’t unfeel. Oh, how I wished I could. Sadie did something to me with just a steely glare in my direction, even in her black cargo pants and boxy gray T-shirt that werehideous. But it meant nothing. It would change NOTHING. It was rebound hormones misfiring because I’d recently broken up with someone. All to be expected. Any day now, my body was going to calm back down, and I’d go back to not thinking about Sadie at all.
Sadie’s eyebrows dipped. “Why are you staring at me?”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m cataloguing your outfit.”
She looked down at her shirt as if seeing it for the first time and frowned. “I wish you were lying, but I know you’re not. I don’t know anyone who cares about fashion more than you. It’s embarrassing.”
“I’membarrassing?”
“Yes.”
“Can I ask why you’re wearing that?”
“It’s comfortable.”
“It looks like it got shot out of a T-shirt cannon at a Sun’s game.”
Sadie leaned towards me and sniffed. “I’ll burn this shirt if you’ll throw out whatever cologne it is you bathe in every day. It’s worse than the one you wore when I lived with you.”
