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You know what else isn’t good for me right now? That dress. Can I ban red attire from the office? Coming up with a valid excuse for it might be hard. Saying I can’t handle it when Mila wears that dress would be downright ridiculous and most likely an HR violation. Could I say it’s offensive to bulls or something? Why am I even thinking about this?
Pull it together, Grayson.
Okay, right. I need to stop this insanity and focus on the task at hand. I clear my throat, attempting to shake off any distracting thoughts. I direct my gaze toward Jason. Yeah, that’s a safe place to look—a little reality check for my overactive hormones.
My head of development is definitely not someone I’m attracted to, and on further inspection, it would appear Jason is currently picking his nose.Good hell, man.He’s trying to pass it off as inconspicuous, but let’s be real: everyone in this room is well aware of that maneuver.
I take a breath and move my eyes back to my iPad. It seems to be the only safe view for me right now.
“All right, team, tell me something good that happened this past week,” I say, miraculously sounding like the owner of this company, rather than some lovestruck fool who can’t keep his eyes off the woman in the red dress.
This is how I kick off our weekly meeting. We go around the conference table, each of us sharing a win from either our professional or personal lives.
I originally started this good news piece in an attempt to get my team more aligned, to help us get to know one another. Despite having worked together for a while now, I’ve kept it on the agenda. It’s my way of staying connected with the seven people on my leadership team, since I’m the kind of person who tends to become consumed by work and can easily lose sight of the fact that there is a world beyond these company walls. Also, the chance to hear a little about Mila’s life every week is an added benefit, pathetic as it sounds.
I direct my attention toward Vikram, my head of quality assurance, who’s seated in the first chair to my left. He’s been here longer than most everyone sitting at this table, so he’s a safe place to start. I know and trust him implicitly.
“What ya got for us, Vik?”
Vik’s gaze drops briefly to the table before meeting my eyes again. “I’ve got some big news, actually,” he says with just a hint of a British accent. “We found out a few weeks ago that my wife is pregnant,” he announces, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. The room instantly erupts with congratulations. “We got to see the ultrasound yesterday and everything is looking good.”
“That’s great news,” I tell him, once the happy praise from everyone else has calmed down. “If you’re looking for name ideas, Grayson’s a strong one.”
I get a few chuckles for my feeble attempt at humor, and my gaze instinctively shifts toward Mila in hopes I’ve coaxed a smile from her. Yep, there it is, that gentle smile, accentuating her perfect, full lips—which I’m now realizing are the same color as her dress. Is she trying to kill me?
And back to my iPad.
“How about you, Nadia?” I ask my head of sales, who’s sitting next to Vik. I make sure to keep my eyes glued to the screen in front of me and tap a finger on it randomly, so I look like I’m doing something other than trying to keep my focus from wandering back to Mila, who’s seated next to Nadia.
“Well, I’ve got some big news myself, actually,” Nadia says. “Shane and I have set a date for our wedding and it’s next month.” My eyes instantly move away from my screen and dart to hers, my brow furrowing.
“Next month?” I ask, confused. Is that why Shane called me so early this morning? I missed his call when I was out for a run. I haven’t had a chance to call him back.
“June twenty-third,” she says, her smile grand. “It’s on the beach in Oahu. You’re all invited, of course.”
More congratulations go around the room.
“That’s … great news,” I say as a heaviness lands in my gut. June 23rd? That’s less than a month away. This isnotgreat news, actually. Shane, my closest friend, someone I’ve known since college, is getting married in less than four weeks to one of my best employees. I introduced them, for crap’s sake. Am I expected to be there? He’s already asked me to be his best man, and I said yes. But that’s when I thought we were at least a year away, maybe two. What’s changed?
Whatever the reason, this couldn’t be happening at a worse time. We’re in the final stages for GlobeTrotter, and I need every moment of the next three months—and every person in this room—to get ready for the launch scheduled on September 5th. We’ve already had to push back the release date twice; we can’t afford to lose any more time. Not with the possible competition that’s right at our heels. And especially not now with the app summit in New York that I’ve pulled major strings to get us into. I don’t want to think of the work relationships I might lose if we aren’t ready by then.
I can’t afford to miss a weekend of work, or even a day right now. There’s too much on the line, and it all has to go just right. If this app doesn’t hit big … then … well, I can’t think about that. It just has to.
What can I do, though? I can’t be the douchebag that tells Nadia she can’t have the time off to get married and that her coworkers can’t go. Why Hawaii, though? Why so far away? Why not like a backyard or Red Rocks or something? We have plenty of beautiful places in Colorado, especially in the summer months.
“Grayson, you’ll be there as the best man, yes?” she asks me.
“I—”
“Weddings should really be planned more in advance,” Jason interjects, in that way he does. Like he knows everything. It’s his MO, really, and while I normally find it annoying, I’m kind of with him on this one. Plus, he spared me from answering.
“Yes, thank you for that, Jason,” she says, a scowl on her face. If looks could kill, Nadia would be a powerful weapon. “Not that it’s any of your business, but we don’t want to wait. And weddings are pulled off quickly all the time.”
“I’d love to be there if I can swing it,” Simone, my head of HR, says in that raspy tone of hers. I was sort of hoping Simone would pipe in with something about staggering our time off so I don’t have to look like the ass here. She’s always been too nice.
“My wife’s pregnancy is high risk, so I don’t know if we can go,” says Vik. I should feel terrible right now that this bit of information fills me with relief. But of all the people at this table, Vik is probably the most essential right now. His team is doing all the testing on the app to make sure everything is working properly.
“I probably can’t go either,” Mila says, and Nadia gives her a murderous glare. Daggers from her eyes. Okay, that’s another person who really needs to be here. As project manager, Mila’s the one pulling all the strings to make this happen. This might work out okay after all.
