“Good morning Caryss. You’re looking well today,” Trevor said as he held out his hand to help Caryss out of the car. The comment would have been appreciated, had he not been looking down her dress when he said it. As she exited the car and stood up straight, a light breeze swept down the sidewalk and blew the bottom of her skirt slightly up, giving Trevor an extended view of her upper thigh.
“Good morning girls,” said Laurie cheerfully as she walked up to the car and purposely bumped into Trevor. She saw the way he was gawking at Caryss and it was possible she hated it more than Caryss did. Stacie and Nick climbed out of the car and stood on the sidewalk with Laurie, Trevor and Caryss, different thoughts running through each of their minds.
I wonder where Liz is, thought Stacie as she looked around. “I’m going to call Liz and find out what’s keeping her, I’ll be right back,” she said aloud as she pulled out her cell phone and walked a few feet away from the group to place her call.
Why does he do that? Laurie thought to herself as she watched Trevor move closer and closer to Caryss, trying to make a conversation happen that clearly wasn’t going to. I should have known that he would eventually do the same thing to me that he did to his assistant before me. Bastard. He’s not going to get away with it this time though.
How do I professionally tell Trevor to stay away from me? I don’t want him to kick me off this project, but I cannot go on for another two weeks or a month or however long I am going to be here with him checking me out and licking his lips every time he sees me. Caryss was growing more and more irritated by his looks and his remarks with every passing minute. We’ve been standing here for five freaking minutes and he’s looked down my dress at least a half a dozen times. Note to self, tomorrow, I’m wearing a turtleneck.
If that prick does not stop staring at her like that, I’m going to punch him, Nick thought angrily to himself as he watched Trevor flirt with and touch Caryss in an unprofessional way. I can’t believe she would even stand for him to be doing that to her. Why doesn’t she say anything to him? His face got redder and redder, and his kept clenching and unclenching his fists.
“Liz is on her way, she just got caught in traffic,” announced Stacie as she made her way back to the group. “She should be here in five minutes. Why don’t we all go up to the meeting room and get settled.” Stacie ushered everyone into the building and into the elevator. Caryss squeezed next to Nick in the elevator and placed her hand over his, trying to calm him down.
“I know you’re upset, I am too. I just need to find the right time and place to tell Trevor he is acting inappropriately and he needs to stop,” she whispered in his ear as the elevator climbed to the 22nd floor. “I want to keep things as professional as possible.” Nick nodded his head in understanding gave her a quick peck on the cheek.
Whatever is going on there I will have to put a kibosh to, Trevor said to himself as he watched Caryss and Nick whisper and touch. No way is a Backstreet Boy going to interfere in my conquest. He snickered to himself as the elevator dinged and everyone cleared out of it.
Ten minutes later, when everyone was talking and getting reacquainted, Liz came bounding through the conference rooms doors out of breath and appearing a little disheveled.
“Sorry I’m late, traffic,” she muttered as she threw her purse down and took a seat across from Caryss. Caryss flicked her eyebrows a couple times at Liz, moving her eyes from Liz’s to the dark purple hickey on Liz’s neck. Liz quickly looked down and noticed it was showing, and then grabbed the silk scarf that was adding color to her handbag off and flipped it around her neck stylishly.
Caryss nodded her head at Liz, signaling that the mark was securely covered and no one but herself had seen it and the meeting started immediately. Caryss and Stacie worked on creating the new look of the logo while Liz and Trevor worked the public relations end of things and started making contacts for the gala. Nick was busy updating the books and making sure the accounting end of the project was right on with some help from Laurie.
An hour later lunch was brought in and everyone took a well deserved break. They updated each other on what they had accomplished and shared some more ideas on how to improve the project.
“We are almost done with the new logo, and it only took an hour,” Caryss said with a smile. “I don’t think it’s going to take a whole month to get this campaign finished, thank God.”
“I agree, it’s going a lot smoother and faster than I thought it would,” agreed Liz as she took a sip of her diet soda. “But that just means more fun time for us.” She smiled wickedly at Stacie and Caryss, and both girls starting laughing in stereo.
“So I take it you ladies had a good time last night?” Trevor interjected. “Too bad I wasn’t there to keep you girls in line,” he continued, winking at Caryss. “Who knows what kind of guys you picked up and if I would have been there, you wouldn’t have had to worry about who was going to take you home.”
“Oh Trevor, we did just fine without you,” Liz shot back, rolling her eyes at the thought of “going home” with Trevor. “Nick was there to protect us.” Nick’s face lit up when he saw Trevor’s cloud over and he knew Liz had just verbally kicked him in the junk.
“Well, how fortunate for you all then,” Trevor concluded as he glared at Nick. “I suggest we finish eating and get back to work.” With that, everyone finished eating in mostly silence and then once the dishes were cleared way everyone returned to the busy state they were in before lunch.
“Nick, do you think the guys would join you at the gala and maybe sing a couple songs? That would be a good way to attract additional guests,” suggested Laurie as she continued to type away on her laptop.
“I’ll ask ‘em about it. I’m sure they would,” he responded, never looking up from the work in front of him. “We don’t have anything scheduled for the next four months anyway so it’s not like we have other pressing engagements to be at.”
Caryss looked up at him questioningly, and he smiled at her. “We are on ‘vacation’,” he said, putting his fingers up as parentheses as he said vacation.
“Oh, I see,” said Caryss with a smile before returning back to her work. At six o’clock Trevor cleared his throat, stirring everyone out of their work state and back into reality.
“Okay team, let’s update each other on what we’ve accomplished today and then we’ll call it a day, how does that sound?” he asked as everyone gathered what they were working on and prepared to give their updates. When that was done, everyone packed up their work and started filing out of the conference room. As they all congregated in the elevator, Caryss decided this would be a good time to plan the next meeting.
“Okay people, we got quite a bit accomplished today and we are way ahead of schedule, so I think it would be fair to say that we don’t need to meet again for about a week. That will give everyone enough time to finish what they’re doing and then we can regroup and go from there.”
“That’s a good idea because it will take about a week to get the signs and stuff back from printing and then we can see what everything is going to look like for real,” added Stacie with a smile.
After making sure that everyone had everyone else’s cell phone numbers to contact one another if there were any questions, everyone filed out of the elevator. Trevor walked up behind Caryss quickly to talk to her, but Nick beat him to the punch.
“Coming with me?” Caryss asked with a cute smile on her face as she turned around to face Nick. He grabbed her hand and pulled her into the car quickly, slamming the door shut before Trevor could open his mouth.
“Where else would I be, love?” he said sweetly as he kissed her neck. He told Derek where to take them and as the car pulled away form the curb, he couldn’t help but look back at Trevor still standing there with a look of war on his face. This is going to get interesting, Nick noted to himself as he turned back around in his seat and brought his focus back to Caryss.
“So where are we going?” Caryss asked as they approached the freeway.
“I want to show you my place.” Caryss nodded, and the thirty minute car ride to Nick’s house was spent getting to know each other better and better. By the time they arrived, they could each have written a short biography on the other person.
If You Stay by Andro
