The lobby has a Starbucks coffee cart. The neighborhood is great, with shops and restaurants all around as well as parks, making me feel optimistic about lots of places to hang out on lunch breaks.
I’m stoked for this new job. It’s a great building and lots of people looking busy and cheerful for a Monday morning so that speaks good things about the morale of the place. I see younger creative types as well as those in business attire looking like accounting or IT types.
Alice is a sweet, youthful, sultry fifty-something redheaded lady with a great Boho style and a British accent. She shows us to our cubicles, which are side-by-side and have half-walls, so we’ve got semi-private work areas, but the cubicle farm design means you can pop up like a prairie dog to talk to your neighbors. This is how Alice describes it, telling us the corporate culture at CC is an open, fun, and collaborative environment.
If we don’t want to work at our cubes, the main floor lobby has an atrium that’s open and filled with couches and beanbag chairs, and employees are welcome to work down there. Each cubicle has a name tag plate and a blank metal plate that has colored magnets system with “meeting”, “lunch”, “offsite meeting”, “atrium”, or “gone fishing” so you can put a magnet on the name plate to show we’re you are, if you’re not at your desk.
Alice says, “If there’s no magnet on your name plate, we expect to find you within shouting distance.”
Alice then tells us that we are in the marketing area and there are a handful of cubes near two offices, which she says belong to the marketing director, George, who is on leave of absence for the next nine to twelve weeks after having surgery, which I knew about, and which is partly why I was rushed here with such a fast turnaround to help with their online marketing. The other office, the one right behind my cubicle, (an end cubicle, and I’ve got one tall wall and one short one, the one between my and Ally’s cubes) belongs to the marketing VP, Aiden Carmichael.
“When he’s here,” Alice says. “He usually works out of the New York City office, but he’s here while George is off.” She says this to Ally.
I startle and look. I haven’t got a full view of the office from where I stand.
No.
“Aiden?” I double-check what Alice said.
“Aiden Carmichael, Mr. C’s son.” She gives me a peculiar look, which makes sense, since she has to know he’s my roommate, so she probably figures we’ve had a conversation or two. She’d be right, but those convos were less than civil.
I crane my neck and look and yep... nightmare at 1 o’clock in a three-piece suit. I see him through his glass walled office talking on his phone, pacing and looking angry. He’s in a chocolate brown suit today, vest, cream colored shirt, chocolate brown tie, still sporting that scruff on his face, and looking more delicious than ever. The asshole.
I had wondered, this morning, if he’d left early for work or if he was still in bed. Or, if maybe he hadn’t come in the night before.
How could his ass look so good in those suit trousers?
I catch Ally eyeing him.
“You’ve met Aiden, I assume,” Alice says.
“I, uh… yes. I have.” I’m red in the face and I feel my knees wobble as Aiden’s eyes meet mine. After a beat, he smirks at me. The cocky bastard.
“You work at Carmichael?”
“I guess you could say that.”
What an absolute jerk, purposely being vague. My God, he’s not just the son of the CEO; Alice said VP of Marketing. That means… yep, he’s my boss’s boss and since my boss is on medical leave, I report directly to the jerk.
Ally looks at me with confusion.
I spin around so my back is to Aiden.
“He’s my roommate. I was going to ask about being moved.”
Alice chuckles, leans in close, and asks in a low voice, “Too much man meat to be in close proximity to? We don’t have a non-fraternization policy, if that’s your worry.”
“That’s not it,” I mutter.
“You have a boyfriend?” Alice asks.
I shake my head. “Freshly single. Boyfriend dumped me less than a week ago.”
“So, you’re not gay?” Ally tries.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” Alice adds, giving Ally a disapproving look.
“No. Not gay. He…um…” I stop. “Nevermind, it’s fine. I’ll make do.”