Relationships in the Workplace

Trouble At Work

It was yet another day in the office with Mayve bugging Mano about how his weekend went. "So she stayed over?!" she was leaning across his desk with her elbows on the desk and her head resting on her open hands. Mano glared at her as a silent message for her to keep it down, "Yes she did. What else was I supposed to do after that prick of an ex ruined our day out?" Mayve mischievously grins, "You really want me to answer that?" Mano darts his attention to her away from his computer, "Forget I asked." Mayve leaned back into the office chair where usually clients sit and with a superior expression on her face said, "Could've slept at her place." Mano coughs on purpose with his arm over his mouth, "Shut, cough, Up." 

At that moment one of the higher-ups strolled over to Mano and Mayve, "Mano my office please." Mano was startled by the sudden request, but nodded "Of course." He got up and followed the higher up into their office on the opposite side of the office space. Mayve stayed behind at Manos's desk watching them leave when she heard, "Good morning Mayve." Mayve turns her head and sees Ari walk over with their shoulder bag, "Oh good morning Ari." Ari notices Mano isn't around as she glances left and right, "And Mano?" Mayve grinned but held back from teasing Ari, "Supervisor called him into their office." Fear kicked in for Ari but she held back, "W-why?" She still stammered over her words.

The supervisor is the same supervisor that onboarded Ari when she was transferred to their building and she has quite the minimalistic desk space, the only things on her desk are a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Other than that their desk is pretty clean to the human eye. "Mano I feel like I can get straight to the point with you since you've been with us for some time" they start. Hearing how she started the conversation tenses Mano as he braced for what was coming next, "Of course and I wouldn't want anything else from my direct supervisor." She gives him a soft half smile as she exhales, "Are you and Ari an item?" With that one question Mano's heart begins to race as he thinks to himself, 'If I say yes... Will I risk our positions? Will it be considered a conflict of interest? Will they transfer me or her or both? Will they consider it inappropriate? Will-' As his mind raced he didn't realize his Supervisor had been trying to get his attention, "Mano? Are you alright?"

Mano snaps out of it and looks into his supervisor's eyes with a determined plan, "Is that the rumor that is going around?" Seeing that she has his attention she fixes her posture in her seat, "I am only asking you this because my higher-ups caught wind of something going on and wanted me to ask since I am your direct report." She further explains sympathetically, "Personally I do not care Mano. As long as you and Ari are doing your jobs, but the higher-ups are thinking it'll be a liability." 

Hearing that his relationship with Ari is being viewed as a liability boils his blood, but it's not with her he should be angry with. "Where did this..? I mean how did this-? Nidia?" he couldn't find the right words to ask as he looked into his supervisor's eyes. She closed her eyes sighing, "When you personally took care of that long-time client to close his account. For a long time, they wanted him gone, but you accelerated that and it worked in the company's favor. However, they don't think you'd be lucky twice, Mano."

Mano's anger started to show as he firmly clenched his hands into fists, "Do they even know this guy was arrested the same day?!" Nidia's brow raised, "What are you talking about?" He inhaled and exhaled to calm himself down, "H-he..." he inhaled and exhaled out several times more before feeling the confidence to speak, "He was waiting for Ari after work and a-assaulted her when she got to her car..." Nidia's expression became disturbed learning of this, "Thank you for sharing that Mano. I assume nothing happened to Ari if he was arrested that same day?" He nods, "That is correct. She was able to defend herself, the cops were called, and he was arrested." There were a few moments of silence as Mano waited on Nidia's next response, "We're done here, Mano. I'll take care of my bosses and you go take care of yourself. Don't worry about them, I know you're careful. Just try to lay low with Ari." She winked at him as if she knew more than she was letting on. Mano got up feeling grateful she tried to comfort him, but he was still shaken.

Ari was doing some work at her desk when she noticed Mano walking by her cubicle space. She could see that his mind was wandering as he walked as if on autopilot.  "Hey! You've been in there for a while. Is everything alright?" Hearing her voice snapped him out of his mind trip. He gestured towards the breakroom and she nodded leading the way to the breakroom. He follows in after her and as they shut the door she faces him, "What's going on?" He walks over to the coffee maker to blend some fresh coffee, "Nidia's bosses are onto us." With just that she caught the weight of the situation, "Okay...?" She waited for more from him. He prepared his mug, poured his brown sugar, and stirred it, "They... they believe we have a romantic relationship and if that is the case then they consider it a liability." He took a sip of his coffee to see if he prepared it the way he liked. 

"Why the hell should they care?!" Ari blew up in the breakroom and thankfully there was no one there. Mano glanced at her sadly and took another sip of coffee, "It's thanks to my protective behavior that we're in this mess now." She became puzzled and grabbed a tea bag to prepare something for herself, "What are you talking about?" He explained to her about what was discussed in his meeting with Nidia. "Jerks..." she says under her breath in disbelief. She sips some of her tea and exhales, "We gotta get back to work if we don't want them to be onto us more than they already are..." She kisses his cheek and says, "See you out there alright?" He nods silently and he tries his best to smile at her, but he's clearly forcing it, "Yeah... I'll see you." She had to read his lips because his voice barely came out when he spoke.

Later That Day

Mano's thoughts have been eating at him ever since the office discussion with Nidia. He's been primarily communicating with Ari via email and text messages throughout the day. The only times where they verbally communicated were at lunch and whenever it was work-related. Mano was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't notice Ari come up to his desk, "Hey, it's time to punch out mister." He jumped in his seat scared not expecting her and because he didn't realize the time he rushed to punch himself out of work, "Damn you're right." He's been serious the whole day and it's beginning to worry Ari, "Mano? You've been lost in your mind the whole day. Even during lunch, I had to snap you out of it. Are you sure you don't want me to keep you company?" He thought about it but shook his head, "I don't want to burden you, Ari. Nor do I want you to think that I need babysitting." 

He packed his personal belongings into his crossbody shoulder pack and walked out with her. "Mano I know that, but I don't like seeing you like this" she admits as she stops him from walking, "And slow down you're walking way too fast." He blankly stares at her for a bit, he closes his eyes, exhales, inhales, and calmly asks, "Can we hug it out... I think I just.. i think I just need that." She smiles and nods, "Of course how could I deny that?" Mano and Ari embrace each other and they stay like that for a good while. To signal he was done he kissed the side of her head, "Thanks." When they split she looked up at him in hopes that bettered his mood. "You're still not coming over" Then he dashed for his car.

"HEY!" she yelled after him. "That's not cool!" she glared him down as he hopped into his car and drove off. "Oh just you wait Mano... just you wait.." she gets into her car and takes off herself. Mano felt bad for leaving her the way he did, but he didn't want to feel like a burden to anyone especially a burden to her. When he arrived home he saw a familiar car, "No way..." When he pulls up he sees Ari in her jeep on her phone. She gives him the widest yet innocent smile as he gets out of his car. 

She does the same and before he can argue she grabs him by the collar and acts as if she is about to punch him readying a fist, "I'm going to 'babysit' you whether you like it or not." Without another word or allowing him to dispute she walks off towards the front door of his house. Mano fixed his collar and watched her feeling relief. "Damn it Aria... how I love you"