Living With Boys

nineteen // the sam newman caveat

Social situations were usually my bread and butter, but preparing for my first big girl corporate job had me in a full anxiety spiral. I spent half the morning doing and redoing my hair, undecided about whether it was more professional to have it up or down or somewhere in between. Halfway through the spiral, I considered chopping it all off.

I forced Jameson to sit in the ensuite with me and dictate just how winged my eyeliner should be, the height of my heels and the size of my earrings, until he threw up his hands and exclaimed, "no one gives a shit when you're really hot."

And then I went downstairs to eat breakfast and found an iced coffee and pancakes prepared for me with a good luck note in Will's neat handwriting and felt instantly better.

I wiped my hands nervously on the expensive dress Zara left in my closet for my first day. Lena emailed me last night to let me know she would pick me up from the foyer–I needed a key card to access the main building, which they could set me up with when I arrived–but the wait was tortuous. It only gave me more time to spiral.

Yeah, I was good at bonding with people, but that was a bond I usually forged with wine, inappropriate sex jokes or my insatiable appetite for chatter. None of which said young professional.

I shouldn't have been concerned.

Lena was five minutes late to pick me up from the foyer, and though she nailed the corporate aesthetic—her clothes and makeup were immaculate—she was not interested at all in demure work chatter. "Isabelle, you look fantastic. Have you recovered from Saturday night? Jonah texted me to say he spent the whole next day in bed, but I think that's just his natural state more than any sort of hangover. He also said that Will went for a recovery run and an ocean swim, which I would call fucking psychopath behaviour, but Hartley does the same thing."

I hadn't even had the chance to stand up. "They're very consistently themselves."

"Nutters. Anyway, come upstairs." She turned on her heel and gestured toward the elevators at the other end of the massive foyer. "I'll set you up with your mentor, and he can take you through the boring stuff. Then I'll pick you up at midday and we can go for a welcome wine lunch on the company card."

Lena's legs were impossibly long–maybe the only girl I knew who was taller than me–and she cleared the floor with very little regard for anyone who might be walking beside her. She was also far more proficient at walking in heels, I was left to desperately clack my way to her side.

She kept talking, no indication of her pace in her even tone. "Did you see the bartender on Saturday night? He was so hot. I tried to set Daria up with him, but she said no. Something about not wanting to ditch Jonah."

At least Lena assuaged my anxiety around workplace chit chat. Gossiping was well and truly in my wheelhouse, and I felt the knot in my stomach loosen.

"Does Jonah have a thing for Daria?" I asked.

Lena frowned. "Jonah and Daria? No. They've been friends forever."

Friendship doesn't preclude feelings, I wanted to say. Believe me.

But then I wasn't sure why I thought that. I'd never had a crush on a friend. From watching Kai and Valerie and their ridiculous attempt at friendship while they shamelessly flirted and pined, I knew it was possible.

Instead, I just shrugged. Lena had known both of them for over a decade, and had a far better grasp on the mechanics of their relationship than I did.

"Anyway." Lena blew a strand of hair from her eyes and pressed the button for the elevator. "You'll be working in our marketing team. There's five of you on the project team, but three of them are part-timers. Sam is one of our newer hires, but he's less dull than the others, so I put him in charge of training you. I would only subject someone I hate to a boring mentor."