Whore.

Chapter 27: Silicone

Swash's words were setting off a chain of thoughts in my head and I felt the need to sit down. I crossed over to the bed as I felt my knees give out. Swash was looking at the floor. Suddenly, his behaviour over the past few days seemed irrelevant. Hell, they made sense. He had so much going on, and I was only being an unnecessary complication. His livelihood was threatened. If he got fired, who knew when he could get another job? He could lose the house; he and Bradley would have to relocate, which would mean a change of school for Bradley and a whole new life. And Bradley was barely settled here. This was very bad timing.

"What exactly happened?" I didn't expect his reply to salvage the situation. I just felt the need to know how he got to this position. Great time to want to know about his personal business, Mike. I ignored the voice in my head and waited for his reply.
"Well..." His gaze slowly met mine. "It all started after I got the ideas for our new set of advertising campaigns. You know, based on the Japanese stuff you showed me. I thought they were really good so I pitched the ideas to Rod and the other guys. I even showed them the videos. They all thought they were good too, but a few were worried if they'd ever get the approval. I didn't think getting approval would be an issue; the ideas were just too good to pass up. So I worked on plotlines for possible adverts and ran them by Rodney. He had a couple of his other creative friends look them over. We fine-tuned a couple until we got some pretty good scripts. All this was ready within two days. They were meant purely for presentations." he paused and sighed.
"And then?"
"And then filming our new product ranges began, and I thought I could test run them. So I...I switched the scripts."

I formed a frown.

"Yeah, I know. It was a stupid idea, now that this shit storm is blowing my way. The actors worked on the new scripts and made the adverts the way we had written. Rod found out late. He was really scared for what would happen. I told him I'd take responsibility for anything that came up, as I had done the switch anyway. By the time word got around and the director realized they were using the wrong script, the actors had already been paid. They refused to do a second shoot without another paycheck. Then the source of the error was traced and here we are."
I breathed out as I took in all the info. I had never worked in a major corporation, but even my job as a waiter had taught me that there was an established chain of command in any company. Breaking that chain in any form could only lead to bad news. Swash had done something impulsive, like he always did. And though his intentions were good, there were consequences for defying authority.

"But you're not fired."
"No. Not yet anyway."
"How come you weren't just fired on the spot?"
"My personal standing with my supervising officer helped pull some weight for me. He said I'm on some sort of probation, but I can tell the others just want me fired to set an example."
"What you did was pretty stupid." I looked at him and tried to smile. He didn't return my expression. I only did that because I didn't like seeing him this way, looking sad and tortured. But I couldn't blame him; I wasn't the one up shit creek without a paddle. This was a pretty dire situation. And the uncertainty made it more complicated. If he had been fired, he would know what to do and would already be doing it. Now he was just in some sort of limbo. I found myself rubbing his shoulder. He placed his hand over mine and looked into my eyes.

"You'll be okay, Swash."
"You don't know that."
"You'll be okay," I repeated. Denial seemed to be my preferred manner for handling situations like these. I remembered saying the same words after Jason had gotten stabbed. While he did turn out okay, I did not believe my words had been prophetic in any way. I was just trying to stop myself from freaking out. And here I was, doing it again. Swash looked at my hand that was still on his shoulder and I removed it nervously. He seemed to flinch as I withdrew, but he said nothing. We sat in the room in silence for a few minutes. I knew he had a lot to think about, but I chose to be there just to show he wasn't alone in all this. Actually, he was. I had no commitments here whatsoever. I could leave any time I wanted. But it was the thought that counted.