Offices and Orchards (A New Adult Sweet Romance)

Chapter 7

As the end of the day neared, Autumn started thinking about the upcoming evening: sitting in front of the TV and dozing off on the couch after finishing the powerpoint. "Some people are heading to the Cabin? Think you can make time to go?" Of course Amber had other ideas.
"The Cabin?" The last thing she wanted was to go out somewhere and have to be social.
"Yeah, it's a restaurant slash bar. You haven't heard of it?" Autumn raised her shoulders up into a shrug. "You need to get out more Autumn."
"It's Thursday! And tomorrow is the last day of orientation and we're going out then, and we already went out once today," It was a pretty typical answer from an introvert.
"So?"
"Twice in one day? If I go, I don't think I'll get enough sleep tonight." Amber nudged her friend with her elbow. "Who needs sleep? Plus, didn't you guys just submit the Carter project?"
"That's why I need to recover at home. On my own."
"What you need is some time to unwind before you explode and redecorate the office with your innards."
Autumn shook her head. "You have such a way with words."
"I'm a poet," she grinned, "come on. Let's go before you reinterpret Jackson Pollock on the office ceiling."
"Alright fine. But next time we at least do an outdoor patio at a place called Beachhouse or something. The cabin,"
Autumn did think that maybe she had to invest a bit more in her social relations with others: her work ethic was good and all, but if nobody wanted to work with her, then she would not get anywhere in her internship.
The bar was already busy, with many of its patrons being Autumn's co-workers. She at least had to see socialising and making friends with colleagues as a part of the job, a necessary task, even if it did eat into her TV and alone time. "It's a bit weird seeing them all like this," Autumn mumbled.
"I know what you mean. Over there," Amber pointed to a booth in the corner. "But I definitely need to spend more time socialising- I've barely said two words to Rusty and Arthur in weeks." They were tucked into a booth with their coworkers, drinks in their hands, ties loosened, chatting and laughing. Autumn waved as they went by. "Yep, you gotta just see it as part of the job." Amber informed her. They passed Evie on the way as well, giving her a little wave as they went. She returned their greeting with a little nod of the head and wave back at them as she spoke, not breaking her story.
They slid into a booth only a second before two others slid in immediately across from them. "Oh." Autumn blurted out.
"It's the last open spot, what do you want me to do? Sit on the floor?" Harvey replied, Another comment intended as a joke that she would no doubt interpret as an insult. "I didn't suggest it," Autumn said. Clearly the help he had given her earlier had won him nothing.
"We can leave if you ladies like...." the guy with Harvey started to say.
"Nah, we're going to stay right here Gould. We saw this booth first. We just got held up talking to important people."
"If they are that important, you should probably go and sit with them, no?" Autumn said sourly, fed up with the ego on him.
"The problem here is that he isn't important enough to sit with them." The man called Gould gestured to Harvey, smiling.
"So you're not as big of a deal as you like to pretend to be. What a surprise," Autumn said grumpily. Harvey opened his mouth to protest, but then closed it again, recalling her reaction to his comment only seconds before, when he had tried to say something funny to her. She couldn't believe she had given up a TV night in celebration of submitting the PowerPoint to sit with Harvey, who still thought he was better than everybody else. The only people he had time for were the ones he thought could further his agenda.
As soon as the server had taken their orders, Autumn leaned towards the other guy across the table. He had short cropped dark brown hair and big, round eyes. Really good-looking in a preppy boy band kind of way. "I'm Autumn. What's your name?"
"Brandon Gould."
"I hear a little accent?" Amber asked.
"Yes, Texas. Originally,"
"You're new at S and W?" Autumn asked.
"Kind of."
"Well I'm new myself but allow me to welcome you nonetheless!" Amber said.
"Thank you!"
"What department are you in?"
"bombarded by the A-team." Harvey interjected, who regretted his comment as soon as it had come out: he had to accept he wasn't ever going to be properly heard by these two.
"A-team?" Amber and Autumn asked in unison while Brandon was looking back and forth between them all with a confused expression on his face.
"Yeah. Amber and Autumn. The new superstar interns," he said earnestly, but Autumn only heard sarcasm in his voice.
"Well we must be at least a little important, if you've taken the time to give us a nickname. What's yours? Party Harvey? Lacky Macky?" Autumn pursed her lips. He looked a little hurt as he shrugged off his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his button down shirt.
"it's not just me, everyone calls you ladies that name. I happen to think it's quite appropriate." Autumn shrugged, wishing she could be anywhere else.
"Well of course he knows what everyone calls us, cause he spends most of his time socialising rather than working." Autumn spat poison. Harvey studied the porcelain skin, the beautiful full lips tight in a frown, the eyes the colour of tropical seas. There was no winning with this woman. Tease her and she thinks it's an insult, give her a compliment and she thinks it's an insult, say hello and ask how she's doing, and she thinks it's an insult.
"Don't pay any attention to anything Harvey says about work, Mr. Gould," Amber spoke in a sacharrine tone, "whereas Autumn here," Autumn took a sip of the virgin cocktail that had been set down in front of her and swallowed it down, "is the most brilliant advisory officer you'll ever meet."  Autumn noticed McIntosh suppress what was no doubt a little mocking smile."She is quite talented," he said quietly, and much to Autumn's surprise, sounded like he meant it.
"Thank you, but I'm just an intern. We all are." She muttered, and returned to sipping her drink in stunned silence.
"What made you wander away from your workspace to be here tonight then, Barnett?" Harvey spoke slowly, sipping at his golden India pale ale. "If I'm not wrong, this is your first time out in the entire month we've been at S and W."
"Well, I think I earned a break. From all the hard work I do. You wouldn't know about that."
"I work," came McIntosh's lame protest.
"Does golf count as working?" Brandon added with a laugh.
"The way you play it, it is," McIntosh's face broke into a grin.
"Barnett, do you consider signing a project to S and W as an intern, work?" 
"You mean one of your pretentious friends?" Autumn quipped.
Brandon laughed. "Not sure that's an accurate description. I'm a country boy from Texas. But he did bug me for days to get a meeting. Camped outside my office."
"Wait...What?" Autumn and Amber tried unsuccessfully to hide their surprise.
"as of yesterday, I kind of work at S  and W." Was that a look of excitement Autumn spotted in Amber's expression?
"I'm not following," Amber looked at the back and forth between the two guys with a quizzical expression on her face.
"So I am going to be working at S and W for a bit, but to Learn. So I'm more like an intern."
"So you mean it'll be you bringing me my coffee in the mornings?" came Amber's flirty reply.
"It would be my pleasure."
"But you said something about signing a new project?" Autumn directed the question to Harvey.
"I've been having meetings for a little while with the Staffordshires, but when this one here," Brandon nudged McIntosh in the ribs with an elbow, "Heard I was in the building, he started a near constant pursuit. I had to give the poor guy a chance."
"Not so poor now I've got your signature, Gould."
"I could always decide to sign with one of your pretty friends here instead." Autumn rolled her eyes at the comment but noticed Amber leaning a little bit across the table, meeting Brandon's eye with a coy smile. "I think you and I might have some non-work related things to talk about actually." She purred at him coquettishly.
"I'll cheers to that." Brandon lifted up his glass.
"Anyway," seeing that the pair were about to become lost to the world from the looks of things, Autumn reluctantly moved her attention over to McIntosh, his face slightly unimpressed at the turn of events, probably because he was not the center of attention.
"Well now that we're pretty much alone. I have to ask you to apologise ..."
"Apologise?" The nerve of this man was unbelievable.
"About the number of times you have accused me of doing nothing?" He stared at her, "Seriously?" Just when she thought the man couldn't be any worse, she caught amusement in his eyes.
"No, not really. I'm just teasing you. But maybe you could listen to me a bit sometimes, I do actually want to work more with you."
Autumn couldn't stop the little twinge of suspicion that arose. "I listen to you,"
"You do not,"
"I do. I just choose to ignore much of what you say," he laughed and she, he noticed had a sneaky little glint in her eye. Something he had never seen on her before. And he liked it.
"Yes that's what I mean. I think we actually could be a good team."
"Fine," she groaned, "Alright, McIntosh, I apologise for my incredibly false accusations towards you." Autumn smiled and blinked her eyes at him innocently.
"Accepted," he replied.  "And I apologise for all of the things I said."
"What did you say?"
"You know."
"No, I do not know."
"Ok Barnett, I apologise for calling you stuck-up."
"Stuck-up?" The protest came out a little louder than she had intended. "If anyone, it's you that's stuck-up," Amber and Brandon were leaning across the table, fully involved in their conversation with each other now. Didn't even notice what was happening next to them.
"Well in that case we're even. A cheers to mark our truce then Barnett," McIntosh raised his glass to her. Is that what that admission was? A truce? Amber and Brandon turned toward them. "If you two will excuse us, we are going to head out."
"No, don't you dare." Autumn said. Amber made 'I'll call you' signs to Autumn as she walked away with Brandon Gould.
"Well, now what?" McIntosh asked.
"I think I might head out too."
"So soon? Just stay for a bit, Barnett. You and I, like the good old days."
"When were days with you ever good?" She sniggered a little and he ignored the comment, happy to have her to himself, outside of work, for the first time ever, even if everything he said to her flopped spectacularly.
"How are you finding things anyway? You settled into your place ok?" Somehow, this question and Autumn's response led them into an actual conversation. When Autumn asked McIntosh the same question, he shared about his struggles to adjust to work, how he had been getting home every night exhausted, and how there were still some nights he fell asleep on the couch while watching TV.
"I just don't know if I'm cut out for this stuff," Was the S and W poster boy admitting he wasn't perfect? "It just doesn't come as easily to me as it does you." She couldn't believe what she had just heard.
"It doesn't come easy at all! I'm working harder than I ever have in my life,"
"I don't believe it, you make it seem so easy. I mean you have such incredible knowledge. Seriously, you really know your stuff."
"Well, thank you for saying so, but I don't feel that way at all."
They continued talking for an hour, sharing stories about themselves, their hometowns, their high schools. Did they actually have some things in common? Then they talked about the Carter project.
The week before, Chan had strode into the meeting room and, without even a hello, and as his assistant distributed folders full of files onto the long table before them, he announced: "We've had an urgent project drop in on us as of yesterday." Autumn opened one to a page of figures and graphs that she knew would take several hours to sift through and make sense of. "The client would like a new plan, from scratch. New approach, new models, everything,"
"How long do we have?" One of the junior officers had asked, "Some of this stuff will take..."
"We have a week, for the entire project. A few others will join us and the interns are going to work on this too, and I'll be here myself. It's nothing new for us, but the timeline is tight. This needs to get done before next Friday." Chan lowered himself into a chair, and exhaled, his face suddenly looking tired. "This is going to be a rough week."
Autumn was thrilled by the new project, despite the challenge the deadline presented. McIntosh, she found, thrived under pressure. Though they were just interns, he asked the right questions of Chan, and informally took some charge in the workroom, and directed with such grace and inclusion, that the more senior employees did not seem to mind. Autumn realised that this is why they would want someone like him at S and W: he was precisely what she was not- a natural leader.
Chan, as soon as he got the email with the presentation that Autumn had sent, had called them both into his office to thank them.
"You know what? I was so tired, I couldn't even focus on what Chan was saying." She had sat, more like slumped, on the leather wingback in his office, trying to focus as he went over one of the models.
"I swore you were gonna start snoring at any second."
"I don't snore! But literally, the only thing I heard him say was 'take tomorrow off' - I didn't dream that did I?"
"Nope, he said 'You've worked yourselves to the bone in the past week. Take tomorrow off and enjoy a nice long weekend.'"
"Thank goodness for that."
"But seriously, It was great to submit Carter this afternoon Barnett, and it was even better to work with you on it, but I can't say I'm sad to see that one done and dusted."
"Neither can I."
Autumn excused herself to go to the ladies room and to have a moment to think. She stared at herself in the mirror, feeling that she looked tired, run-down, pale-skinned. She fluffed up her hair a little, and pinched her cheek to give her face some colour, smoothed her clothing. But she had something else on her mind: Harvey McIntosh. The name did appear in her thoughts at some point everyday. But that was because she was just keeping track of how little he worked. Or was it? Was that just a guise? She did always notice where he was and often took note of what he was doing.
What is going on here? Nothing, Autumn. Nothing at all. One real conversation doesn't mean he's a different person, it doesn't mean he'll stop being condescending and rude at work and it doesn't mean I have a crush on him. Or he on me. Different people, she said to herself, quoting the title of the No Doubt song to herself.
Autumn realised that her feelings towards him had indeed changed since only a few weeks earlier. The reality was that every morning at 7am, when she walked into the office, he was already there, coffee in hand, with his screen already displaying various spreadsheets or powerpoints. And through all of that he had also managed to get Brandon Gould on board (although she still didn't understand what that was all about)? He did bring you coffee this morning. And he did want to take you out to lunch today. Maybe he's not as bad as you thought. Maybe it was the fatigue that was rendering her confused about McIntosh. Nothing has changed, she told herself while she was looking at herself in the mirror. She then noticed she looked half-dead: it was time to go home.
Autumn exited the restroom, returning to her table, surprised to see that Macintosh had waited for her. He smiled at her as she approached . "Hey, so I'm actually going to head out." Autumn had been dreaming about her bed since Monday and to be granted a day off? Heaven. "I really need a good sleep." She yawned as she spoke, as if proving her point.
"We have the day off tomorrow, even though it's the last day of orientation. How about lunch?" Was he asking her out?
"Everyone is going to The Park Bar for lunch to celebrate the end of orientation." Ah okay, so it wasn't a date, it was just a work thing.
"Oh. Yeah." Was that a pang of disappointment she just felt?
"Us interns need to keep ourselves visible. So we have to be there." He hoped this would convince her.
McIntosh was right. Autumn had to work on being social and making herself visible no matter how nervous she was about having to go out with everyone. Plus, McIntosh had this strange pleading look on his face. "Fine, let's do it."
"Meet at the office?"
"Sure thing, see you there at noon".
Autumn said a few good-byes on her way out of the bar, and hopped in a cab to go straight home. Maybe he's up to something. Probably something to do with the Carter project. Or Australia. She thought about what had happened between the two of them in the last little while. She could not think straight, so she did not bother analysing what had happened today. She did not even end up having the shower and pizza she had dreamt of: she paid the cabbie, went upstairs and fell straight into her bed,  only just remembering to turn off the alarm set for the next morning. What a week, she thought, Harvey McIntosh? No, it can't, she thought, and then drifted off to sleep.