Offices and Orchards (A New Adult Sweet Romance)

Chapter 29

Despite the little hurdle during the wedding, Amber, who was fully back to normal, was not letting Autumn off from crossfit without a fight, showing up at her place on Sunday morning to drag her out of bed for a private session. Amber had not even known Autumn was at home, she had just correctly assumed. 
"This is what friends are for," Amber said.
"Torturing each other?"
"Come on, you're going to see him tomorrow, the pain today will only help you tomorrow."
"How will being so stiff that I can't stand up help me?"
In the past few weeks, Autumn and Amber had managed to squeeze in extra classes a week together along with Adrianna in preparation for the wedding. Autumn could not say she loved cross-fit, but she did it as was a way to de-stress.
"Pretty sure that's the biggest compliment you can give a fitness trainer."
"Yeah she would like that. Mine is kind of a hard ass." Despite her complaints, Autumn was actually pleased to see Amber. Amber and Brandon had not taken a week off after the wedding and so after they work out, they sat on a park bench together while Amber caught Autumn up with everything that had happened at work.
"Nothing much really, people have heard now that you two are together, and have talked about that, but it'll blow over when you guys sort it out."
"Sort what out?"
"You and Harvey."
"I'm not sorting it out."
"You're not?"
"Absolutely not."
"I thought this was just a fight."
"No, we broke up."
"What?"
"What do you mean, what?"
"I mean, why did you break up?"
"You know what he did?"
"What, make a stupid bet?"
"Yeah, and try to win it with you first. And then lie about it."
"Who cares? It didn't change the relationship you had built, did it?"
"Yes, it did. It changed all of it,"
"How?"
"Well, I don't know if he really even liked me,"
"Seriously?"
Hearing Amber respond in this way made Autumn second guess all the thoughts she had been having this week. Was Amber right?
"Have you seen you two together? Have you seen how he looked at you? Did you see him at the wedding? He couldn't take his eyes off of you. It's been like that for awhile. You spent weekends together! He was not doing all that for a bet."
"But... the lying,"
"You said you even think he tried to tell you, probably because he knew that if he didn't, you'd react exactly like this. You've only been together a short time, maybe he was going to tell you when you had some real time together, like earlier this week for example,  when you had a holiday together. The one you bailed on."
Autumn was speechless. It was such a different perspective from the one she had taken on the whole situation. Looking at it from Amber's perspective, who didn't have the whole emotional attachment part, it did seem like maybe she had overreacted.
"How many times has he called you?"
"Like five times... a day. Everyday."
"Think about it Autumn, you've got it wrong." Amber was so direct, so blunt, so... right? But was Harvey just trying to look like the good guy by calling so many times? No, that wasn't him. He had never in his life had to try to look like the good guy, he probably wasn't doing it now either.
"If any of what you are saying were actually true, he would have taken the money the first time and dumped you. When was that?"
"I don't know,"
"What was the bet anyway? To take you on a date? To kiss you?"
"I don't know that either,"
"Autumn..." Amber gave her a look. 
"What should I do?" Autumn resigned, she had overreacted. She had done what she always did, which was be judgemental about something, and make up her mind about it before having all of the information.
"You call him, you ask him to talk, and then you work it out,"
"But the whole office, they know what's happened, you said so,"
"Who cares? It's just office gossip. Nobody cares, and if you show up at work as normal tomorrow, then they will have even less to say or think about it..." Autumn looked up at Amber like a lost puppy. "Look, you don't need to show up to work tomorrow holding hands and skipping into the office together. You can take your time with that, it doesn't have to happen tonight, or tomorrow, or next week. But, if you continue with the way you are now, continue with the breakup and try to move on, then you'll never know what this whole thing with him was."
"I could punch you right now,"
"'Cause I'm right, as usual," she flipped her hair, brushing fake dust off of her shoulders.
"I don't want to call him today,"
"Again, Autumn, you don't have to call him today. You take your time with this and do what feels right. You see how he behaves at work if you want. That might help you decide how to approach him. Everything will work itself out, pumpkin-spiced latte time?"
"I'm kind of warming to them, I must say,"
At home with her drink, Autumn fell down onto the couch in her sweaty crossfit clothes. Amber was a godsend disguised as a personal trainer. Why hadn't Autumn seen things her way? Her perspective was so simple, but she had the right take on things. As Autumn sipped the hot venti-sized sugar-filled over-priced but delicious drink, the tension floated off of her and disappeared in the air with each sip. She felt good also, after the drink, as she stepped into the shower, using her favorite summery-lemon shower gel. Nah, I still love summer, but that's because I had forgotten about Fall.  Or at least ignored it.
Monday morning was overcast, gloomy, because of course it would reflect her mood. Even though she was not looking forward to going back to work for personal reasons, for professional reasons she was ready. She even missed being on her computer, feeling productive and useful everyday. 
She had gotten up early to be able to walk into the office before others had arrived. She was nervous as she entered the lobby and took the elevator upstairs, despite having put on her favorite work dress, doing her makeup and adding some jewelry. She had even contemplated wearing the pearl earrings Harvey had gotten her. But that was too much too soon.
In any case, she took a look at herself in the elevator's mirrors: she looked nice. She took a deep breath just as she was about to reach her floor, and let it out slowly. She was ready.
Her first matter of business was to put the apple muffins into the break room. The second batch had turned out just as good as the first, if not better, and she proudly placed the tray onto the counter. She did not expect him to be there already, waiting with a coffee for her.
"Here," he passed it over to her, taking her in as he did so, "You look nice. You baked these?"
"Thank you. Yes, help yourself. How are you?"
"Surviving," she did not know how to respond, should she say sorry? Was it her fault? There was an awkward silence. He had bags under his eyes, and did not look as put together as usual. She could not put her finger on it, his hair was in place, his shirt and suit were pressed, and his choice of tie impeccable as usual. He still looked good. Then she realized what it was: he had not shaved. He had stubble all over his lower face. She could not guess how many days it had been since he had shaved. But perhaps the biggest change was the look in his eyes. She was so used to seeing him confident and powerful at work, seeing him tentative and unsure, even a little broken, was enough to give her pause. 
"Thanks for the coffee," she finally offered.
"Thanks for the muffins,"
"I'll see you at the meeting then?"
"Sure,"
And she walked out.
"Good morning. Welcome back to Barnett and McIntosh," Derek spoke as he entered the meeting room. Every Monday, they still met in the room that they had first met him in on their first day of orientation. Things had changed, but the meetings were still exactly the same. He launched into a review of last week, and an introduction for the upcoming week. Work kept moving, kept going, whether Autumn and Harvey were there or not, and whether Autumn and Harvey were a couple or not. The only difference was at the end of the meeting, when Chan said privately  to Autumn "I expect there will be no issues with the working arrangement for this week?" he was of course referring to the new project that Autumn and Harvey were working on together and hinting that he had heard something.
"Of course not. It's good to be back,"
"That's what I thought." Chan actually smiled at her in response, before leaving Autumn with Harvey in the room with the other team members.
The new client portfolio was large, but had been well-annotated by one of Chan's assistants.
"I've sent you the files, just now," she smiled at Harvey, hoping that it looked genuine, but she was smiling at herself too, and how level and professional her voice sounded.
They spent the next few hours putting together a Powerpoint presentation which covered the quarterly numbers for each business unit of a company. Some companies had only a single business unit, but others had many of them, with each of them selling products that served different groups of customers. This project was the latter. It was a lengthy and challenging process to get the right numbers into a few slides. Management only wanted top-down information for the purposes of decision-making, so what they presented could not be too detailed so that it was relatively easy enough to understand, but detailed enough that all the information required to make the decisions was there. Something that could answer all of the questions, but could do so in a compact and succinct manner. It felt like the earlier projects they had worked on together, but neither of them had any attitude towards the other. They did not snap at or provoke each other. They got on with the work, which should have been a good feeling, but instead, Autumn felt guilty, and maybe even a little pity for Harvey. She'd come in the office feeling empowered and revitalized, but now she felt sorry, for him, for herself too. Eventually, the other team members left to work from their own desks. Harvey and Autumn stayed where they were and kept at it, wanting to keep busy so as not to have to acknowledge or address the elephant in the room. Eventually, the tension seemed to get too much for Harvey to bear, because he addressed Autumn directly about their personal situation.
"You didn't want to return my calls?" his voice was low and quiet. Autumn looked up from her computer screen. She was tempted to say "Oh! You called me?" then she wanted to say "I wonder why not," but she was not in any mood to be sassy or to argue anymore.
"I don't have anything to say to you at the moment," which was mostly true, "I mean...I'm just not ready to talk about it just yet... and definitely not here," which was closer to the truth.
"Autumn, I am so sorry. It was awful what I did. I should have told you." His voice was stable and quiet.
"Not here Harvey. Please," Autumn did not want to get upset at work, and she would, if they started to discuss it. He ignored her plea.
"I thought it would be fun, plus I liked you," He looked defeated.
"Well, it was, but you kept lying," Not here Autumn! She screamed at herself inwardly to keep it together. "A bet, to see if you could get me to fall for you? How messed up is that? What is this? High school? A movie? A high school movie? You're not a teenage jock,"
"I know, Autumn, I know. There's no excuse, I have no good reason. I wanted to tell you, but there was just no good time. We were always having fun, in a good place. I was going to tell you during our holiday, when we had more time, but you walked out on me. You walked out on us." He started to get emotional. "Autumn, listen to me. I loved you. I still love you. I didn't want to hurt you. I'm sorry and I feel terrible but I don't know what else I can do now."
"I don't know either," His face fell, but not before Autumn saw something familiar in it: heartbreak. She had broken his heart. Realising this, the lump in her throat was there in a nanosecond, as were the tears in her eyes. "Autumn, forgive me,"
"I can't... right now," A glimmer of hope flashed across his face.
"Whatever it is you need Autumn,"
"Thank you," barely regaining control of her emotions.
"I'm going to grab a snack," he left Autumn alone in the meeting room with her pounding heart. Before the door was even closed, he came back in.
"One more thing just quickly," he pulled out a small jewelry box from his bag "The money? You know why I took it?" he put the box down on the table beside her, "Here's why," he pulled out a folder from his bag and left that on the table as well, exiting the room a second time. Autumn's heart dropped into her stomach. Her hands shook as she opened the lid of the small box, not knowing what it would be inside. She was surprised to see that there was a key inside.
A car key. A Toyota. Autumn picked up the key and turned it over, not quite understanding what she was holding. She took a few minutes to let what she was seeing sink in. Harvey had gotten her a new car using the money from the bet to pay for it- not the pearls, not the trip. Her old car was on its last legs, he knew that and he took the money and spent it on a car for her.
Autumn burst into tears, not from sadness and neither from happiness. It was the mix of emotions that she had been dealing with since the wedding, plus the overwhelming gift, all coming out at once. She had not ever dealt with anything that felt like this before and she had never in her life made such a big error.
Harvey had not been angry that he had been found out at all, he was planning to tell her all along, and was just waiting for the right moment, or was at least waiting until he had been able to use the money. It was her that had ruined things, by not listening to him and by judging him, which is exactly what she had been doing since the second she had met him.
Not here, shetold herself, quickly packing up her things into her work bag and heading straight for the elevators. Please let nobody be inside. Maybe I should take the stairs. Yes! The stairs. She hurried into the stairwell. By the time she got to the bottom, and had stepped down the six flights from her floor into the lobby, she had gotten herself under control, going to the restrooms nonetheless to check her appearance. After a touch-up of her face, an adjustment of her hair, she went into the lobby and called Amber's phone.
"Can you come meet me? Like right now? I'm in the lobby."
"I can in about twenty minutes,"
"Alright, meet me at Abbott's," Abbott's was a small coffee shop around the corner from their work. Autumn hurried out of the building, wanting to avoid everyone. She ordered a ham and cheese bagel, two coffees, and an oatmeal raisin cinnamon cookie, finishing the latter off before she had even settled down at one of their small tables. Amber arrived on schedule, and Autumn showed her the jewelry box immediately. They both sat staring at the key for a few seconds.
"He bought you a car? And you didn't immediately run after him?"
"I haven't even processed the whole thing,"
"Well I heard the bet was $1000."
Autumn let her head flop to the table. "You literally said yesterday he needed to show you he cared. I cannot possibly imagine how one can show you they care more than helping you get a new car,"
"What do I do?"
"You admit you messed up. You call him, explain, and apologise,"
"Now?"
"Yes, now. I have to go anyway."
"Did you see him today?"
"Yes, he looked tired, a bit sloppy even. And I'm a bit sick of his calls."
"He's called you?"
"I didn't mention?"
"No, you definitely didn't."
"Last week, he called me a bunch of times, was trying to track you down."
Autumn groaned. "Oh no."
"You call him. I've gotta go. Tell me how it goes later,"
Autumn sat there, finishing her food, staring at her phone. Could she just call him? No, not yet. Or could she? No, she could not. She needed to do something for him. A gesture. His gesture had been ruined, by her, and she needed to show him that she felt badly about it. She had an idea, and she picked up her phone.
"Hi Derek, it's Autumn."
"What is it?"
"Listen, can I take an extended lunch hour?"
"Sure, Autumn. Just make sure you make up the time tomorrow. I need you to be back this afternoon for a meeting with me and some others at 4pm, I'll see you then." He knew she was dealing with some personal issues, but tough old Derek Chan apparently had some softness to him, because this was not the sort of allowance he would usually grant those under him.