I left not long after, my thoughts so consumed with dissecting my interactions with Alec that I almost missed my stop. It led to a night of tossing and turning before waking up to another early morning. This time, though, I didn't head out well before the sunrise in hopes of getting a leg up on work. Instead, I was hoping to secure a private audience with Emi who had apparently taken my advice to heart and was coming to work at the crack of dawn every day since the announcement.

I knew her time was valuable. Colin had divided his team up into little committees, something along the lines of music, food, decorations, etc. Emily had been given lead over the venue hunt and considering just how quickly we'd need to solidify that, she was working overtime trying to find the gala a worthy location.

As expected, she was in early and thankfully the only other person in the office was Theo, who was often in early to respond to social media users in different time zones. The recent graduate gave me a cheerful wave and wished me a good morning, before returning to his work. His cubicle was thankfully some distance away from our side of the floor and I hoped our glass door would provide enough of a sound barrier to keep my conversation with Emi inside our office.

As I dropped off my stuff and hung up my jacket, Emily didn't do more than a quick wave to acknowledge my presence. She was too busy wading through correspondence emails pulled up on both her computer and her tablet, to offer me more than that. I wasn't even certain she could spare the moment to discuss Alec's strange behavior, but I figured I could always play the best friend card if she tried to brush me off. Fortunately, the second I asked for some quiet gossip, Emily sprung at the chance to pull herself away from her glowing computer screen.

"I could use the break," she said with a grateful sigh. "I almost considered going out there and talking to Theo, but he has the energy of a shepherd puppy and I'm not sure I can absorb that much positivity so early in the morning. It's been rough coming in before the sun is even up and then finding him already here, bright and perky, while I'm still a cup of coffee away from being human."

"He's like twenty-two," I said with a light laugh. "Try not to compare yourself to him."

"Ugh, don't remind me," she said with a shake of her head. "When did thirty become old?"

"I wouldn't know," I said with a devious grin, "I'm only twenty-eight."

"Alright," she said, bracing her fists against her hips, "I'm starting to reconsider my generous offer to hear you out. Your gossip isn't worth the aggravation."

"I'm, I'm sorry Emi," I said, my voice dropping along with my eyes.

"Hey, I was just kidding," she said, reaching out and giving my shoulder a squeeze. "What's up? It must be really something if you came in early just to catch me. I hear you and Mr. Radcliffe have been burning the midnight oil together these past two nights."

A blush touched my cheeks and a slight hunch marked a trembling cower that rippled through me. Even before I voiced my questions, I somehow felt Emily was already on the verge of answering them.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked, watching her response from the corner of my eye.

"That you two have been working late. What else could it mean?" She sat up straight with a bounce of surprise. Her mouth in a loose small O shape and her brows raised with curiosity.

"I don't know, it's the way you worded it. It just sounded a little, I don't know, accusatory..."

"Accusatory? Wait, you think..." She slapped a hand to her mouth as a dawning hit her. "Oh no, I wasn't saying you guys were up to, well I don't even know. Not that anything funny was happening."

I allowed some tension to release my shoulders and the grip of anxiety around my heart to loosen. However, I planted a seed in Emily and she just needed one look around to contemplate my choice of hour and the lack of employees that traditionally came with it. A silent epiphany settled in and then shouted through her slight blush and mischievous grin.

"There isn't something funny happening is there?" She wiggled her eyebrows and I couldn't stop the aggressive roll of my eyes.

"Emi! Of course, there isn't!"

"Well, then I'm confused," she said with a bit of disappointment darkening her cheerful face. "No one thinks there's anything and you say there isn't. So, uh, what's up?"

"It's just last night..." I started, turning my eyes to our wall of glass, looking past the Pit and towards Alec's empty office. "Well, it got late and I was hungry, so I suggested we get out of the office and eat somewhere."

She gave a wide-eyed nod that urged me to continue.

"Then, he kind of shut down. He said we should go home and get some rest. Did I do something wrong?"

Emi sighed and then gave me a little smile that resembled something close to pity. "Just at the mere mention of people talking about how late you two have been here alone together, got you flustered. Can't you understand why Mr. Radcliffe may feel it inappropriate to go outside of work together and possibly be seen by someone?"

"It would be for work," I said with an exasperated flurry of my hands. "It wasn't like I expected some place fancy. I was trying to suggest that diner we go to sometimes for lunch."

"If he were one of our peers, then I'd say he was being overly cautious. But Mr. Radcliffe's our superior. That makes people suspicious and he's got a reputation to worry about. If he's seen like that with you, people will make leaps and think either you or him are taking advantage of the other. It's a fine line when it is a boss/employee relationship."

"I guess," I said with unwilling acceptance. "It's hard to know how to act around him. Sometimes he's like any other guy, then other times he's the boss." I took a deep breath. I wondered if it'd be best to just go to his office that morning and simply apologize or if pretending nothing happened was the better route. I felt like the latter would certainly be easiest on everyone.

"Ugh," I groaned, "I don't know what to do. If I say something to ease his mind about it, that implies that something happened and that he was right to worry about it. But really, there was nothing Emi. I mean it's kind of nice how he smiles sometimes, but that's just me liking his smile." I threw my face into my hands. I had a plan dammit. It was a slow and steady plan, but one I tailored to be unmarred by accusations of cutting corners. "When did I become the person people might think is sleeping their way up the ladder?"

"Woah, woah," said Emi with a shake of her hands, "let's stop and acknowledge the panic attack real quick because no one thinks you're sleeping your way anywhere."

"Yeah, I've been manless for too long," I said with more than a tinge of self-loathing.

"No, they just know that's not who you are and you've only been staying late a couple days, that's not nearly enough time to start rumors."

"Don't forget the gossip queen Cynthia is on my team."

"Well, another reason why Mr. Radcliffe might be a bit cautious."

"He shouldn't have to be cautious at all!"

"You're overthinking this," she said, giving my back a rub as I tried to center my thoughts. "Just like Mr. Radcliffe probably is. Remember how he took getting passed over by that promotion years ago?"

I did. Back when we were still holding down cubicles in the Pit, Alec had been rumored to be up for a grand promotion that would see him rubbing elbows with the executive members of our company. Emi and I were both pretty new, only having a year or two under our belts when it happened, so we didn't pay much mind to it, but we did notice the difference when he didn't get the promotion. He brought in Colin to start cracking the whip around the office and he became more present in our project meetings to make sure we were staying on task and on time. We were his tools for proving them wrong for looking in another direction.

"Yeah," I said, with a somber nod of my head.

"He's your boss as well as your teammate and I'm sure he can't easily sidestep his primary role for this secondary one. I imagine he doesn't want to give them any reason to pass him over for an opportunity again."

"You're right. I'll keep that in mind next time."

After that we chatted a little more about things far less stressful before the floor began to fill and we went our separate ways for the day.

***

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