Page 8 of Not As Advertised

“Well, that sounds about perfect, doesn’t it? It’ll be like the last seven years of your life didn’t happen. So should I make up the couch for you tonight?”

I had to laugh. Indie was so committed to letting me catastrophize out loud. It was hard to fathom how she kept astraight face at this point. I loved how normal her cheekiness made me feel.

Most of the time, I had to work hard to keep my anxiety hidden from others. But not with Indie and Emery, and that was such a gift.

“No. That’s okay,” I muttered.

“Wait. What are you going to do, then?” Indie said. Her smile was feline, and her eyes were alight with humor. She tilted her head to the side as if she was genuinely mystified about what my answer would be.

“I’m going to go back into thatstupidbuilding and figure out how to do thisstupidnew job.”

Petulance bled through my tone because I hated acting reasonable when my emotions were so mixed up. It was not as if I was an adult or something.

“Good idea. It’s one of my many missions in life to keep us from falling back into our parents’ clutches.” Indie had her own family issues that she dealt with.

Indie put her arm around my shoulders and gently guided me back into the front of the building. Giving Indie a limp wave as she returned to reception, I headed to the elevators.

Uncertainty made its reappearance in my stomach the whole ride up to the fifth floor. My only consolation was that I’d been dismissed from Aiden’s presence until tomorrow. I would try my damnedest to lose myself in the company of the EA manual nearly the size ofThe Iliadfor the rest of the day.

The expression “a comedy of errors” could describe my new role as an executive assistant. The problem being there was nothing funny about it.

It was all errors.

The first few days of working for Aiden were a steep learning curve, mostly because he seemed to be a machine. I couldn’t help thinking of him as Aiden, even if I only ever called him Mr. Sullivan.

His ultra-organized work habits meant that I knew what was expected of me at any given time (if I didn’t, I could reference the compendium of all knowledge, my trusty sidekick—the EA manual). Predictability was allegedly to be my sweet spot, but even knowing what was coming wasn’t stopping me from making new mistakes and then scrambling to fix them before Aiden noticed. But there was no solace in being able to predict that I would screw up my next task, day after day.

Even a week later, I didn’t feel any closer to being able to meet his demands, despite them being written down in nearlyfifteen-minute increments. I hadn’t even managed to prepare an adequate cup of coffee yet.

I was unsure as to why I expected anything different at this point. It was day seven of working for Aiden, and I stood in his office and waited for the latest coffee critique, hopeful that I’d finally gotten it right.

He eyed me over the rim of the cup as he sipped. My nerves were on fire from anticipating his reaction and struggling not to drop my gaze.

“Hmm, too much milk today. And there’s some sort of burnt undertone. Are you sure you cleaned it properly yesterday?” He got these little crinkles in the skin next to his eyes when he half squeezed them shut in displeasure.

More than once, I’d considered asking him to show me how to make his coffee, but that seemed to be the rock bottom I wasn’t willing to hit yet. He might drive me to it one of these mornings.

I had also wondered if this was some sort of high-level corporate initiation ritual. And one day, Aiden would just laugh and say, “Ha! Well done. Welcome to the club!” while suddenly transforming back into the man who smiled warmly at me in the park that day. Wishful thinking on my part.

My opinion of Aiden’s personality had not improved over the past seven working days either. The fact that I still knew how many days had passed since I started this new position meant time was passing slowly.

It wasn’t like counting down to Christmas or a tropical vacation. It was tallying up the days I’d survived without getting fired.

Gah. Personal growth was for perfectly tailored, aesthetically pleasing Instagram posts. Out here in the wilds of real life, it was all bumps and bruises.

And I had enough of those for a trip to the ER at this point.

Though I had spent my first week mostly isolated in my desk bubble, the few interactions I’d seen Aiden have with other employees showed that no one else seemed as intimidated by him as I was.

Every morning, after his disappointing coffee and my stilted daily update, he made the rounds of the floor. He made sure to be available if anyone had questions or needed a quick approval of a concept. On the other hand, it felt like he was checking up on my ability to condense the reports I received from each team on their status, which made me nervous.

I could not figure him out.

Today, however, was the first senior all-hands department meeting. I had been excused from my morning routine to ensure the meeting room was ready.

It would be my first real opportunity to see how the rest of the staff reacted to Aiden. I only wished Indie had been required to attend so I’d have an objective perspective to rely on.Sigh. I was on my own.

The main benefit of being first at the meeting was my chance to sit in a completely impractical seat at an awkward angle to the room. I hazarded my best guess at where Aiden would want to sit and then picked the opposite side of the large conference table.

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