Page 16 of All the Drama from New York

“Ryan I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I understand you really want to do something more with your life. That being said, while you have plans, so do I. And those plans are the ones which need to be front and center of my priorities. So, I think it’s high time you looked for something new.”

Great. I’m not just back at square one, but now he wants me to look for another job.

Simon bent and picked up a plain white envelope from off his desk, and held it out to Ryan. “This is a gift certificate for one of the nice Italian places around the corner. A goodbye gift and a thanks for all your hard work.”

Ryan reluctantly took the envelope. “Um. What do you mean by goodbye?”

“I mean you’re finished with us. Your final pay check and severance is also in the envelope. Take off your apron and leave it on the chair. Don’t forget to grab your personal things from the staff locker room.”

His simmering sense of disappointment was quickly overwhelmed as a wave of shock pushed adrenaline coursing through his body. It left a trail of nausea in its wake. This was really happening.

I’m getting fired. Today. Fuck.

“I don’t understand. I get that you think I should look for something else, but why are you getting rid of me like this?”

Rejection wasn’t something he’d ever been able to handle all that well. The scars of his humiliation on national television went so deep, he’d never attempted to deal with them properly. Instead he’d just stuffed them down and done his best to ignore them.

Resigned to his fate, Ryan untied his apron and set it on the chair.

Simon squeezed past him and to the door of his tiny office. His fingers rested on the handle. “When I first employed you, it was a year or so after you’d been on that tv show. I figured you’d gotten over your fifteen minutes of fame. That you were now happy to be a grunt for the rest of your life.”

Ryan winced. “Is anyone happy being a grunt?”

He didn’t want a fight, but he didn’t want to walk meekly out the door, gift certificate in hand.

“Some folks are, but the reality is, grunts are what I need. I can’t handle people who want to be more.”

He opened the door, and motioned for Ryan to step through. Simon held out his hand. “I know right now you probably think I’m a complete bastard. But I hope one day that you will look back on this moment and see it for what it is.”

“And what’s that?”

“A hard kick up the ass. One which forces you to go and do something bigger with your life.”

In a half daze Ryan headed to the staff room, where he grabbed his jacket before stepping out into the hotel foyer. Therewas a long line of people queuing up for coffee. The morning rush was in full swing. He instinctively moved toward the counter, before catching himself. The envelope in his hand was a tangible reminder that he no longer worked atJava Junction.

Stuffing his final pay check into his pocket, he turned and kept walking. His focus was now fully on the front door of the hotel. He dared not make eye contact with any of his former work colleagues, fearing that if he did, they would quickly figure out what was happening.

Simon might well be shoving him out the door, but Ryan knew it always paid to make a quiet exit. This time tomorrow he would be back on the hustings looking for a new barista gig. Only a fool would burn bridges as he left. Causing a scene in front of a café full of customers wouldn’t get him a good reference from Simon.

Once outside in West 30th Street he turned right, but rather than making his way toward the nearest subway station, he just kept walking. He barely noticed the crowded sidewalks instead relying purely on his NYC muscle memory to steer out of people’s way.

The only thing on Ryan’s mind was the burning question of why every time he’d thought he’d got his life together, fate seemed to enjoy pulling the rug out from under him.

Whatever he’d done in a previous life, it had to have been something truly awful for him to continue being punished in this one. He was back to square one. No job. And no way of moving forward. If the universe had grand plans in store for Ryan Collins, it was keeping them from him.

Pulling his cell from out of his back pocket, he barely glanced at the screen as he hit Liam’s number, and lifted the phone to his ear.

“You are not going to believe what just happened,” he huffed.

CHAPTER EIGHT

She’d lost Hope, and now Camille was fast losing all sense of reality. Her former PA’s planning system was a massive color coded spreadsheet. It had filters, and drop down menus. She was certain there was a special place in hell reserved for the maniac who had invented pivot tables.

Before this morning, Camille hadn’t even known what a pivot table was, but apparently Hope had a bit of a thing for them. The instruction document was littered with technical terms which didn’t make one lick of sense. Even Google had thrown up its hands attrace dependents. Was this some form of English that she’d failed to study at school?

It was now a little after seven am, and the only things Camille knew for certain was that her head hurt, and Sophie still hadn’t called her back.

Computers had never been her thing. A design pad and pencil was where her passions lay. Tailors chalk, scissors, and fabric. That was the world which Camille had grown up in, the world she’d always understood. The beautiful, dare she say at times almost carnal sensation of being able to lay your handson your own creations was the language she spoke. Fashion was something primal which crossed all language barriers.

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