Page 2 of The Reboot
‘That’s very exciting!’
‘So, Ella. Enough about us.’ Jake picked up her CV from the coffee table and Ella felt herself tense as his eyes skimmed over it. It was thin – skimpy even. But that was okay, wasn’t it? All the advice she’d read said to keep it short and snappy. Nobody cared about your school grades or part-time college jobs by the time you were thirty. These days it was all about your gig economy experience – the zero-hour contracts and innovative side-hustles you’d cobbled together – and she’d had plenty of those over the last few years, albeit sporadically. She’d resisted the urge to pad her CV out with irrelevant skills and achievements that would only draw attention to her lack of solid hands-on work experience.
A slight frown of concentration drew Jake’s perfectly sculpted eyebrows together as he scanned over the CV. He turned the page over quickly, checking there was nothing on the other side. But no. That was it.
‘You graduated with a first from Trinity. Impressive.’ He leaned back against the sofa and gave her a relaxed smile.
‘You’re certainly the most qualified candidate we’ve seen,’ Dylan said.
She knew the reality, though. She may have the highest academic qualifications, but she couldn’t imagine they’d had any applicant with a sketchier employment history.
‘You took a couple of years out after college.’ Jake’s eyes flicked over the page again. ‘And you’ve done a lot of freelance gigs. You’ve always worked remotely?’
She nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Were you travelling?’ Dylan asked. ‘Doing the whole digital nomad thing?’
Oh, the irony! She’d been whatever the opposite of a digital nomad was – a digital stick-in-the-mud? But he was offering her an out, and for a moment she was tempted to accept it. She could just say yes. They didn’t need to know all the gory details, did they? But she didn’t want to start off on the back foot if she did somehow end up working here. Besides, she had nothing to be ashamed of. Why should she hide it?
‘No.’ She cleared her throat and smoothed her unwrinkled skirt. ‘I was meant to be starting a PhD, but I got sick and had to drop out of college.’
Jake raised his eyebrows, waiting for more.
Remember what Mum said – picture him in his pants. Unfortunately, that didn’t make him any less intimidating, because when she pictured Jake in his pants, he looked like an underwear model, all washboard abs and ripped muscles. She could see him posing in designer boxers on one of those arty black and white posters, cuddling a baby to his perfectly sculpted pecs. Yeah, that wasn’t helpful at all.
‘I had M.E.,’ she said.
Dylan’s eyebrows shot up, and then he frowned. He was trying to figure out which one that was, she could tell, his eyes wary as they flicked to her. Then he half-turned to Jake. ‘M.E.? Is that…?’
‘Chronic Fatigue Syndrome,’ she said, putting him out of his misery.
‘Ah, right,’ Dylan said, relief softening his features. ‘Didn’t your aunt have that?’ he murmured to Jake.
Jake grinned. ‘Nah, my aunt was just a slacker.’
Ella clenched her fists, trying to remain calm.
‘Terrible pothead,’ Jake said to her as if by way of apology.
‘But you’re okay now?’ Dylan asked.
Jake was fidgeting with her CV, his leg jiggling rapidly under the table. She hoped for his sake he wasn’t a poker player.
She nodded. ‘It’s taken a long time, but I’ve made a full recovery.’ She wrapped an arm around the back of her chair and surreptitiously knocked on the wood. She always felt she was tempting fate saying that. ‘I’ve been very lucky.’
‘Because this is a full-time position,’ Jake said. ‘It’s a pretty dynamic environment and the hours can be long at times. It’s a small team, and we need everyone to pull their weight and give it a hundred and ten per cent.’
A hundred and ten per cent– had he actually said that? ‘Well, I’m sure you know that’s mathematically impossible, but I understand the commitment.’ Gah! Cut the snark, Ella – that’s not the way to endear yourself to people.
‘Are you sure you can cope with the crazy?’ Dylan asked with a grin.
God, could she? She didn’t mind hard work, and she was looking forward to having a focus and some routine to her life – not to mention earning proper money. But could she handle this pair’s double act day in, day out? She’d only been in their company for five minutes and she was already exhausted.
‘Well, no one could accuseyouof being a slacker,’ Jake said. ‘You’ve certainly kept yourself busy. All these online courses … is there anything you can’t do?’
‘I tried to upskill as much as I could whenever I was able.’ She’d done every online course she could get her hands on that would allow her to make some money working from home.
‘You certainly have a lot of useful experience,’ he said, his eyes once more trained on her CV. ‘Book-keeping, SEO, digital marketing, data entry, virtual assistant … you sound like you’d be a useful person to have around.’
