Page 84 of Sparks Fly
“Of course you fucking did,” Miles said. “So you’ve been lying to me this whole time. Knowing full well you were sleeping with one of my employees. That’s why you pulled yourself off the project, isn’t it? God, you’re so full of shit.”
“Look, Miles, I’m sorry you’ve found out this way, but Stella isn’t just someone I’m sleeping with,” Max said. “This is serious for me, and I didn’t tell you because we were trying to keep our professional and personal lives separate. What good would it have done for you to know I was dating one of your employees?”
“It would’ve been the truth,” Miles said. He gripped the chair in front of him. “This whole time you’ve been lying to me, and you don’t even seem sorry about it.”
“I am sorry, Miles,” he said. “Truly. I didn’t want to lie to you, but I was trying to make the best out of a sticky situation.”
“Yeah, well, between you and your girlfriend, my company is probably going to go under,” Miles said. “So thanks a fucking a lot for that.”
“This is not our fault,” Max said. “Your decisions led you here, not mine or Stella’s. I told you this could become a problem for you, and you didn’t listen.”
“Ah, right, you tried to warn me about your girlfriend’splans with some vague warning instead of coming right out with it,” Miles said.
Max sighed deeply. “I didn’t know she was going to do that. I haven’t spoken to her about any of this yet. But it also doesn’t take a genius to know that she would be pissed. And rightfully so, I might add.”
“Yeah, I get it, Max, you’re on her side,” Miles said. “You’ve made that very clear.”
“It’s not about sides, Miles,” Max said, walking around his desk. Miles stepped away from him and Max froze, leaving space between them.
“Look, I didn’t want any of this to happen,” Max said. “But you have to take some responsibility here, Miles. Stella and I didn’t have some nefarious plan going to ruin your company. You did that yourself. And I meant what I said. We purposely didn’t talk about you or our work at all. This wasn’t some plot.”
“Well, I don’t believe you,” Miles said, glaring at him. “And I won’t forgive you for this. So congratulations. I hope you have a great life with Stella, and I hope it was worth it. Because you just lost a brother in the process.”
“Miles—”
His brother didn’t wait for him to finish. He spun on his heel and stormed out, leaving Max to wonder how everything had gone to shit so quickly.
Forty-Two
Stella was ready to sleep for a hundred years. Or at least a solid eight hours.
After Stella finished writing her article last night, Effie read it over and gave her notes, and then Chelsea and Kira also read it, adding their two cents as well. Finally, when it was approved by all, Stella made her Medium account and posted it. Of course, by then it was almost midnight, so at first nothing happened, but she shared it across her social media accounts, and Effie, Chelsea, and Kira did the same. Chelsea, with her hundreds of thousands of followers, was the most impactful, of course. When they’d gone to bed that night, it still hadn’t taken off in a major way, and Stella worried no one would even see it.
But the following morning, she was awoken by Effie shaking her shoulder and screaming, “It’s spreading!”
They’d had an impromptu sleepover, so Kira and Chelsea were also forced to get up, and they all began checkingtheir phones. As it turned out, Effie was right. People were spreading Stella’s post like wildfire, and everybody had thoughts.
@WriteHereWriteNow:So you’re telling me Yellow Sparks has been posting AI articles but pretended real writers were writing them? WTF?
@JuliannaAbrams89:@WriteHereWriteNow I think the AI was just helping them write, but like lol I didn’t know writing lists and quizzes was that hard. Either way, isn’t AI content supposed to be labeled so people know what they’re reading isn’t real? Feels like a lawsuit to me!
@HitchcocksSon95:This is so insane. The person who didn’t use AI for her posts is the one who gets nothing but everyone else gets paid? How does that work? Utter bullshit.
@KeepingItReal411:At this rate all of our news will be written by AI. There’s going to be no real journalists left. Fuck Yellow Sparks!
@FreedFromTheSunkenPlace:Everything about this reeks. I wish she named her boss too. They should be fired along with the CEO.
Even Jackie, who shouldn’t have been awake because Cali was three hours behind, had texted Stella.
Jackie
Um, are you aware that your tweet has over a thousand likes and climbing? What’s going on?
After seeing all of that, Stella didn’t think Mel would be too happy to see her, so rather than go into the office, she decided to email her resignation. Was it maybe a little cowardly? Perhaps, but Stella was beyond caring, so she typed out an email to Mel with human resources CC’d and sent in her formal resignation. She figured if there was any paperwork she needed to fill out, they could send it to her.
Effie, thankfully, went into the office and grabbed all of Stella’s personal items for her.
“The vibes were so weird in there,” she said when she returned to the apartment. Effie decided she wouldn’t be working today in solidarity. “Everyone was on edge. No one was really working, although it was still pretty early. Katy asked about you. I told her you’re fine.”
