Riding the elevator up to our offices made my palms sweat. I wasn’t sure how I would look Mason in the eye after last night. Part of me wanted to wring his fucking neck. How dare he show up at my place without warning. I mean, what did he expect?

The truth was, however, that my anger was really just covering up the fact that I hadn’t actually moved on; that I was glad to see him at my place last night. He belonged at my place. He was my omega.

The doors to the elevator opened and immediately, my eyes darted to every moving figure, in search of Mason. Nope, it was just the usual crowd of early birds, eager to catch the worm.

I casually took the long way to my office, so that I’d be sure to pass in front of Mason’s office. But as I passed the cubicles and rounded the corner, I could see that the lights were off and the door was closed.

He wasn’t in yet.

I let out a sigh of relief that I could at least start my day by getting some actual work done before having to deal with the emotional toll it would take to see Mason this morning. But that relief was quickly trampled when I saw him turn the other corner and walk toward me. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one who went out of their way to see if a certain someone had gotten into work yet.

His eyes met mine and we both froze. There was so much I wanted to say to him, but I didn’t know where to start. My mouth began to open but right before actual words were formed, a hand slapped me on my back. “Jordan, I need to talk to you.” It was Dominic. I had never seen the old bastard in this early.

“Yes…yes, of course.” I retorted, and we began walking again. As I passed by Mason, I let my fingers casually reach out and touch his hand as it swung by me. Oh, the feel of his soft skin against mine almost sent me into tears. I wanted to tell him that I was sorry; that I didn’t know why he had come to my place last night and that I hoped I hadn’t ruined everything; that he was the best thing that had ever happened to me. Seeing him at the office every day had been absolute torture.

“Jordan! Are you even hearing me?”

I was jolted out of the thoughts in my head and looked up to see Dominic staring at me. He had been talking for the past couple of minutes as we stood in the doorway to my office but I hadn’t heard a thing.

“Yes, I am hearing you. Let’s just sit down and go over this one more time.”

We both moved inside. Dominic shut the door behind him while I turned on the light and then we each took our seats on opposite sides of my desk.

“I just expected a bigger reaction out of you. You do realize what this means?”

“I’m sorry…what what means?”

“I fucking knew you weren’t listening. I can’t believe you are making me repeat this again. Due to some reorganization and budgeting, you need to cut four of your guys loose.”

If I wasn’t already completely in the conversation, this blow sure did it. “What? You want me to cut a quarter of my staff? I don’t understand. Our team is out-performing all of the others.”

“I know. That’s why I am making them cut a third of their teams; you only need to cut a quarter. You know that this time of year is often wonky. We need to cut some salaries until we get our heads above water again.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “Are you kidding me? I have several multi-million dollar deals that we just need to bill and send to the clients.”

“I realize this, Jordan, but you know that the payment may not come through for three more months. The budget just can’t handle it, so we need to make cuts,”

“So take out a loan. Don’t fire people when you know we’ll have plenty of money to pay them in a few months max!”

“Come on. You know exactly how this goes. You always need to cut a couple of people this time of year. This time it’s just a few more.”

Dominic was right. This type of reorg was not atypical, but that didn’t mean it was any less shitty. However, this year was different. I had one big extra reason this year to want to get out of this place and he was sitting just down the hall.

“I quit.”

Dominic’s eyes widened. “What?”

“I quit. I’m done. I’m not doing this.”

“Now, now, calm down…don’t get so dramatic.”

“Actually, Dominic…” I sat back in my chair and smiled. “I have never felt calmer.” Slowly, I stood up, adjusted my tie and casually walked out of the office towards the elevator, leaving a stunned Dominic sitting in my office.

As I rode the elevator down, it struck me that this was the first Thursday I could recall having nothing to do; a day of possibilities.