Chapter 20
Adalyn
I knew the lines had been blurred at my interview. Part of me still worried that he had only given me the job because of Stacy or because he thought he had some sort of feelings for me. But honestly, at this point, I was desperate. For the job, not Ian. Just to clarify.
“Ugh, Stacy, I don’t know what to wear!”
Stacy strolled casually into my bedroom wearing nothing but a pair of panties.
“Jesus, Stacy, get some clothes on. I love you, but I do not want to see you naked.” I threw my robe at her while I held my other hand over my eyes.
“Oh my gosh, Addy. We have the same parts. It’s nothing you haven’t seen.”
“Don’t remind me. If I ever walk in on you on top of some guy on our couch again, I swear I’ll move out. I’ll sleep on a bench on the street with homeless people. I am scarred for life now.”
Stacy just chuckled as she threw one of my t-shirts over her head. That girl had no concept of modesty.
“Just wear whatever, Ad. You said it’s totally relaxed there right? Everyone was wearing jeans and dressed down. So dress like you normally do.”
“It just feels wrong. This is my first day at my new job. It’s weird showing up looking like a bum.”
“Aha! So you admit you dress like a bum!” I glared at her and threw a shoe at her head. “Hey! Don’t get mad at me. I didn’t buy your wardrobe. You have way more casual clothes than dressy ones. You should feel way more at ease in your everyday stuff.”
I sighed. She’s right. I never cared this much about what people thought. In fact, my usual M.O. would be to show up wearing the opposite of what I was supposed to. Coz you know, I was a rebel like that. Or maybe just immature. Eh, semantics.
“I am not looking forward to working with Carrie,” I groaned as I pulled a light pink tank over my head. I pulled on a pair of skinny jeans and threw a pink and blue plaid shirt on over my tank, then slipped on my knee high boots.
“She’s really not that bad once you get to know her, Ad. She’s just got…issues. She means well, it’s just hard for her to open up to people. Just be patient and give it time. Plus, she doesn’t work there full time, she just does consulting so you probably won’t see her very often.”
“Stacy, you are the queen of bitchy comments and making things awkward. I cannot believe you are lecturing me on how to behave with someone. If this conversation were reversed, you’d be telling me to go fuck myself.”
“Okay, fine, you’re right. Do whatever you want. But she is my friend, she’s Ian sister and you’re going to have to work with her. So if you don’t want things to be super awkward and tense around her all the time, then you should probably take my suggestions.”
Ugh, I hated when Stacy was being rational. If only she listened to her own advice once in a while her life might be a little less dramatic. But hell, Stacy would go stir crazy without drama. An idle Stacy is a crazy Stacy.
“Alright, I’m out of here. I’m already cutting it close. I don’t want to be late on my first day. Although,” I said, spinning around on my heel, turning back to my bedroom. “Maybe I should pack an extra set of clothes in case what I’m wearing is stupid. I don’t want to be stuck in this outfit all day if it’s going to make me uncomfortable.”
“Oh my gosh, get out!” Stacy yelled, shoving me towards the door. “You’ll be fine, you look hot. In a cowgirl, virgin-esque kind of way. Just go or you’ll be late.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll text you later.”
“You know,” Stacy yelled down the hallway as I made my way towards the elevators. “If you threw your hair up in some pigtails and got a cowboy hat, I bet you could live out one of Ian’s fantasies over his desk!”
I swear, all Stacy ever thought about was sex. I couldn’t help but smile at the idea though. Stop it, Addy! Don’t go there! Shaking my head and forcing the aching feeling in my nether regions at the thought of Ian bending me over his desk, I pushed the button and sat back against the wall. Avoiding the temptation of Ian’s sexy body was going to be exhausting. I hoped I had time to grab some coffee.
The first two weeks flew by. I felt like all I ever did was socialize, but everyone assured me that it was important that we all know each other really well in order to work cohesively. I was still in training, so I mostly just did little tasks that were given to me by different team members, though they always asked me and phrased it as me doing them a favor. I knew they were just trying to make me comfortable and not come across as bossy. I appreciated their forethought.
Currently I was working on designing the packaging for a new water bottle the team had designed. It was my first real shot at doing something completely on my own, without having direction from someone else. I was given full reign on the design and it was stressing me out. Badly. Normally the pressure to do well would break me, but I wanted to prove myself. Instead of being afraid of failure, I was motivated to succeed.
It was strange. I felt…grown up. Don’t get me wrong, I struggled with this constantly. I went back and forth with myself, fighting the urge to cower and run. I didn’t want to mess this up. I wanted to be responsible for once and show Ian that I was worth the risk I knew he took on me.
He had no reason to trust me with this. Yeah, sure, he’d seen some of my sketches and paintings I’d done, but they wouldn’t be hanging in the Louvre anytime soon. I always had the creative gene and once I put my mind to something, I generally would accomplish it and be proud of the results. The issue with that is that I only ever worked on projects that I actually wanted to do. It didn’t matter how exciting or fun it might have been, if I was being told to do it, I just simply wouldn’t.
This made my school age years extremely challenging for my parents. Luckily, my mom was very similar and was very patient with my stubbornness. Unfortunately, my teachers were a lot less understanding. I ended up doing a lot of extra homework to try and raise my grades after they inevitably plummeted from my refusing to cooperate.
Medial, mundane tasks weren’t the issue. Your standard, run-of-the-mill types of assignments were a piece of cake. It was the assignments that required me to think outside the box, put a little of myself into them and chance the possibility of failing that really did me in. My fear of failure was a great hindrance in my life and I wish I could tell you where it stems from, but probably only a trained professional would be able to decipher my crazy lack of self esteem.
Again, only with the things that actually mattered to me. In what ways did it hinder me, you ask? I think the better question would be in what ways didn’t it hinder me. All those school musicals I wanted so badly to be a part of? I just sat in the audience watching them. Having to audition was too terrifying. Not because I didn’t believe I was good enough. I was probably even a little full of myself when it came to some of my talents, but that wasn’t the point. Just because you are good at something doesn’t mean you won’t fail.
School wasn’t the only aspect of my life that suffered from this. My social life was a joke. All the boys who I actually found interesting and attractive were the ones I avoided. Several of them even tried to ask me out. I should have been excited, right? Well, I wasn’t. I was terrified. And when I get scared, I get cruel. So after laughing at a few of them after they attempted to date me, they quit asking.
That didn’t keep me from dating. Nope, I just had a tendency to date guys I had absolutely no interest in. Didn’t matter if they were boring or ugly or stupid, it only mattered that they meant nothing to me. They couldn’t hurt me if they meant nothing.
The same went when it came to having friends. Girls play head games. They are cruel and vicious and I had no desire to be a victim to the crap that went down between two girl friends.
No, I wasn’t a loner. I had friends, but the same concept as dating applied. They were boring and homely looking, not even the least bit interesting. But they were kind and weren’t judgmental and I knew they wouldn’t turn on me just because one of the popular girls started talking to them. Because the popular girls didn’t even look at them. It was hard to see them with their noses so high up in the air.
I never really fit in anywhere. I just kind of…existed. No one picked on me, and once my senior year of high school came, everyone had lost interest in me entirely.
Now, it wasn’t like I walked around feeling sorry for myself. I didn’t hang my head in shame or avoid eye contact. I was perfectly happy with how things were in my life. I was pretty and smart and probably could have fit in just about anywhere if I had actually cared enough to try, but I didn’t. It wasn’t worth all the effort. Everyone who purposely ‘fit in’ with a certain crowd had to constantly work at it. I simply didn’t care enough to live every second of my life trying to make someone else happy, just to end up getting hurt in the long run.
So anyway, here I was at eleven o’clock on a Friday night, tossing dozens of wadded up sketches into the trashcan. I was determined not to leave this place until I had something I was happy with. I only had a week to come up with an idea to pitch to Ian, and if he liked it, we would pitch it to the sister company who was making the bottles.
I decided I need a break. Some caffeine, preferably. So I grabbed my drawing pad and slipped my flats back on to my feet and headed out to the kitchen in the break room. There were generally still several other employees here at this time of night, even on a Friday, but they were all out at some convention. I had decided not to go, wanting to take the opportunity of uninterrupted time to focus on my sketches.
As I grabbed a Red Bull and went to close the fridge, Ian’s face appeared, inches from mine.
“Holy shit, Ian, you scared me.”