Chapter 18
Blake Izzy: Two things. Number 1 - I miss gas station donuts and co-ed showers. Same, Blake thought as he stepped out of his car and hit the lock button on his keyfob. There was a chill in the early morning air, the subtle fall warning that winter was on its way, and he was glad he was wearing a suit jacket. Izzy: Number 2 – Have a great day - we should pizza tonight. Blake paid the parking meter and started walking toward Starbucks, wondering if it would be celebratory pizza, or something else entirely.
“Are you kidding me right now?” Brad sat back in his chair, looking at Blake like he’d lost his damn mind as the sound of steaming milk suddenly seemed deafening. It’d been nice when Blake had been discussing Izzy - a foamy layer of privacy - but now it just added to the tension in his neck. Blake cleared his throat and asked, “Which part are you referring to specifically?” “All of it – shit, Blake.” The older man gave his head a shake. “You moved in fast as hell after the first draft, didn’t you?” “I know, I know,” Blake said, remembering how he literally ran when he thought he was safe to date Izzy. He reached up and tugged at his collar, which suddenly felt tight. He hated sharing his personal life with anyone from work, but since he wasn’t willing to lie and hide their relationship, it was the only way. He told Brad everything (well not everything) about he and Izzy’s relationship. The good thing was that he considered Brad a friend, even though he was his boss. He knew he could count on Brad’s discretion, regardless of what the man’s business decision would be on the matter. Brad said, “You never talk about your personal life, so I’m assuming this must be important to you.” “So important,” he said, a little surprised by just how strongly he meant that. “Honeslty, Brad, I wish it wasn’t, but it is.” Brad crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, then, I have good news and bad news.” Blake clenched his teeth - gnashed them together, really - before saying, “What’s the bad news?” Brad’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Blake and said, “The same as the good news. As you know, we’re eliminating some duplicate positions, post-acquisition.” “Yes.” Blake never liked letting anyone go, but the reality was that when Ellis acquired other companies, they usually ended up with redundancies within roles at all levels and certain uncomfortable decisions had to be made. “As you know, most of the support functions for Danovich can be managed from here, instead of Boston, so most of the cuts will affect that location.” Brad picked up his coffee and said, “However, there are some support roles that we can split between our locations for efficiency reasons.” Blake knew this already. “Brad, I was the one who--” “Isabella Shay is a new employee, with far less experience than the generalists in Boston. Because we already have multiple layers of HR support here, unfortunately, she is one of the roles we’ve identified with multiple redundancies.” Blake felt like he’d had the wind knocked out of him. “Oh, shit. No.” “You signed off on the plan when you were in Boston, Blake.” Brad wore a patient smile as he took off his glasses and adjusted one of the bows. “But the spreadsheet only had employee numbers, not names.” Fuck, fuck, fuck. “Holy shit, I didn’t know.” “That’s right - you didn’t.” Brad put his glasses back on and glanced at his watch. “Think about that. You knew - and still know - that it’s the right business decision if you take emotions out of the equation. There isn’t a single solid reason why we would change the plan.” Blake dragged a hand through his hair, frustrated because shit - Brad was right. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but maybe this is a good thing, since you really like this woman. Now you don’t have to worry about your professional lives getting in the way.” Not helping. Blake seriously felt sick to his stomach because he already knew there was nothing he could do. If he tried to save her job, it would be seen - rightly so - as a conflict of interest and the byproduct of his emotional attachment to her. Brad might be his friend, but he wouldn’t overlook the obvious. “Listen, I have to go.” Brad picked up his coffee and stood, “I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that regardless of your relationship, this is confidential until Human Resources executes the plan tomorrow morning. When do you plan on informing Pam about the cuts?” “I was planning on discussing it first thing this morning,” he said, a huge knot in the pit of his stomach. “She should be informing her team about the acquisition right at eight, so I’ll try to catch her after they wrap up.” Pam’s team…with Izzy. Brad left, and Blake just sat at the table, feeling numb. What was he going to do? Blake wanted to slay the dragons in Izzy’s life, not become one. But he was the one who’d stared at the spreadsheet for hours before making the decisions. He was the one who’d be directing Pam on how the separations and severance packages would be handled. Ellis was generous with severance, and he was proud of the kind, helpful way his HR team provided assistance to departing employees. He hated layoffs, but the way the company took care of people had always made him feel better. But only marginally. The way it worked - the way it’d always worked - was that everyone in the know kept it entirely confidential until conversations with hose affected began. That way no one could be tipped-off in advance and do something out of character they’d regret later; he’d seen it all. He knew firsthand that the key to separations running smoothly was keeping everything quiet until the meetings began. Confidentiality, respect and genuine empathy were required. After all, they were affecting the livelihoods of people like Izzy, who’d done nothing wrong but work for the company during an acquisition. Under normal circumstances, this would be gut-wrenching. But how the hell was he supposed to not tell Izzy? He’d always looked at the integrity of his role though a simple lens. It wasn’t uncommon for him to have to give depositions and represent the company under oath; mergers and acquisitions, state and federal filings, managing compensation, the benefit plans, the 401(k), leading employee investigations and terminations, workplace injuries – those fell under the umbrella of Blake’s responsibility. And he took his responsibility to the company and its employees seriously. So he’d always purported himself as if every decision he made could be questioned under oath. Because it could. If he were always honest and followed the rules and regulations, he’d never have anything to hide. It had always seemed remarkably black and white to him. Gray existed all over business, but not within these specific areas. He could testify under oath that he'd never shared confidential information with an Ellis employee because he never had. But how could he keep this confidential when it was Iz?
Izzy Izzy walked into the conference room and grabbed the seat at the far end of the big table. She still had no idea why Blake had decided it was okay for them to be more than friends, but she trusted him. He was Mr. Integrity, so he obviously knew something or was working on a way to make it all okay. The only problem was that her brain didn’t like mysteries. When she’d been with Blake all weekend, work had seemed a million miles away and she hadn’t cared about the why. Dark eyes and a deep voice had been her entire universe, providing every little thing she could ever need and shutting out the rest of the world. Since walking into Ellis that morning, though, a tiny twinge of unease had settled into her belly. She trusted him implicitly, but couldn’t wait to find out the how of their relationship. The why is it okay now when it wasn’t before. Pam came into the conference room with a stack of files, closed the door behind her, and proceeded to explain that Ellis had acquired a company in Boston – Danovich Holdings. Izzy listened, fascinated, because her previous jobs had all been with small companies who definitely weren’t acquiring other businesses. Izzy felt a weird little spark of pride as she realized that must’ve been what Blake had been doing in Boston. He was the one of the people Ellis had sent to acquire a multi-million dollar corporation. How cool was that? Her Blake was a Boss. After giving a high-level overview of the company they’d acquired, Pam began to describe the similarities and differences between their two benefit plans. Izzy took a lot of notes, as this was going to give her quite the workload, but she couldn’t wait to begin. Izzy went back to her office and opened the Excel spreadsheet of all the new employees that she’d need to reach out to. She had a lot of work to do all of a sudden, but she was still in love with her new job so she didn’t mind. She got lost in the paperwork and reports, forgetting everything but work. Pam was in meetings somewhere else in the building, so it was easy to just fall into the work without interruptions. But when her stomach growled and she looked at the clock, her mind went right back to Blake. Because it was Monday - Caniglia’s Food Truck day. She stretched, smiled, and texted: I’m on my way to Caniglia’s for spaghetti, FYI. There was no guarantee he’d be there, but after their weekend, she’d be surprised if he didn’t show. She grabbed her coat and bag, pulled on her gloves, and headed for the elevator.
Six o’clock. Izzy stared at the clock, still stuffed from the Blake-free lunch she’d had. He hadn’t been at Caniglia’s, which wasn’t a big deal, but he hadn’t sent her a single text all day, either. There was no reason to be concerned, yet – why in the hell hadn’t he texted? She grabbed her phone and sent: Are you still at work, Chest? He responded almost immediately. Blake: Yup Izzy didn’t like one-word answers with zero punctuation; that made her inexplicably nervous. She replied with: Was the day as stressful as you thought it’d be? Blake: Worse She really, really, really needed an emoji or a superfluous exclamation point to ensure her that everything was fine. She texted: I’ll stop bugging you so you can leave.;) Blake: Tks Ugh. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, that he was distancing himself from her. Which was ridiculous. He had been the one to initiate their more than friends, so that didn’t make any sense at all, right? She scarfed a piece of leftover pizza before going for a run with Josh, who was always down to accompany her if it was getting too dark. But when she got back and there was still no text from Blake, she knew something was up. She showered and tried to stop checking her phone, but his absence gnawed at her. The combo of her not knowing why he suddenly thought they could date and his disappearing act after they actually did date left her very uncomfortable. She texted again before bed, a lowkey nothing message: The Darkling vomited on Josh’s couch and now he’s holding my pillows and blankets hostage until I clean it up. It was true - that dick - and it was something that would amuse Blake. But an hour later, still no message. And that kind of pissed her off. And scared her. She understood a stressful day, and she also understood that his obsession with ethics might prevent him from continuing their relationship if he’d been wrong about his mysterious whatever, but why in the hell would he ghost her? He was obviously home from work by now and capable of using his huge fingers to smash out a polite response. After putting in a few hours on the benefits paperwork, Izzy plugged in her phone and went to bed. As she laid her head on a throw pillow from the sofa and covered herself with just the sheet (because she didn’t want to clean the puke, dammit), she figured that if he decided to nut-up and text her overnight, she didn’t even want to know. On a random side note, she really wished she could vent about him to her best friend, Blake.
Blake “What the fuck are you looking at?” Blake glared at the cats, who were huddled together on the couch and staring at him as if disapproving of his behavior. Well, okay, Goodyear technically couldn’t be staring, but both of their faces were turned toward him like they were judging him. He was sitting at his desk, sipping a scotch neat- as he had been since he’d arrived home - while trying to figure out what to do next. He couldn’t tell Izzy. He couldn’t. And it wasn’t like he was choosing his job or career over her. It was just the principle of the thing. But internally, the struggle was real. His feelings for Izzy tugged hard on his values. And at the moment, he wasn’t sure which one was winning. Ignoring her all day was killing him nearly as much as the knowledge that her job would end tomorrow. Because he knew Izzy. He felt like he was almost a part of her. He knew what she was probably feeling at the moment, with him being distant, and it was killing him to do that to her. But he couldn’t in good conscience do the whole banter thing, laughing with her like everything was fine while knowing what was in store for her. He sighed and stared into his glass. It was almost midnight, and he was still clueless. Because if he continued to avoid her until after she was terminated, it’s not like she wouldn’t know that he’d known. She would know, and odds were good that she’d be very pissed that he hadn’t warned her or at the very least responded to her messages. So what was his plan? Wait until he knew she’d left the building with her severance agreement, then text whaddup? All he knew for certain was that he missed her so fucking much. It’d only been 24 hours, yet he was dying to see her face and smell her hair and listen to her fucking awesome takes on the world. Fuck it. Izzy was more important than his job, God help him. Blake picked up his phone and sent her a text: I really need to talk to you before work tomorrow and it’s important.