ADJACENT
Chapter six: Just Business
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Enjoy the ride
Andrea
I heard the knock before I consciously registered it.
Two precise knocks with a pause in-between.
My stomach did the thing it wasn’t supposed to do.
I knew that knock. I’d heard it in a different building, on a different door, three years ago when I’d been crouched over Olabisi’s guest bathroom toilet at nine on a Wednesday evening, emptying my entire stomach lining because someone in her kitchen had made the egusi with tin sardines and hadn’t mentioned this to anyone, least of all the person with a violent and documented aversion to tinned fish.
I’d been in there for eleven minutes.
I know because I’d been mentally counting, desperately, as if the number would help.
The knock had come, two raps, and then his voice on the other side of the door.
Are you alright?
I’d said yes through the door but I was silently dying in there.
He’d waited outside until I came out. Hadn’t said anything about it. Hadn’t said anything about it ever again.
I looked up from my screen.
He was in the doorway.
Charcoal suit, no tie, top button open. He looked at my office the way he always looked at spaces, a quick scan that took in everything and filed it, and then he looked at me.
“Do you have a few minutes.”
“I’m working,” I said.
“I know.” He waited.
I saved the document and gestured at the chair.
He came in, sat down, and looked at the office properly.
“Our gala is in six weeks,” he said. Always to the point. My man.
Composure babes, composure.
“Elvaris Holdings annual investors gala. First one since the formal transition. We’ll be having existing investors, prospective ones, partners, press.” He looked at me steadily. “It needs to be right.”
“Okay,” I said.
“I need someone who understands how Elvaris operates. How I operate. To handle the communications strategy, the event narrative, the positioning.” A beat. “You.”
I stared at him.
“Me,” I said.
“Yes.”
“You’re asking me to work for you again?” When I’m not mad.
“Don't you have people for that?” I added.
“It’ll be consulting and contracted. Specific scope, specific end date.”
“The end date being.” Am I even considering this? I must have gone mad.
“After the gala. Which is in six weeks. Then it’s done.”
I leaned back in my chair and looked at him sitting across my desk being perfectly composed about asking me something that should have required at least a little more preamble.
Most people would have opened with small talk.
A comment about the weather.
An inquiry about my health.
Something to soften the approach.
But not this man.
He had just walked in and said you like it was obvious.
“Why me?”
“Because you know how Elvaris operates.”
“That’s a practical reason.”
“It is.”
“Is it the only one though?” Because as much as I'd love to jump on this opportunity and add it to my portfolio, it still wasn't adding up.
He held my gaze. “No.”
I waited.
“You’re the best person for it,” he said. “That’s the other reason.”
He said it like a fact. Like something he’d looked at from every angle and concluded, without sentiment, without reason.
Not I think you’d be great or I really believe in what you can do.
Just: you’re the best. Delivered with the same tone he used to confirm a meeting time.
I didn’t know what to do with it.
That was the problem.
If it were a compliment I could have managed.
An exaggeration I could have smiled at and filed away.
But this was just him, across my desk, telling me something he’d assessed to be true, and the specificity of it went somewhere I hadn’t prepared a defence for.
“I’m going to need the scope in writing before I agree to anything,” I said, because talking about logistics was safer than whatever my face was currently doing.
“Of course.”
“I work my way. My schedule, my process.”
“I wouldn’t interfere.”
“And I’ll need full access to the Holdings communications archive. The last three years at minimum.”
“Done.”
“And on the night...” I looked at him. “What exactly do you need from me?”
“You’ll be accompanying me as someone who knows what’s supposed to happen and makes sure it does.”
I’m sorry? Am I hearing correctly?
“That’s my old job.”
“It’s a six-week contract.”
“Akintaju.”
Something shifted in his expression when I said his name.
Slight. Quick.
Gone before I could fully read it.
“You know every investor in that room,” I said.
“You know what they respond to, what they’re cautious about, what would make them stay and what would make them leave. You don’t need me to tell you how to run your own gala.”
“No,” he agreed.
“So.”
“So I need someone who knows me,” he said. “Not Elvaris. Me. Someone who can tell the difference between when I’m handling a room and when I’m losing it. Who can step in before it becomes a problem without making it look like stepping in.” He paused. “That’s a shorter list than you might think.”
The office was very quiet.
So I was on a short list of people who actually knew him. Debatable.
I stood up.
Deliberately trying to reclaim the distance that the conversation had closed.
I went to the window with my back to him, looking at the street below.
“I’m not your assistant Mr Akintaju, I won't be doing all that. Yes I'll do my job, but I wont be at your neck and call at the gala. That's not my job” Might as well be formal.
“Send me the scope,” I continued. “And the rate.” I turned and nothing prepared me for the look I saw in his eyes. I all but knew I should run the other way after seeing the same glint I saw the last time we met.
But I refuse to think about that.
“Tonight,” he said. Eyes back to normal. If I didn't know him I’d say he was a psychopath.
“I’ll look at it and let you know.”
“Okay.”
I heard him stand. The small sounds of it, the chair, his jacket.
“Andrea.”
He was at the door, and he was looking at me the way he sometimes looked at me, like he was reading something he needed to understand and hadn’t finished yet.
“Thank you,” he said. “For considering it.”
“I haven’t agreed,” I said, knowing fully well this was a perfect opportunity for me. Falling right into my laps.
“I know,” he said. And then, quieter: “You will though.”
He left before I could respond to that.
I stood at the window for a long time after his footsteps faded.
You will though.
The audacity.
The absolute, specific, completely accurate audacity.
I turned back to my desk, sat down, opened my document, and stared at it.
He was right, obviously.
I was going to agree.
The rate would be good and the scope would be clean and the rational part of my brain had already made the decision before he’d finished the second sentence and everything else was just me taking my time about admitting it.
I just needed a moment to be annoyed about it first.
The peace lily didn’t comment.
I appreciated that about the peace lily.
Author's note: Grateful for those following this story! And yes I love where this ship is going to.🤭
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Catch up ↓
Chapter one - Chapter two - chapter three - Chapter four - Chapter five
Gosh I love where this is going 😍
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