One Step at a Time - Stuart Twombly

Chapter Twelve

Marley stared nervously at her designated computer besides Stuart. The Google Helpline challenge was about to begin and Marley was feeling anxious. Stuart reached over and held her hand in his, giving a comforting squeeze before letting go. Marley smiled at her boyfriend and turned her attention to Chetty.

"Good morning. Welcome to the Google Helpline. You will man the phones for one hour. Before you begin, you must log in to your account so that we can review your work later. The helpline is now open."

Marley quickly did as Chetty instructed and logged into her account before her first call came in.

"Google Helpline. My name is Marley, how may I help you?"

"Okay, so what you want to do is click on the gear icon, then Settings, then Advanced Settings," Marley instructed.

"Wonderful, have a nice day."

The calls continued to fall in, Marley working through the task with ease. Once Chetty stopped the time and ended the challenge, Marley reached over and gave Stuart and Neha a high five.

"Please submit your log files so I may review your work later."

Marley did so effortlessly and turned to give her boyfriend a bright smile. Stuart smiled back and pulled her in for a quick hug, whispering in her ear that he knew she could do this. Her smile widened at how supportive Stuart was and how much he truly believed in her. Marley had never had someone in her life that held so much faith and encouragement for her. It was an unfamiliar feeling that she never wanted to go away.

"Mine's not blue, it's grey. I can't click it. Mine isn't clicking. Mine's grey. Is anyone else's grey?" Billy stumbled out nervously.

Marley's smile soon began to fall as she overheard Billy's panic. She had a feeling something was going to go wrong, she just figured it would be something she did. Marley watched anxiously as Chetty slowly approached Billy, a look of disdain flickering in his eyes.

"Did you not hear my opening remarks?"

"No, yeah, I heard most of your opening remarks. I was just, I was getting in the zone," Billy answered while turning towards him.

"I was very clear that you had to log into your account so I could review your work later." Chetty snapped, slowly raising his voice at the end.

"Well, the good news is you reviewed my work now. You don't need the instant replay because you saw the touchdown live." Billy tried to fix the situation, but it was clear that Chetty was not going to allow any sort of exceptions to the predicament.

"I really don't understand that analogy, but I do know that attention to detail is of paramount importance here and my instructions were explicit. If there is no recording, then it's as if you didn't even show up today."

Marley glanced at Stuart and Lyle in concern. Her heart was pounding against her ribcage as she anxiously waited for Chetty to continue. What was this going to mean for the team? Marley felt as if she was slowly losing oxygen as she stared back and forth between her teammate and the man in charge.

"Except I did show up. I'm sitting right here Chetty." Billy breathed out heavily. Distress and exasperation apparent on his face as he tried to fix his mistake.

"Well, according to your log, you're not. And since every intern must complete the challenge in order for your team to be scored, your team will, unfortunately, receive a score of zero."

Marley's heart dropped to the bottom of her stomach as Chetty revealed the outcome of Billy's mistake. She couldn't believe all the hard work they had done was going to count for nothing. It wasn't fair. Marley didn't want to be angry with Billy, but she couldn't help but blame him a little. Most of her negative emotions were being pointed at Chetty for not even giving the rest of the team any sort of points. It wasn't Billy's fault entirely. It was a technicality and he studied and tried his best. Marley wished that could count for something, but she knew life wasn't that simple. There was no way they could beat Graham's team now.

"Well done, Mr. McMahon. Perhaps more studying, less pudding."

Marley glared at the back of Chetty's head, angry at the way he treated Billy. Yes, she was disappointed and a little peeved at Billy for messing up, but he didn't have to be so rude about it. People mess up, they make mistakes and Marley couldn't be too mad at Billy for making one of his own. Honestly, she thought she would be the one in his position and she knew that she would hate herself for disappointing her teammates. She didn't want to make Billy feel any worse than he most likely already did.

The team sat dishearteningly as Graham stood up and approached the team. Marley was in no mood for his bullshit and was ready to get up and wipe off that smug look on his face.

"Oh, Billy, Billy, Billy. What have you done? It's you lot I feel bad for. It's really hard to get here. Some of you are probably pretty intelligent. You deserve better. I'm sorry."

Marley scoffed at his fake attitude and got ready to defend Billy.

"Shut the hell up Graham. We all know you're not sorry. You were waiting for something like this to happen so you would have no chance of losing. You don't give a damn about anyone except yourself and guess what? I'm sick of you and your bullshit. It's not over yet, so wipe that smug ass look off of your face before I do it myself," Marley snapped at the fake Brit. Graham glowered darkly at the blonde and stomped away. She let out a deep huff and sat back down in her seat, crossing her arms over her chest.

Stuart leaned over and placed his hands on her shoulder, trying to ease away some of the stress and anger. Team Lyle slumped in their seats and stared off into oblivion in disappointment. They had worked so hard and just as they thought they had a chance of winning, life decides to throw another obstacle in their way. Marley watched as her friends sat in discouragement, but she wouldn't allow them to give up yet. They couldn't. They had come so far and gone through too much together to give it all up now.

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Marley sat in Stuart's lap playing with his fingers, as everyone but Billy was sitting around in a small room pouting. There was no denying that the team was still feeling disappointed about earlier and none of them knew how they were going to redeem themselves now.

No one wanted to blame Billy, but he was the reason that they had received a score of zero. He did his best and they all knew it was a mistake and he felt bad, but it still left the team feeling dejected.

"Great, there's another win for Team Graham," Stuart snapped.

Marley leaned back into his chest and gripped his hand in her own, trying to provide him some sort of comfort.

"There's only one challenge left. Even if we're perfect, it won't be enough," Yo-Yo muttered sadly. Marley wanted to disagree and encourage them to get back up and fight harder, but she knew they wouldn't buy it. She didn't have the power to motivate them, not like Billy did. She sighed sadly wishing that things had worked out differently.

"We had them too!" Neha exclaimed standing up from her seat.

"We did, but it's just a little hiccup, a little adversity."

Marley was grateful that Nick was remaining optimistic. She wanted to speak out and convince the team that they weren't doomed, but she was beginning to lose that hope she had earlier. Stuart untangled his hands from Marley, wrapping them tightly around her waist instead.

"Nick, come on. Billy's a great guy and everything, but he kind of blew it for us today," Stuart mumbled as his hold on Marley tightened.

"The kids are right, Nick."

Marley's head shot towards the door to find Billy standing there. Guilt swarmed her body as she stared sadly at their disheartened teammate.

"I just wanted to come by and let you know that I did study last night, I tried my best. It's just uh, today on the phones, it's my fault. And uh, he was right when he said you guys deserve better. I'm really sorry that I cost you."

Marley's chest tightened at the words spoken and the tone of his voice. She went to reach out to Billy and try to comfort him but instead, he smiled regretfully at the girl and backed away.

Marley slumped against Stuart as she looked down at her lap. She heard him whisper 'damn' as he internally beat himself up. Marley turned her head to Stuart and pulled his hand away from his face. She cupped his cheek and placed a soft kiss on his lips. He nodded at her silent message and pulled her into a hug. Marley hugged him back tightly as she questioned to herself what the hell they were going to do now.