youngblood | lrh

▷ 10.

Sitting in the meeting room where I first met Luke felt weird. Mr. Augustine had called me in to the meeting room to discuss the plans he had involving my career and job title. It felt weird to think about how not that long ago, my life had been completely changed in this room. Being alone in this room waiting for Mr. Augustine and the boys to finish catching up gave me almost too much reflection time, so I was grateful when they walked through the threshold.

"Sorry about that Gabrielle. The boys and I just had to chat for a moment, are you ready for the meeting?" Mr. Augustine asked. I nodded and opened my notebook to a blank page, ready to take notes. Everyone took their seats, Luke sitting in the chair next to me. I didn't want to hint too much that me and Luke were talking because I was afraid Mr. Augustine would fire me. "You don't need your notebook Gabrielle. This shouldn't take longer than thirty minutes."

I closed my notebook and felt myself panic slightly. There had been pretty of rumors going around about the future of my career and as much as I knew nothing bad would happen, I couldn't help but think he was about to announce something horrible to me. Luke sneakily grabbed ahold of my hand and gave it a squeeze before letting go. I tried to sneakily smile at him but I think it ended up looking more like a grimace.

"Miss Bridges, because of your amazing contribution to the boys album and being an extremely hard worker I have a very specific task I'd like for you to take over." Mr. Augustine started. "For the next month you will be in charge of handling all of the boys public relations aspects. The main task you'll be doing is scheduling interviews for them to do before concerts and before the album comes out. If you do well in this task, I'd like to give you something harder to do after this first month."

"Thank you for this amazing offer, Mr. Augustine. I would absolutely love to accept this position." I stated. My boss nodded and went into a spiel containing the specifics and details of my new task. I had to sign a non disclosure agreement because I would be finding out some of their marketing strategies for this album and they didn't want any of that coming out early. The meeting was relatively short, like Mr. Augustine said, but as I was walking out he stopped me.

"Gabrielle I just want you to remember that we don't want our employees getting too close to our clients. You'll be spending a lot of time with these boys from now on, and if you want to be friends with them, that's perfectly fine. But there's a thin line between friendship and what we frown upon." He said seriously. He had to know and I couldn't stop my heart from racing. He knows Luke and I are talking and I'm going to lose my job. I muttered something that sounded like yes before scurrying off back to my desk.

I grabbed my purse off my desk and was about to run outside for an early lunch but I was stopped by my least favorite co-worker, Brynn.

"You know, I don't think you can handle the pressure of this job." She stated with her hands on her hips. I stood there slack-jawed, unsure of what to say. "You don't have the experience. You should go back and tell Mr. Augustine to transfer the job to me."

"I'm sorry Brynn, but no. I'm sorry, I have to go." I mumbled and walked past her, my heels clicking on the floor. I was all but running down the hall to get out of here when I, literally, ran into Luke. I was just in such a state of panic from Mr. Augustine bringing up dating the boys and my confrontation with Brynn, I grabbed Luke's hand and pulled him down the hall and out of the building.

He had a look of worry on his face and once we were by my car, I flung myself into him. "I'm having an awful day." I told him. "I failed my math test because I was too upset about leaving you that night, I'm pretty sure Mr. Augustine is onto us and I'm gonna lose my job, and Brynn is so mean." I talked way too fast. Luke sat me down on a bench and wrapped an arm around my shoulder.