Leave it for Olivia

"Yes please." I said. A smile on my face. "Let her know I stopped by and wished her luck."

We said our goodbyes and I made my way back to my floor. Olivia was working on the top floor with the higher level executives and sales teams, while I was stuck down on the first floor. My little slice of paradise was just a basic cubical, three short walls giving me the bare minimum of privacy. I shouldn't complain though, it was an older set up and the new renovated spaces upstairs had a more open plan aesthetic. Some of those poor sobs didn't even get their own desks, and had to use one long shared one.

I was much happier being down here, mostly left alone to get my work done unbothered. One of the perks of being a nameless cog in the machine.

"Hey bud!" Anderson cheerfully cried out as I walked past his desk. "Look at you showing up a whole five minutes early today. Going for employee of the month are we??"

I kept walking to the desk beside him. Putting my bag down in its usual spot and falling back into my chair. I let it roll back with the momentum, taking me out of my little cube so I could see Anderson beside me.

Anderson looked like he came from some bad movie in the eighty's, one where a typical jock had to infiltrate a group of nerds or something like that. He was a toned muscular guy, short black hair and a jaw that I guess you would call 'chiseled'. But he wore a comically thick pair of glasses, always had his white button up and usually kept a pen tucked away in it's pocket.

"Oh yeah, I'm all in for it this month. Thinking about baking the boss some brownies and asking if he wants me to do his laundry as well." We both chuckled at the thought of it.

"Don't say that to loudly. I think Mr Saito would start handing out laundry duties if you got the idea into his head."

Mr Saito, never just Saito, wasn't the worst boss I'd ever had, but he was definitely up there. He ran a tight ship and wasn't into the ideas of making work a more friendly and warm environment, but at least he practiced what he preached. I'd heard about plenty of managers for other teams that were little more than living and breathing paperweights.

"So how's Olivia doing with the big boys upstairs?" Anderson asked. "I saw you sneak up there to go see her."

"Taking the elevator is sneaking now? She's doing fine. I think? In the middle of some weird throat singing routine."

"Throat singing?" Anderson slapped his knee, laughing at the absurdity of it. "Those fucking sales guys have the weirdest rituals."

"I know right, but if it works it works I guess."

"You know what I heard from Kim up in marketing the other day?" Anderson rolled closer to me, taking on a hushed tone. "She told me she stayed late one night and had to go up to the top floor for some files or something like that."

"Shocking." He rolled his eyes at me, but kept going.

"She told me she saw a bunch of the sales guys, all with their pants down surrounding this girl."

"Wait. For real?" I asked.

"Yeah! She said they were all taking turns having sex with this one girl, just right there on one of those long desks they've got." He looked around to make sure no one else was listening. Keeping his voice just at a whisper. "She turned around right away so she didn't see who they were, but I'm thinking a bunch of the guys hired a prostitute as some weird kind of team building thing."

"What. There's no way they'd get away with something like that. I mean, right in the middle of the office?"

"Come on, you hear the rumors about the kinda stuff that goes on up there right?" He smirked at me, but then seemed to realise what he might be implying. "N-not that I think Olivia would be doing any of that stuff anyway... but... you know?"

"I'm not a gossip hound like you are. Sure some of those old farts up there seem a bit perverted, hiring Maddie and all, but this is still a workplace."

"Well, I've heard..."

"Mister Boreman." A chill jolted down my spine. Snapping my head around revealed the ever stoic figure of Mr Saito, his eyes leveled at Anderson. "And mister Snell."

For a small man he could have such a towering figure. His eyes locked onto mine, they were the kind of eyes that made you less sure he was looking at you the longer you stared into them. You could never tell if the man was angry, proud or just indifferent of your existence, but normally it was just safe to assume the former. In this case, definitely so.

"Good morning Mr Saito." I pulled myself back into my cubical, turning on the computer.

"Happy Friday Mr Saito!" Anderson said. Far more cheerfully than I'd dare with the man. "Happy Friday! Any plans for the weekend?"

The old man gave a stern disapproving murmur, shuffling past us towards his corner office. "No more happy than any other day of the week."

Anderson was convinced he'd be able to get a 'good morning' out of the guy one of these days. I wasn't so convinced. Maybe if the guy had been apart of that special sales 'Team building exercise' he be cheerful enough to say it.

I shook my head, smiling to myself as I logged on and began the daily grind. Anderson could be so gullible. Kim must have just been talking shit and messing around, and the poor guy actually believed her. Olivia would have told me if stuff like that happened up there, and she certainly wouldn't stand for it. It was a boys club for sure, but they were all talk.

The workday went by, as slowly as it ever did. I replied to all the emails that came in overnight, Filled away those reports I'd been meaning to get to all week, I accidentally opened more than two Excel spreadsheets at the same time and my shit box computer crashed on me, I spent my fair share of time aimlessly scrolling on my phone, sat through a meeting that spent more time trying to get the zoom call to work than was spent on the agenda. All in all a very productive day. More so than my Fridays usually were.

Olivia took pride in her work, she gave it her all and it let her achieve so much. I admired that so much in her but it just wasn't something that I felt within myself. Seeing the physical toll it took on her some nights didn't do anything to help change that. Some nights her throat would be horse from having to talk so much, or she'd be walking funny after a day of wearing heels. The fact that she still pushed through it all was just amazing to me.

Finishing up for the day, I thought about what I would do after work. Probably just go home, watch TV and order something to eat. A wild Friday night to be sure. Olivia probably wouldn't be having a much better time, trying to wrangle five drunk guys celebrating their new arrival. I wished I could be there with her, It'd been so long since we'd had anything close to a date night.

Then, a thought hit me. Why couldn't I be there tonight? Sure it'd be weird if I asked to come to their team party and then third wheeled the entire night, but what if I just went to the bar on my own? Once the guys were drunk enough I could have her all to myself, and we could finally spend a Friday night just hanging out together!

Okay, I might not be able to spend the whole night hanging out with her when she was supposed to be with her team, but anything was better than nothing right? I made my choice to go, that just left one thing to decide.

Did I tell Olivia I was crashing her party tonight, or did I make it a suprise?