He changes the subject

"Rebecca, Aileen," Jared began, stopping both of them mid-sentence, "there is a lot to do this morning and this conversation is a bit distracting."

"Right, you're right. Sorry again, Jared," Aileen apologized. Rebecca just rolled her eyes again as she got back to tapping away at her laptop.

"Thank you, Aileen," Jared replied.

Aileen nodded with a smile, then exited the maze of empty cubicles to make her way back to her office. Jared took a second to look at Rebecca. She actually seemed to be quite focused, and although she was incredibly late, he was a little relieved to have some help.

They work through lunch without a single break, something Jared had done many times in the past. He had hoped it would stay in the past, now that he had help, but Rebecca wasn't as helpful as she could be. He actually saw a lot of potential in her, but the lack of enthusiasm and experience meant she made a lot of mistakes. As the day drew to a close, folks started heading out.

Rebecca looked over at Jared and he could feel her eyes boring into the side of his head. He pretended not to notice so he could focus on the work in front of him. All he needed to do was save the files and place them in an email for—

"Hey, Jared?" interrupted Rebecca.

Jared paused what he was doing to meet Rebecca's gaze.

"Uhm..." she continued.

"What is it, Rebecca? Are you done with your work?" he asked.

"Yeah I think it's... uh... done?" she stated hesitantly.

"You think it's done? What does that mean?" he pressed, frustrated with the lack of effective communication as much as the delay in his work.

"It's, like, I guess I'm just struggling to understand what Connie means when she says 'make it pop' ya know? I want to put some more thorough instruction in there for you when you work on it, but I don't know how to interpret something so vague, I guess."

Jared was surprised. It would have been very simple for her to copy and paste the information people were providing into "instructions" for Jared to execute. Instead, she was thinking critically about the submissions.

"Usually when Connie says that, she means to add a bit more color than we typically would elsewhere," Jared explained.

"Ohhh okay. Why doesn't she just say that?" Rebecca said, rolling her eyes.

I know right? Jared thought. He chuckled a bit, remembering for a bit what it was like to have a team. He also thought he might have seen a smile cross Rebecca's lips.

"Well, I guess I'm done for real now," she said.

Jared took up a stern tone, "Okay. Collect your things and head to the conference room. I'll meet you there shortly."

"But it's already really late and my mom's waiting in the car," Rebecca whined.

"That didn't seem to be a problem on Friday," he reminded her, causing her to blush with the memory of what transpired.

"Also," he continued, "I don't remember this being a discussion."

"Ughh, fine," she said in a huff as she gathered her things.

Jared let out a sigh of his own as he refocused on the final task of the day.

Several minutes later, he had finally sent it off to the stakeholder for review.

Now, as if the day weren't long enough, he needed to think of what punishment lie ahead for sweet Rebecca. He had zero chance for enacting his immediate punishment rule (which would have been a great stress reliever), and he also failed to keep a running tally of the demerits throughout the day.

After a brief minute, Jared came up with what he thought was the perfect solution.

He sent a message to Aileen apologizing for another late night, and she simply responded with the same wink and thumbs-up emoji as last time.

Sweet, he thought.

With that, he took a quick look at his handy, dandy notebook to get a refresher on his ideas from the weekend. Once satisfied, he placed it in the bag with everything else and made his way to the conference room.

Jared entered the conference room to see Rebecca in the same chair she chose last week. She didn't really respond to his entering, but her discomfort was apparent. One arm crossed her body just under her breasts and hung onto the other arm. Her eyes were fixed on the table, unmoving. If it wasn't for her blinking, she could've been mistaken for a statue.

A very fuckable statue, Jared added.

"Well, quite a lot happened today, didn't it?" Jared asked as he set his things down by the table and took his seat at the far end.

"I guess," she responded.

"You guess? You showed up over 2 hours late, causing us to work through lunch. You gave me a piss-poor apology, if you could even call it that. You talked back to my boss, which reflects poorly on me. You mixed up the instructions on 3 projects today, causing me to send the wrong deliverables to the wrong stakeholders. And, to top it all off, you talked back to me not even 10 minutes ago. I have to admit, it's hard to keep track when you act like such a bad girl all day," he ended.

Rebecca just sat there, motionless.

"But I will say this, I saw a lot of good in today as well." Jared said, surprising Rebecca and causing her to look at him for the first time since he entered the room.

"Like what?" she asked, obviously interested in whatever sort of praise was about to come her way.

"I thought you showed a lot of initiative. You're not such a bad problem solver, when you're not being a trouble-maker that is," Jared confessed.

This caused her to blush a little.

"However," he continued, "that in no way means you aren't going to be punished tonight."

He saw the joy leave her expression, as if she held out some hope that she was being let off the hook.

"Instead, you are going to be actively participating in helping me tally your wrongdoings," Jared stated, with a smirk growing on his face.

"Wait, what does that mean?" she asked, worriedly.

"Well, I just recounted the days events and like I said, it's hard to keep up. I could sit here and come up with what I believe a good number of demerits would be, but as a reward for your efforts today, I'll give you the opportunity to participate," he explained.

"Uhm, okay," she responded, still uneasy about what it could mean.

"So, how many demerits do you think you've earned today?" he asked.