Movies always sell tired cinematic tropes. An untouchable billionaire boss and overlooked employee. A night of drunken vulnerability leading toward impossible romance. But reality skips soft soundtracks and perfect lighting. Reality brings a stumbling executive wreaking heavily of cheap gin.
Reality forces an exhausted single dad with exactly $42 in his checking account to keep his boss from choking on her own vomit. It isn't remotely romantic. It is completely undeniably messy and sometimes it changes absolutely everything. The Mercer Tech annual gayla smelled like expensive perfume and quiet desperation. It was held in a rented ballroom downtown, all vated ceilings, velvet drapes, and an open bar that flowed with topshelf liquor.
The kind of liquor Owen couldn't afford to look at, let alone drink. He stood near a towering ice sculpture of the company logo, clutching a plastic cup of ginger ale. The condensation dripped onto his knuckles. He checked his watch. 11:15 p.m.
His babysitter, Brenda, was charging $18 an hour to sit in his cramped living room and watch his six-year-old daughter, Maya, sleep. Every minute he stood here nodding at middle management sycophants drained his grocery budget for the week. But attendance was mandatory. His manager, Todd, had made that abundantly clear. You want the senior logistics analyst spot, Owen?
You need to show face, shake hands, be part of the culture. So Owen showed face. He wore his only suit, a Navy two-piece he bought off the rack 5 years ago. It pinched at the shoulders. He felt like an impostor.
Across the room, the center of gravity shifted. Evelyn Mercer held court. She was 32, 3 years younger than Owen, and carried the weight of a $2 billion enterprise on her shoulders. She wore a backless emerald dress that probably cost more than Owen's car. Her hair was pulled into a severe sleek twist.
She didn't just walk through the room, she parted it. People leaned in when she spoke, laughing too loud at her jokes, nodding enthusiastically at her observations. But Owen watched her from the shadows of the ice sculpture. He didn't see an untouchable CEO. He saw a woman standing on the edge of a very high, very fragile glass cliff.
She was drinking heavily. It started with champagne during the opening speeches. Then, when the board of directors, a circle of gray-haired, hawkish men who clearly despised taking orders from a woman her age, cornered her near the VIP lounges, she switched to Jyn. Owen had spent enough years working in bars to pay for his aborted college degree to recognize the signs. The stiff posture holding up a swaying frame, the delayed blink, the overly deliberate annunciation of words.
"She's going to crash," a voice muttered. Todd appeared next to Owen, swirling a scotch. He was sweating through his collar, eyeing the CEO with a mix of awe and predatory anticipation. "The board is gunning for her. Q3 margins were down 2%.
They want her out, and she knows it. " Owen didn't reply. He watched Evelyn down the rest of her martini in one sharp swallow. She slammed the glass onto a passing waiter's tray, missed the center, and the glass shattered against the marble floor. The sound cut through the low hum of corporate networking. The room went dead silent.
Evelyn stared at the broken glass. For a fraction of a second, the mask slipped. She looked utterly exhausted, hollowed out. Then she threw her head back and laughed, a harsh, brittle sound. Gravity," she said loudly to the nearest board member.