His boss asked him to rub sunscreen on her back. That's it. That's how it started. A single dad trying to keep his head down at a company beach day. Just doing what any decent person would do, making sure someone didn't burn.
30 seconds. Efficient. Unremarkable. Done. Then she turned her head, looked right at him, and smiled.
That's not what I meant. He thought she was correcting his technique. He had no idea she'd been watching him for six months, and he had absolutely no idea what she was about to ask him to do next. The invitation had said, "Team Beach Day," which was HR speak for your VP, has rented a private stretch of Malibu, and attendance is encouraged, but let's be real, it's mandatory. Marcus Webb showed up anyway because that's what you did when you needed the job.
And Marcus needed this job the way a man drowning needs something solid to grab onto. He had a seven-year-old at home, a sister who watched her three afternoons a week for $60 cash, and a mortgage that didn't care about his feelings. He parked the truck at the end of the lot, found a spot near the coolers where nobody important was sitting yet, and started pulling out the department's folding chairs. That was the thing about being the only admin coordinator in the coastal properties division. You showed up first.
You set up chairs. You made sure the coolers were stocked. That was just the job. You don't have to do that. He turned around.
Diane Callaway was walking toward him in a white coverup that billowed around her in the salt wind. She was his boss. His boss's boss technically since the VP slot she occupied was two levels above his grade. She had the kind of poise that old money grew in people the way trees grew bark. It just happened over years without anyone noticing the process.
Marcus straightened. Morning Miss Callaway. Diane, she said the way she'd been saying it for the 6 months he'd worked for her. Not aggressively, just steady, like a correction she was willing to repeat indefinitely. And I mean it.
The catering company handles the setup. You're off the clock, old habit, he said. She looked at him a second longer than strictly necessary, then nodded and moved toward the main canopy where the rest of the team was starting to arrive. Marcus watched her go, then went back to the coolers anyway because old habits were the only ones he could afford to keep. The team filled in over the next 40 minutes.
Priya from acquisitions, who always brought the good guac, Todd from legal, who wore a rash guard to every beach event because of a sunburn story he told at least four times. And Gail, Marcus' direct supervisor, who managed to look simultaneously glad it was Friday and suspicious that someone was having more fun than she was. Marcus had positioned himself at the edge of things the way he usually did at company events. Close enough to be helpful, far enough to avoid the kind of small talk that required you to discuss your ex-wife, your custody arrangement, or why someone who used to manage a resort development team in Phoenix was now coordinating calendars for a coastal real estate group in Los Angeles. He had his reasons.