Janet’s office suit flowed as she briskly walked towards Steve’s office. This time, however, the door was shut. Janet, as she often would do, simply opened the door and walked in.

Steve was standing there angrily looking at her as he held his cell phone up to his ear. He gave Janet a look that was both angry and surprised at the same time.

Steve looked at her and then turned to look at the air while holding the phone to his ear.

“Steve…Steve…We need to talk.” Janet said attempting to interrupt him.

“Can’t you see I’m on the phone?” Steve said through gritted teeth.

“We need to talk and we need to talk now.”

“I wanted to talk and you ignored me. I wanted to talk and you avoided me. You haven’t answered my calls.” Steve said.

Steve then started talking to the sky, “But hey now Janet wants to talk and the world needs to stop so that can happen. Is that it?” Steve turned and asked Janet.

“You wanted to talk to me, well here I am, let’s talk.” Janet said while ignoring Steve’s rant.

“You want to talk, well you can wait five minutes.”

“Fine, just hurry up.” Janet said.

Steve stood there without saying anything while the phone was to his ear for about a minute.

“What are you doing?” Janet began to say.

Steve put up his finger indicating that Janet should be quiet.

Janet waited a few more seconds while Steve held the phone to his ear without saying anything and she lost her patience.

Janet then grabbed his phone from his hand and pushed the button to hung up the phone.

“That happened to be an important call.” Steve said.

“Well you weren’t saying anything so it couldn’t have been that important.”

“OK, What do you want?”

“I want to talk.”

“OK, you want to talk…what do you want to talk about?”

“About how you stood me up so that you could go have sex with what looked like a college girl.” Janet said.

“Well, I didn’t think you cared much about the date. I saw you there sitting next to Terry.”

Janet’s eyes widened as she was surprised that Steve knew Terry was there.

“Yeah…I saw him. So what was the plan, I show up and you and you announce you getting back with him? Was that the plan. You gonna mess me over in front of your man?” Steve continued.

“I just can’t believe you are going to get back with a man that cheated on you like that.” Steve said.

“I know you ain’t talking about cheating. Especially in light of the fact that you stood me up to go mess with that high school girl.”

“So now she is in high school, a few minutes ago she was in college.”

“Yeah…her…you know who I’m talking about.” Janet said.

“How do you even know about her? What you got somebody following me?” Steve asked.

“No, Terry showed me.”

“So your boyfriend is following me around. Let me ask you this, why do you care?” Steve answered.

“I don’t care, sleep with whoever you want to sleep with, just don’t waste my time. We had a date. And…”

“Why are you here, Janet?” Steve said. “You made a big thing out of not wanting to work with me and now you are standing in my office, Why are you here?” Steve continued.

“Why am I here?” Janet said repeating Steve’s question. She then stopped talking.

“Yeah, why?” Steve asked.

“Well…OK, I am going to finish my Vanderholt project. I put too much effort into that project to let Tina come in and take all the glory. I will finish that project and then we will be done with each other.”

“OK, fine, come back this afternoon. We will knock this out. The sooner the better.” Steve said.

“Fine, I’ll let you get back to your important call.” Janet said as she walked out of the room.

***

Steve walked into Michael’s office and shut the door and began whispering. He said, “Janet wants to work with me. At least on the Vanderholt project.”

“What?” Micheal said in a very surprised tone.

“She said she wants to finish the project before going to Tina’s team.”

“I need a score card to keep up with you guys. Do you really think that is wise?”

“I don’t know…”

“I know it ain’t wise…OK Steve, I hope you know by now that she don’t want you. Stop playing around with the idea, stop thinking about her. Call someone else and get that girl out of your mind. She don’t want you.” Micheal said.

“I guess you are right…” Steve said.

There was a knock at the door.

“Come in.”

Tina walked into the room.

She walked straight over to Steve.

“I think you know that Janet has decided to finish her last projects before joining my team.” Tina said.

“That’s what she said. I really don’t know what or why.”

Tina interrupted Steve. “Well I am a bit disappointed because I was looking forward to working with you.” Tina touched Steve’s arm.

Michael threw up his hands in resignation.

“Working very closely with you.” Tina said while giving his arm a gentle squeeze.

Steve laughed nervously.

“Maybe we should talk about what other things we could do together.” Tina said to Steve. “I mean to help the team and the company. Is that forward? I don’t mean to be forward.” Tina continued.

“What the hell is going on around here? Do you think that is wise?” Michael asked Tina.

“Do I think it is wise to talk to a co-worker about what work we can do to make this company better?” Tina said.

“Yeah let her talk.” Steve said.

“This is some fouled up mess you guys are doing. And this is gonna blow up.” Michael said.

“How about tonight at the Kitchen, let’s talk about how us working together can move this company forward.” Steve said to Tina.

“It’s a date.” Tina said.