Jeremy didn’t seem so open about the situation that he had with his team, and I wasn’t willing to let it slide by taking his words at face value.
“To be honest, working with Richard is much harder than I first thought…” I confessed while thinking that telling him about my situation first might be the right way to get him to open up to me more.
“Really? I’ve worked with him before but not that closely. He’s famous for being like that but I didn’t think that it would be that bad,” Jeremy said as his brows drew together in a look of concern.
“Yeah. Oh, but don’t worry about me too much, I’m working hard and I’m managing to hang in there somehow,” I said as I tried to reassure him.
The doubtful look that he gave me told me that my words didn’t quite sound credible. For a moment, I wondered if it was a mistake to bring this up. Maybe I was causing my dear colleague more worry even though I wanted to hear more about the problems that he was facing.
“Is that so? I’m sure that he doesn’t have any ill wishes. Let me know if there’s anything that I can help out with,” he offered with a smile.
“Thanks, but there’s really no need for you to worry about me. Umm…are things really going well with you and your new team?” I asked as I stared directly at him.
“Well, the project itself isn’t extremely complex or challenging but the project manager is kind of traditional and strict. The team members are great, though. It’s a good mix of people, honestly, and I’ve made some new friends too,” Jeremy replied.
“Really? That sounds great…” I commented vaguely.
The conversation lapsed into silence as I wondered why he was eating all alone with me if everything was all great and rosy just as he had just told me. I didn’t want to think that he was lying but maybe, just like me, he didn’t want me to worry about him.
“Well, if anything happens, you can always tell me about it, ok? Even if I might be able to help you fix it, it would still be good to let it out and confide in someone, right? You know, we can always catch up over lunch just like this,” I suggested with a smile.
“Really? That would be great. I’ll drop by to invite you out to lunch,” Jeremy said before he showed me a cheerful smile.
“Sure,” I replied without hesitation.
The fact that his mood seemed to have lifted made me feel like I had somehow succeeded in my little mission. Our conversation naturally drifted away from that topic to talk about other things that were going on in our new project assignments. I learnt that the commercial that Jeremy was working on was for a famous skincare brand. It seemed like something new that Jeremy didn’t connect so firmly with but, just as always, he seemed open to learn new things and cover new industries.
“We should head back. That was so fun, and time just seemed to fly back just like that,” I said regretfully when I realized that our lunch break was quickly coming to an end.
If we left now, we would probably make it back to the office on time and I wouldn’t get any cold glares from Richard.
“You’re right, we should head back. Let’s grab lunch together again soon,” he said.
I had to walk faster than normal on our way back to the office just so that I would arrive on time. Jeremy didn’t seem like he was in a rush and offered to walk me to my project room.
“I’ll walk you there,” he offered.
“Oh, there’s no need to. You might end up returning late to your project room,” I said.
“It’s fine. We’re not crunched, and I doubt the other people will be back on time either,” he replied with a small chuckle.
“I see…” I murmured.
Without making a big fuss, I let him do what he wanted to do. I glanced at my watch to see that I was right on time by the time that we reached the door of my project room.
“Thank you for having lunch with me,” I thanked him with a smile.
“I should thank you,” he replied quite casually.
The warmth that I felt as I smiled at him quickly evaporated when I felt like someone was staring at us. I almost jumped out of my skin when I turned around to see Richard standing there not too far from us. His cold gaze stared at me, and I couldn’t quite read the expression that he had on his face.
“Hi, Richard…” I greeted him in a small voice.
Instead of replying to me, Richard turned his attention to Jeremy, and I felt the need to explain what was going on although there wasn’t anything going on before things got out of hand.
“We just got back from lunch…” I explained briefly.
“Yup. Anyways, I should head back to my project room now,” Jeremy said to quickly excuse himself.
“That’s right. Umm…we should also discuss what we have to discuss,” I said to Richard.
Richard just nodded his head slowly at my words. Without saying anything, Richard opened the door to the project room and walked inside. I let out a sigh before waving to say goodbye to Jeremy and then followed Richard inside. I didn’t feel that there was something wrong with having lunch with another colleague and that was because it wasn’t something wrong. When I sat down at my desk, I truly thought that Richard would say something when he turned to stare at me, but in the end, he didn’t say anything about the matter.
…
A few weeks went by without much change in our daily lives. It was quite shocking to me that nothing much had changed at all. Initially, I had thought that change would come so fast like lightning striking down from above.
--To be continued…
