Chapter 4: You have nice eyebrows!

There was an all-staff office memo waiting for Sue the next day when she logged into her computer.

“Crap.”

Sue read the email, cringing and hoping that no one knew it was because of her. It seemed that the HR lady was even keener than Sue had originally thought. The office relations seminar was happening that afternoon.

The guy at the desk opposite her, who she had spoken to briefly yesterday, looked over at her.

“You get the email?”

Sue shrugged, trying to play it cool. “Yeah. Sucks, right?”

“You have no idea, newbie.”

“Sue Andrew,” Sue told her.

“Jake Miller. We had one of these last year, too. It was awful,” Jake told her. “Not only do we have to sit there and listen while she tells us what is and isn’t appropriate conduct for the workplace, but we also have to act out these insane scenarios she dreams up.”

“What, like the ‘no means no’ workshops we had to do in high school? Which, by the way, were totally redundant for me.”

Jake smirked. “Oh yeah, I remember doing those. I had to pretend to be a guy at a party who had urges and was pressuring his girlfriend into going all the way. I was way too shy back then to pressure anyone to do anything.”

The two of them shared a smile.

“So I guess this one will be all about keeping things professional at work?” Sue asked.

“Oh yeah, totally. Don’t be surprised if you get roped into acting out a scenario where you compliment a guy on his outfit in two different ways while the rest of us tried to hold our laughter,”

Jake told Sue, making her giggle.

Sue went back to her computer screen, smiling to herself over the fact that maybe she had just made her very first work friend. She felt a little better about facing it all now.

* * * *

When Sue walked into the board room where the seminar was being held, she saw Knight and Leslie West sitting off to the side. Right away, they both looked at her and she found herself trying to suppress a shudder. She quickly took a seat next to Jake in the front row, as the chairs in the back had already been claimed. With the table pushed all the way to the back, the room seemed far bigger.

“Ms. Andrew and...” HR Lady looked around the room but came back to the person sitting next to Sue. “Mr. Miller. Why don’t you come up here and get us started.”

Sue felt her veins suddenly flood with ice water. This was the very last thing she wanted to be doing, especially in front of all these people. Maybe if she had been working there a little longer, and had made a few more friends, then it wouldn’t be so awful. As she followed Jake up to the front, she caught Sarah’s sympathetic gaze from the back of the room. She studiously made sure not to look back over at Knight.

“Very good,” HR Lady said with a smile once the two of them were front-and-center. “Okay, we’re going to start off with a little roleplay.”

There were several groans from the crowd and even some snickers. No doubt they came from the people who liked to see others humiliate themselves.

“Mr. Miller, you’re going to pretend that you’re romantically interested in Ms. Andrew and that you want to ask her out on a date. Can you demonstrate to us the appropriate way to go about doing that?”

Jake raised his eyebrows at Sue and shrugged. “Sure. Um. Hey there, Sue, how’s it going?”

Jake was either overacting on purpose or he was naturally really bad at it. Sue managed to suppress a smile at it. “I’m good, thanks, how’re you?”

“Great. Would you like to go out with me sometime?

Before Sue could answer, HR Lady interrupted them. “Okay, good. Now, Ms. Andrew, I want you to tell him, kindly but firmly, that you’re not interested.”

Sue nodded and turned back to face Jake. “Thank you for your offer, but I’m not interested.”

“Come on,” Jake said in a purposefully whiney voice. “My older brother told me you can’t get pregnant if I pull out early.”

There were several chuckles throughout the crowd, and Sue couldn’t help but join in with them. Even though, she can feel her ears burning.

HR Lady coughed loudly into her hand and shot Jake a dirty look. “Mr. Miller, if you aren’t going to take this seriously then I must ask you to sit back down.”

Jake smirked at Sue, clearly happy that he no longer had to act out this charade. The sneak knew exactly what he was doing.

“Mr. West,” HR Lady said with a big smile on her face, “I’m sure that a professional like yourself can show them how it’s done.”

Sue froze. She turned slowly to look at Knight and saw that the man was glaring hard at the floor. Finally, he stood up and made his way to the front. No one dared make any jokes, or even any sounds, as he walked by.

He came to stand right in front of Sue and the two of them made eye contact. It was clear that Knight was pissed off at her for putting them all in this situation to begin with.

“Okay, this time I would like Ms. Andrew to have a turn,” HR Lady said.

“What? You want me to what now?”

“Engage in what you deem to be appropriate workplace flirtation.”

Oh god, Sue thought as her eyes traveled over Knight West’s perfect face. Kill me now.

She had no idea what to say. She wasn’t particularly good at flirting in a real situation, let alone a made-up one. She pushed her glasses up her nose and tried to focus on something to compliment Knight on.

Don’t mention his body, Sue’s mind helpfully provided. That’s too sexual. Not his lips or his sexy nose. Since when can noses be sexy? Huh. Okay, he’s looking at me weird. How long have I been staring at him? Say something. Anything. His eyes are nice. Compliment his eyes. No, that’s way too personal.

“You have nice eyebrows,” Sue practically shouted.

Said eyebrows rose at her outburst.

“Really? That’s how you flirt?”

Sue quickly swallowed her embarrassment and decided to commit to her terrible taste in chat-up lines. “They’re shapely eyebrows, thick and well manicured. Do you wax them?”

There were several sounds of laughter coming from their audience. Knight West looked beyond fed-up. He sighed deeply before he responded. “No, I do not wax my eyebrows.”

“Oh.” She looked over at Barbra, or whatever her name was, waiting for her to say something. Even the HR lady was looking at her like she was total weirdo. With her eyes, she silently begged her for help. She seemed to cotton on and nodded at her.

“Okay, thank you both. Why don’t we get onto the PowerPoint presentation I’ve prepared for you all?”

There was another round of groans. Sue spared Knight another glance but the werewolf was already walking back to where his cousin was sitting, biting her lip in an attempt not to laugh.

As Sue made her way back to her seat, she honestly wished that the ground would open up and swallow her whole, to save her from another bout of humiliation..

..........