Walking on eggshells at work was exhausting. By the third day I seriously had doubts about whether I'd be able to survive this for long. On the one hand there was Mr. Diapers, following Miguel around like by being in his presence he could acquire some of the charm and sex appeal that Miguel oozed from his pores. And on the other hand there was me, trying to behave professionally around our CFO without revealing my baser and definitely NSFW thoughts about him.

I caught him grinning at me a couple of times in a way that made me wonder if he could read my mind.

I need help, I texted in the group chat with my closest friends.

Over the years it had expanded from just Ayrton, Vera and I to also include Leti, who I reconnected with while I was in New York, where she lived with her husband and kids, working full time as the agent of Casual Friday Funeral. Eventually Page also joined in the ranks and although she and Leti didn't get along that well at first, now they were such good friends that the rest of us felt like outsiders. With Ayrton in L.A., Vera in a random zip code every night, Leti in the big apple, Page and Jace living in Seattle and me in the South of Florida, this group chat was the key to maintaining our friendship. No matter where we were, we stayed up to date thanks to it.

The first one to reply was Ayr, Who do I need to kill?

Whoa, hold your murderous horses, came from Vera.

It's Miguel, isn't it? Page surprised me by replying all the way from the Seychelles.

Leti put five wide eyed emoji and typed, Wait what? Hot papi is back in your life?

Page helped me tell them all the story of last weekend, which produced many reactions and all of them with eggplant emoji. It made me giggle, and I was lucky the bathroom at work was empty while I had this text conversation. At my work bench there was too much of a risk that someone might look over my shoulder, see me typing Miguel's name followed by the tongue emoji and report me to HR for inappropriate conduct.

Girl, it sounds to me like he's thirsty.

That text came from Ayrton and it triggered a round of agreement among everybody else.

And he's rich, he continued. Why don't you chuck your reservations out the window and jump his bones?

I sucked in a sharp breath.

By all means, that was the obvious answer to my conundrum. Just enjoy the moments I could get with him. But something stopped me. Something that was creating pressure in my chest the more I pictured what it would be like to let go in his arms. Fantastic at first, but as soon as reality hit and things started to get sour, tearing Miguel away from my life might be one of the most painful things to ever happen to me. And this was coming from someone who hadn't spoken to her parents in seven years. I just didn't understand why I felt so deeply for the guy and it terrified me.

I answered the safe way, It's a bad idea to get tangled with someone at work.

It works for me, though, Vera said, and I smacked my forehead. Duh, she'd been dating her bandmate for how long now? Eleven years? Ridiculous.

It's different, I texted, but when they asked me how, I was unable to give an answer. That was when the teasing started, and I told them I had to go back to work and put my phone away. I sat at my desk feeling like I'd been scolded.

What were the reasons why we couldn't work, aside from my fear?

I glanced off to the side where I saw Miguel in his office. Clear glass panes isolated the noise from the main area, but hid nothing from view. He leaned against his desk as he talked on the phone. During the day he'd discarded his suit jacket and had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. For someone who had no prior experience in fashion, the man dressed impeccably. Shirt and suit were the exact same shade of navy blue and the ensemble was so perfectly tailored that it made me think it might have been hand made in Italy. The muscles in his forearms were enough to raise my temperature as they worked when he ran a hand through his hair. Hmm, why was it that this would be a bad idea?

Right, I thought as I looked around and caught more than one person staring at him. That was why. Too many eyes.

But what about outside of the office? A nagging little voice in my mind asked. Why would that be an issue? What happened in my private life was no one's business, after all, and if that just so happened to involve our new CFO why should that be a big deal?

Did he really want that, though? Would the novelty of tearing each other's clothes last weekend wear off for him the more we saw each other?

We'd been friends once, and I knew we could always be good friends to each other. The problem was that I wanted more, much more than just attaching the word benefits to that friendship. I just couldn't see how he'd want anything beyond that with me, and the longer he lived in Miami surrounded by the incredibly beautiful flora and fauna of the city, he was sure to want a change of scenery from me pretty soon.

I was still thinking about that while we started the design review. This was always led by Jean Paul where he explained his vision for the latest projects, and then each of the groups in charge of a work stream gave their status. The original purpose of this meeting had been to brainstorm new concepts, but since Mr. Diapers had come on board it had become all about putting his ideas into an eternal spotlight.

Miguel said he wanted to just be an observer and sat in a corner, but all of us were still keenly aware of him. He crossed his legs and balanced his iPad on his knee. The expression on his face unnerved me because I'd never seen him like this before this week, and I realized that of course he had changed. Work had hardened him and success had mellowed him. His old smile was still there, but it wasn't permanently etched on his face anymore.

"Adele?"

Oh shit.

I cleared my throat and looked down at the papers I'd set out before me, trying to find the answer in them.

"Your report?" Marisol whispered and I thanked the heavens that it hadn't been a question I'd been caught not paying attention to, but simply my turn.

I stood up and gave everybody the low down of my week's accomplishments, which, although phrased eloquently, boiled down to nothing. With Jean Paul blocking every new idea I came up with, all I could do was spend my time designing patterns for his dumb concepts.

"That's not a lot of progress, Adele," the dickwad said in a condescending tone. "I'm gonna have to ask you to do better than this."

Although I got many sympathetic stares, no one was able to speak up because we were all the victims of the same villain. I bit my tongue and looked down at the table, face heating up with the effort it took to contain the vomit of words I truly wanted to release. The last time I spoke out against him, he threatened with demoting me from senior designer if I couldn't take his brand of constructive criticism.

"Sure," I said under my breath as I sat back down.

A low hum came from Miguel's corner. We all turned to him and he sighed.

"I was supposed to just be an observer, but I've already seen three people give pretty much the same report," he said, uncrossing his legs and leaning his elbows on his knees. "How is this value add?"

You could hear a pin drop.

I turned and found Mr. Diaper's mouth flapping open and closed. I nudged Marisol and when she saw that, she almost burst out laughing. Only biting my lip hard prevented me from that fate. As he explained why this meeting was so important, I could see that Miguel's expression didn't reflect one little bit of agreement.

When he was finished with his excuses, Miguel turned his attention to me. "Addy, was it?"

"Uh." It took a second for my brain to react. I straightened myself up and said, "Yes?"

"Tell me, what prevented you from getting a better result to present to us today?"

My eyes narrowed slightly. Was he picking on me or on Jean Paul? Somehow I couldn't tell. But really, the answer could get me in trouble, so I kept it to myself.

Miguel then said, "Please speak professionally but freely. That's the only way we can make this business succeed."

A new kind of pressure fell over my shoulders as every eye in the room focused on me. This time if my skin was turning pink, it wasn't because of anger.

Well, what did I really have to lose? I was already looking for other gigs anyway. So with a deep breath I faced Miguel.

"The goal of this company is to provide affordable design services to our customers, who are all from a wide array of styles. Women's clothes, men's, young people, sports collections, children's, you name it," I said as I ticked my fingers one by one. "The problem is that in order to maintain and develop a product portfolio this wide, it requires all of us acting as a design team."

The first trace of amusement lit up Miguel's eyes as he asked, "Is this the issue?"

I lifted my chin. "Yes, we're not a design team. We're just a group of people scrambling to meet the expectations of a single designer."

Signed, sealed and delivered—my body in a casket, that was.

While every jaw in the room dropped, Miguel calmly stood from the chair and walked closer to the main seat at the table, were Jean Paul fumed and wished lasers could come out of his eyes and incinerate me on the spot. His murderous mood faltered as Miguel deliberately stood next to him.

"Do you have any ideas to improve the situation?" Miguel asked, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his slacks. My eyebrows went up and he nodded.

"Well, yeah," I said with a shrug. "My idea is to really hear and support all of our ideas."

Marisol spoke then, "That was the original intent of this meeting, anyway."

A murmur of assents went around the table and confronted by this, Jean Paul shot up to his feet and said, "That is far too chaotic. We need order, structure and leadership. If anybody thinks they can just come up with silly little concepts all the time, no one will have time to focus on getting the work done."

Miguel shrugged. "Someone wise said shoot a lot and eventually you'll hit something. If a design company doesn't come up with a lot of designs, how can they pave the path for getting the next big hit?"

Candy, one of our junior designers, raised her hand and said, "I've had an idea for the longest time for an adorable baby line."

Her group mate Fatima said, "And I've been trying to make a business case for summer inspired hijab and swimwear."

One by one every designer in the room started speaking about all of the ideas that Jean Paul had squelched under his boot. I could tell that he was raging with the way he ground his teeth, and I could also imagine that I was going to feel the repercussions of this. But at that moment I didn't care, I'd started a revolution and I was pretty damn pleased with myself.

Then I caught Miguel's eyes across the room, and he was smiling like he knew exactly the feeling. And he probably did, but for some reason I wanted to stick my tongue out at him and clarify that while yes, his support had been nice, this had been my doing. Our collective doing. And that we were tired of the shitty baby's tyranny.

"Addy's had a great idea for a while now," Marisol said, putting her arm around my shoulders and bringing me back to the spotlight. "C'mon, tell Miguel about the app you wanted to make."

"Well," I squirmed. "It's too far outside of Tropicana's mission."

"I disagree," she said.

"Let's hear it," Miguel's voice carried above the noise from his corner. As a hush fell across the room he continued, "No idea remains unheard, right?"

Dang it, I played myself.

I pushed my hair behind my ears and cleared my throat. "It's kinda silly. Everybody has an app for everything now, right? So I was thinking we could just create an app where people take some basic pre-designed pieces and combine them to make their own clothes and put outfits together."

Miguel's eyebrows went up. "Crowdsourced fashion design?"

"Pretty much." I shrugged.

"I'm intrigued." He rubbed the five o'clock shadow in his jaw. "I'd like to see a preliminary business case for next Friday's meeting. Think that's possible?"

I pursed my lips. Now I knew he was picking on me.

Still, this was a great opportunity to shut Mr. Diapers up, so I stood to my full height and smiled like I wasn't soiling my own bottoms. "Sure, thing. Boss."

It felt great to know the fashion revolution was in my hands and maybe with this new sheriff in town I could shoot a lot and finally hit something. And if this was what my daily work life was going to be like from now on, fun, exciting, challenging and innovative, maybe I could put up with a little sexual frustration.

aww yiss, let the office drama begin!!