Flirting with the HR Girl

Chapter 43

Jennifer and Selena made a deal to buckle down for the rest of the week. Jennifer promptly emailed any of the applications she had been working on to Austin saying that they were ready for him. She didn't put anything explaining not helping him but made it clear that she would not be doing anything else. He ended up hiring one of the candidates and was very excited. He showed up in her office one day with the paperwork.

"Thank you again so much for sending me such good candidates," he said genuinely, but it sounded so silly coming from someone who she had had such serious conversations with.

"No problem," Jennifer said, taking the new hire paperwork from him. Her heart did a little dance at the sight of him, but she felt like she might be doing the right thing for the first time all week. She had heard nothing back about her application, but Cynthia had said it was good. And now here was Austin hiring his own people and, from what she heard through the store grapevine, making his daily sales goal. Maybe they could do this? Maybe they could wait and have their happily ever after when she got hers. "I'm happy to help anytime."

"I know," Austin said, his voice lowered. There it was. The emotion. The current. The attraction that could jeopardize everything. She could feel him almost draw her across the office towards him. She pressed her knees against her desk as if to remind herself of the fence that she had created for herself.

"Great," Jennifer said the word involuntarily but was overjoyed to see the smile it brought to Austin's face. She vowed to get herself a word of the day calendar to expand her vocabulary. "I mean awesome!"

"I like great," Austin said before he ducked out of the office. Just like that, he was gone again. Only a few floors separated them, but they seemed worlds apart, the retail sales floor and the office. Neither side understood the other but they knew that they couldn't exist without each other. Jennifer sighed and took a moment before getting back to work. The week had gone by pretty quickly and she was relieved when it was Friday morning. She was so happy that the weekend was almost there, she went to the morning meeting.

"Keep up the sales, people," Todd said as he strutted around the circle in his natural habitat. "Jenny from HR has a couple of things she needs to tell you about a new policy so listen up."

"Good morning," Jennifer said her voice shaking just a touch. The manager meeting was much smaller and easier for her to speak at. She usually just kept her eyes on Selena or even Todd if she needed to. But in front of the whole store, she was suddenly nervous. It was silly considering that she had done orientation for at least half of them. "We have a new sexual harassment policy that has been posted to the corporate site. You will be receiving an email on it, but I just wanted to go over it in person as well. Nothing has changed for associates. There's still no dating between managers and associates, but it's okay to date each other. Please just don't bring any to the workplace. You don't want us in it, and we don't want to be in it." She got a small laugh from the crowd and felt a little bit stronger for the next part. Her eyes landed on Austin. She didn't know he was in that morning and wasn't ready to avoid looking at him. She glanced at him, and he smiled. Her nerves settled. "The change is that managers are no longer allowed to date each other. If managers start dating, one of them will have to transfer to a new store."

A murmur went through the crowd as Jennifer looked at Todd in hopes he'd take the reins again. He was happy to do so. "Now, this doesn't mean you should be getting all up in your manager's business," Todd said and got another laugh. "But it is taken seriously. To stay with Peterson's and be part of our much bigger family, you gotta know if you find someone to love, you might have to go to a different store. But look at me and my wife, it's working out fantastically!"

The associates started to clap, and Jennifer held back an eye roll. She smiled and nodded at the cosmetic girls who were also smiling over at Austin. Her heart clenched with jealousy when she saw how gorgeous Destiny looked on just an average Friday, and she saw Austin smile back at them. She tried to duck away and head back upstairs, but Destiny touched her arm.

"Hey, how did the lipstick work out?" she asked with genuine interest. Seriously, how was this woman so nice?

"It's great." Jennifer kicked herself internally. "I mean, I found one that's a perfect color and I can't wait to come back and buy it from you."

"Don't even worry about it," Destiny said as the Clinique manager wrapped her arm around her. "What do you think of the new policy?"

Lancôme came up on the other side of them. Jennifer knew she should walk away but couldn't help but wonder what they would say.

"I think some people are going to be in trouble," Destiny said with a small chuckle but didn't look willing to elaborate.

"Yeah, we'll see won't we," Clinique said as they started to walk away.

"I think it just depends on what flavor of the week everyone has," Lancôme said. She lowered her voice, "We all know Todd's a playboy anyway. He spent the weekend with that girl."

"And he's been dragging poor Austin out all the time," Clinique added, and Jennifer wanted to ask them all the questions but at that moment Selena showed up taking her by the arm.

"Don't get sucked into my girls' gossip," Selena said with a laugh as she navigated Jennifer to the escalator. "We need to stay the course."