4. Unavoidable

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Krystina.

Four days days later, on Friday evening, Fernando and I are back in my office discussing which font to use as the company's new signature.

I've spent the past 4 days overseeing and finalizing this selection of fonts. We had a dozen different graphic artist, come up with a dozen different fonts each. Out of all 144 fonts, Fernando has denied all of them.

Every single one.

"The loops in the letters are too big"

"The spacing is weird"

"The 'T' in toys looks better than the 'S's in S&S. The focus should be on the initials"

Give me a break. Literally.

Part of me wants to tell him that he's being irrational. The other part, the part than remembers Nando's weird habbits, knows that he's only behaving this way because he's troubled.

Troubled by what, I'm not sure. But, I plan on finding out.

"How about we take a little lunch break?" I suggest. "It's almost 2:45pm, we could resume at around 3:15pm and hopefully have the issue at least partly resolved by 4:00pm."

"Yeah, alright." He replies while loosening his tie. "We could head on over to that Greek place down the street."

"Do they sell lasagna?" I ask

He laughs. "You haven't changed at all have you? Yes Krys, they serve lasagna."

"Then let's go."

____________________________

We're seated at a table outside the cafe, when I notice Fernando start to shuffle nervously.

"Is something wrong? You've been acting strange since you walked into my office today." I state, only briefly wondering if I'm crossing some boundary. We don't know each other like that anymore. Do I even have a right to ask him such a thing?

"Everything's fine, I'm just not sure if we're gonna be keeping the contract we have with you and Paramount." He says, catching me completely off guard.

"Wait. What? Why not? Is it because of the fonts? Fernando, I can have 200 new fonts ready for review by tomorrow. We'll step up our game, you don't ne-"

He cuts me off before I can finish. "No. No, that's not it."

"Then what is it?" I press, even more confused now.

He hesitates.

"I just.....it's just that...." He takes a deep breath. "Stephen's just still not completely on board with this. He wants to keep everything as is." He admits on a sigh. "It's like I told you, he likes the formal approach approach.

"Oh" I reply, not at all surprised. "How is he, by the way? Stephen?" I ask, my curiosity finally surfacing. I did date the man for most of my college years.

"Um, he's good. He's great. Still the same old Steph that he's always been. He's a bit of a workaholic now, but that's pretty much the only thing that's changed. He's really been putting his all into the company for the last few years. Did you know S&S was ranked #6 on Forbes Fortune 500 companies this year?" He indulges me.

"No. Wow! That's great." I tell him, genuinely proud of what's he's helped achieve.

"What about you?" He switched the attention onto me. "What have you been up to all this time?"

"Building a name for myself." I tell him honestly. "I've been with Paramount since after graduation. I've helped to make it what it is today. It was hard at first, I felt completely useless around there, but now it doesn't even feel like work. It's probably one of my greatest achievements, especially the promotion." I tell him grinning.

"You seem really happy." He says suddenly.

"I am".

He chuckles again, "What about Sav? Do you guys still keep in touch, or did you ditch her too?"

I look up abruptly after hearing the last part. Expecting to see a frown on his face, I'm dumbfounded to see him smirking.

He's just playing around. My subconscious assures me. We are definitely not ready for that conversation.

"Savannah and I live together, actually." I reveal.

His eyes narrow momentarily. "Hmmm. Of course you do. You two have always been practically inseparable. You're like a packaged deal. You'll probably share a coffin!" We laugh.

The rest of lunch continues on just the same. Both of us asking each other safe, simple questions. Not daring to delve too deep into each other's personal lives. I find out that he and his longtime girlfriend Destiny, ended things during Christmas the year after graduation.

I tell him I'm sorry to hear that, but he sees right thought it.

"No you're not." He says grinning. "You never liked her. Told me over and over again that she'd break my heart."

He's right. I never liked that bitch.

On the walk back to the office, he slows down his steps and turns to me, "Stephen knows." he says causing me to stop.

....my heart to stop.

.....my brain to stop.

.....my lungs to stop.

I'm frozen. Unmoving.

"What? He knows what?" I whisper harshly, my voice wavering.

Fernando looks at me with an odd expression on his face. "He knows that I'm working with you."

"Oh" I breathe a sigh of relief.

"Yeah", he says still eyeballing me "He asked me for the name of the rep I was collaborating with and he flipped. He told me he wanted to contact terminated immediately."

He's got some nerve, I think to myself.

Throwing a fit as if he didn--

You know what, I'm not even gonna go there.

I refuse to cause myself any unnecessary stress.

Fernando continues speaking. "Look, I don't know what the hell happened with you guys all those years ago." He says surprising me. "But I'm not gonna terminate the contact because of it. This isn't high school. We're all adults, and we've all moved on, grown up, and built lives for ourselves. This contract is a win-win. You'll be helping us come up with new marketing ideas to help widen our audience and buyers, and we'll be doing the same for you guys. Taking on a client like us, could take Paramount Advertisement to a whole new level. I'm not gonna let this opportunity pass us by, because of something petty. I'm in, if you're in completely. I've got to warn you though, when he finds out that we're still working on this, he's gonna be pissed. He'll probably want to oversee the whole thing. That's a risk I'm willing to take, for the better of both our companies."

"I'm definitely IN. I'm not gonna let a silly little breakup, ruin this." I tell him, awed by the way he spoke and the passion he has for the company. "Thanks by the way. For sticking up for me like that. I really appreciate it."

"Hey, what are friends for?" He says cheekily before entering the building.

____

There's now way to avoid it.

Stephen and I are gonna run into each other sooner or later, anyways.

Lord help me when the day comes.

____________________________________________

I meant to upload this days ago. Things have been so hectic with school and such.
My math class is literally killing me :'(

Anyways........how'd you like the chapter. It's a bit of filler, but.........who cares.

DON'T FORGET TO COMMENT AND VOTE!

I'm looking for 7 votes before I update again.

Thank You!!!<3

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