The CEO's Secret

Chapter Five- Perfection

Colt and I had had a solid few months of dating. The dinner with his parents had gone well. He introduced me as his girlfriend. His parents were sweet and the dinner was so pleasant. I felt like my life was coming together in ways I never expected.

I'd been spending more time staying the night at his place. Megan and Ashley were getting a little miffed by my absence and I could tell we were drifting a little bit apart. They were understanding of why I wanted to spend so much time with Colt and I understood why it was frustrating to have one of your friends distancing for their boyfriend or a roommate who was doing the bare minimum.

Despite the small rift it was causing with my friends, I was more than happy. Colt and I had really advanced in our relationship. We spent most of our free time together. We still spent a few nights apart to make sure we weren't going to get sick of each other but we'd really taken things to the next level.

The months had been filled with a lot of date nights. There were a lot of nights we'd come home after we'd both had lengthy days at work and lounge on the couch in front of the TV. We ordered take out far too often and ate lazily at the table together. We spent nights wrapped in each other's arms. We'd text all day long and I often got flowers at work. It was a dream.

My head definitely had not been in my work lately, so when Shane called me to his office for a random meeting, I worried that it would be to discuss that I hadn't been meeting my goals or that my team was suffering from my distraction.

“Hey Shane, I just got your email that you wanted to see me.” I said nervously as I walked into his office and took a seat.

“Yeah, thanks for meeting with me. You're not in trouble, you can breathe.” He said with a smile.

“Thank god for that. Since you're not firing me... what's up?” I asked.

“Sales are down a little bit. No fault of your own, it's just that time of year as you know. It's summer, so a lot of people fall off the wagon. It's tempting to drink and smoke. We expect this, but this year I was thinking we should do some kind of incentive program. Rewards to representatives for making sales and rewards for customers who buy. We have a different market than most other businesses because our customers are large hospitals, other pharmaceutical companies, rehab facilities and pharmacies. I'd like to think of some sales pitch we can use, something we can get the sales people excited to sell for, and something that makes customers want to buy. We also still need to hire for your assistant manager and we need to get your departments reviews started so they're done by December.” Shane said.

“Basically, we have a lot to work on.” I said.

“Exactly. I'm just hoping for now you can maybe touch base with your team. Ask what customers bite on most so we can pitch to them. Ask what kind of things would get them motivated for sales. We'll get wheels turning.” Shane said. “Let's start interviewing soon for the position and set up meetings for reviews.”

“Sounds good, you know where to find me when you're ready to schedule meetings.” I joked.

“We'll be seeing a lot of each other.” Shane said.

I finished the rest of my work day relieved that I wasn't in trouble. I felt a new passion for my job now that I had so many things to focus on. I'd been spending so much time with Colt that I'd let most of the other things in my life slide. I also spent most of our time apart thinking about Colt, texting him and making plans to see him. I'd been doing the bare minimum at work and really decreased my availability to my team. I used to stay late every day and was a hard worker. I'd slacked a lot lately. Now that I had new things that needed my attention, I knew I'd have to get my head back on straight.

I went to Colt's at the end of the night and recapped everything that had happened at work. He shared about some crazy customer they'd had. He'd needed something built but it was impossible, and when he was informed of that, he became irate. It was normal for me to deal with angry customers, but not so much for him. We shared laughs about our jobs and ate dinner.

I'd never felt more at peace with my life.