A Misunderstanding

Justin Wong took a really deep breath before expelling the air out from his lungs slowly as he worked up the nerves to knock on the office door of the new Vice President of the finance department, Blake Ingram. He was certain Blake wouldn’t be busy yet. After all, it was only thirty-seven minutes past eight o’clock in the morning, and it was Blake’s first day at work in the company. Justin could have been mistaken, though. At thirty-eight years old, Blake had several years of experience in the corporate world. However, Justin didn’t believe Blake would be preoccupied on his first day in the company. At least he hoped not. He wanted the opportunity to show Blake around the various departments in the company. As the manager of the human resource department, it was sort of his job to assist someone new to settle in nicely at the company. It had nothing to do with the fact that Blake was an extremely attractive man. Blake was six feet, four inches tall, and weighed two hundred and forty pounds, which was a full seven inches taller and seventy pounds heavier than Justin. He got all that information from the data form Blake had to fill in for the insurance company, which was provided to all of the employees at the pharmaceutical company they worked at. They both had black hair, but Blake had these gorgeous dark-brown eyes while Justin’s eye color was black. The other difference between the two of them was in the amount of muscles they were packing. While Justin was proud of his lean and toned build, he was in awe of Blake’s bulging muscles. There was no way to conceal all those huge and incredible muscle mass underneath Blake’s well-fitted clothes. Blake was massive mountain of muscles. Period. Justin waited until he heard Blake’s voice calling out from inside the office, giving him the permission to enter, before opening the door. He smiled as widely as he could at Blake. “Hey, Blake. How’s everything so far?” Blake grinned in return, displaying rows of gleaming white, perfect teeth. “Hey, Justin. Everything is good, but I really need a strong cup of coffee to perk me up. I’d already drunk one huge cup earlier this morning, but I can definitely use another one. I found it really difficult to sleep last night.” “Too excited for your first day on the job?” Justin teased lightly. Blake chuckled. “That, and the fact that I couldn’t wait to see your pretty face and listen to all of your lame jokes.” Justin snickered in response. He couldn’t be sure if Blake was blatantly flirting with him or if the man was just being friendly. In his position within the company, he would, more often than not, be the one to have the first and extended interactions with most of the new employees. During one of their conversations, Blake had informed him in a casual manner about a couple of ex-boyfriends, which was how he had gotten to know that the new vice president of the finance department was a fellow gay man. In exchange, he had told Blake about the non-discriminatory policies that were set in place by the management in the company before revealing his own sexuality. He had also promised to introduce Blake to his group of friends, all of whom were either gays or bisexuals. “Right,” Justin eventually came up with. “You must have said the same thing to all the boys out there.” “Only the beautiful ones,” Blake quipped back immediately before winking at Justin. Justin could sense the heat rising up his neck and cheeks, feeling both shy and pleased at the same time, but he didn’t want to assume Blake was attracted to him. Blake might just be an incorrigible flirt. There was nothing within the policies inside the company’s handbook that prohibited relationships between colleagues as long as the people involved weren’t working within the same department. However, Justin really didn’t think Blake liked him that way. He knew Blake was a friendly man, but that didn’t automatically mean that the man was into him. He didn’t want to misread Blake’s intention toward him, and it would be safer to err on the side of caution. “Smooth,” Justin retorted with a tiny roll of his eyes. “Anyway, let me show you the gossip center of the company A.K.A. the pantry.” Blake laughed. “Maybe I should avoid it as much as possible.” “An excellent idea,” Justin said before leading the way toward the pantry. Blake chortled softly while walking next to Justin. “I think so, too.” The moment they got inside the pantry, Justin almost wished he had checked that the coast was clear before bringing Blake there. All of his close friends were there, and judging by the expressions on their faces, it must have taken them less than twenty seconds to deduce that he was attracted to Blake. He had no doubt they would be interrogating him as soon as they were alone inside the pantry. He suppressed his annoyance and pointed at his friends one at a time, introducing them to Blake as fast as he managed to. “This short one is David Lee, our IT Junior Manager.” David snorted at Justin while waving at Blake. “I’m only one inch shorter than you, bitch.” “It takes one to know one,” Justin responded with, ignoring the other men’s amused expressions. “Next to him, our resident rare species, a blue-eyed redhead, is Joshua Wallace. He’s the Social Media Specialist.” Justin didn’t wait for Joshua and Blake to finish shaking each other’s hands. “On Dave’s other side is Vincent Yang, Finance Junior Manager, and one of the prettiest men inside the company. He’s second only to Dave.” Vincent rolled his eyes. “You and Dave are the loveliest and most beautiful flowers in the company, Just.” “Shut up, Vince.” Vincent chuckled while nodding at Blake. “I’m in your department, Mr. Ingram.” Blake grinned. “Just call me Blake, please.” “Sure.” “Anyway,” Justin interjected a little louder than he meant to. “That giant next to Vince is Keenan Underwood, Sales Manager extraordinaire, and the guy next to him is Javier Gisbert, Marketing Manager. He’s a sweetheart.” Javier blushed. “Whatever, Just. Welcome to the company, Blake.” Keenan raised his right hand in greeting to Blake. “Glad to finally see someone inside the company who is taller than me. These morons always have to mention my height whenever there’s someone new working at the company.” Blake beamed. “All of us tall people should stick together then.” “I agree, Blake. I’m Calvin Maxwell, Junior Manager in research and development,” Calvin said while beaming at Blake. “Nice to meet you.” Blake grabbed onto Calvin’s hand while smiling widely. “Nice to meet you, too.” “Blake, let me show you the most important machine in this pantry. Maybe even inside this whole building,” Justin reminded Blake before tugging the man away from his friends and ignoring their teasing smirks. “The all-powerful coffee maker. The source of life, and the magical machine that prevents an outbreak of the zombie apocalypse within this company, especially in the mornings and afternoons.” Blake now had a solemn expression on his face. “Should I bow down and pay my due respect to the coffee maker?” Justin shrugged and whispered in a conspiratorial manner. “If you wish. That will probably prevent it from going cranky on you for the foreseeable future.” Blake burst out laughing. “I’ll keep that in mind then.” “Good,” Justin said, and then he ran out of steam because he didn’t know how he was supposed to keep the casual conversation going without appearing to blatantly monopolize Blake’s time and attention. “Uh, anyway, I’ll leave you to it. Let me know if you need help in the future. Or anything work-related. Or not. You know where my office is at.” Blake shot Justin a brilliant smile. “Sure thing, Just. Thanks for bringing me here and introducing me to your friends. They seem like an awesome group of guys.” Justin beamed in return. “They are, and you’re welcome. Anyway, go ahead and make your coffee. See you later, Blake.” Blake nodded. “Later.” After that, Justin made his way toward his friends. He groaned under his breath as he noticed the glint of amusement in their eyes. He thought he had concealed his attraction toward Blake well enough. However, his friends’ eyes were darting back and forth between him and Blake before they all gave him equally eerie, evil smirks. He prepared himself for his friends’ overly inquisitive and highly invasive questions. He had no doubt he was about to be grilled by his friends for all of the juicy pieces of information about Blake. If he didn’t love them all so much, he would have simply ignored them. He knew he wouldn’t be able to escape them indefinitely, so he might as well get everything over with. * * * * It was almost half past four in the afternoon, and in spite of it being his first day at the company, Blake felt that he had accomplished quite a lot. He had held a short meeting with everybody from the finance department earlier that morning because he needed to somehow familiarize himself with all the people he would be working with in the foreseeable future. Then he had studied the financial statements of the company from the recent years before talking to his personal assistant about setting up appointments for him. He needed to set everything up, from scheduling to data collection, and all the way to the timing for the regular departmental and interdepartmental meetings. He even worked through his lunch hour, choosing to eat his sandwiches inside his office instead of going out for a nice, relaxing meal. By the time he was satisfied with his progress, it was nearing the end of his first working day at the company. He winced as he stretched his arms up high. His whole body was sore from sitting for far too long, but he was glad he was making a dent in the tasks he wanted to complete for the day. He stared at his empty coffee mug and decided it was time to visit the pantry for a refill. Now that he was about to take a short break, his mind inevitably wandered to Justin. He had agreed to jump ship from his previous company to the present one because of the fat salary that was being offered, along with all of the benefits that came along with it. He didn’t expect to meet someone like Justin. The first time he paid Justin a visit, it had been more of a courtesy call. After all, the CEO of the company had already approved of him. In fact, she was the one who had lured him over from his previous employment. Nevertheless, he knew he had to talk to somebody from the human resource department to sign the contract, arrange for the insurance, and a whole slew of other items in relation to his new job. He simply didn’t think he would come face to face with someone as good-looking as Justin. Justin had an extremely pretty face. There was no other word for it. Blake had been stunned speechless for several seconds the first time he had laid eyes on Justin’s face. In all honesty, Justin was the whole package. He had that flawless and porcelain-like skin, perfect rows of brilliant white teeth, and an amazing build underneath his fitted clothes. Blake had fallen in lust with Justin at first sight. Even among his group of incredibly gorgeous friends, Justin stood out like a sore thumb. Almost. The only one who was slightly better looking than Justin was David. However, David had the sort of delicate yet masculine beauty that no mere mortal should possess. Justin’s physical appearance from head to toe was alluring and dazzling enough without making Blake feel as if the man was too far out of his league. Most importantly, Justin was exactly the type of men that Blake liked. “I wonder if Justin has time to grab some coffee with me,” Blake muttered softly to himself as he got up from his chair and grabbed his empty coffee mug off the table before making his way out from his office. He could have asked his personal assistant to refill his coffee for him, but he needed a short break after sitting for hours inside his office. He also wanted to seek out Justin’s company even if it was only for a few short minutes. He liked Justin. The man was easy to talk to and really friendly. It helped that Blake found Justin to be the most attractive man he had ever encountered in his entire life. He headed toward where Justin’s office was located at, which, as fate would have it, happened to be directly across the hallway from him. Their offices were the only two on that particular end of the room, so they could consider themselves as next-door neighbors. Sort of. As he got closer to Justin’s office, he noticed the door was slightly ajar. He was about to knock on it when he heard something that rendered him speechless. “…going to make a move on him?” Blake recognized that voice. It was David. He knew he shouldn’t be eavesdropping on what was certainly a private conversation between Justin and David, but he was curious. It seemed that Justin might already have his eyes on someone else. “I don’t know, Dave.” “Come on, man. Don’t be such a chicken. The other guys and I are all rooting for you. Besides, we’re one hundred percent positive that he likes you, too. He’s the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome.” Justin snorted really loudly. “You’re all a bunch of busybodies.” David laughed. “We can’t help it, dude. We’re all single men, and you may be the first among us to finally land yourself a man.” Justin scoffed. “Don’t be dramatic. Being single has its perks.” “True, but…” Blake didn’t bother to listen to the rest of the conversation. He crept away as quietly as he could, chastising himself for doing what he did as he walked toward the pantry. The old saying was right. Ignorance was f*****g bliss. It was turning out to be too good to be true. Blake should have known a good-looking man like Justin would already have someone in the wing waiting to ensnare and make an honest man out of him. He was too late. He couldn’t deny he was disappointed. He might not be in love with Justin, but he hadn’t liked any man as much as he was crushing on Justin in a really long time. He would have relished the chance to go out on a date with Justin. Unfortunately for him, based on that short conversation between Justin and David, the former might soon be taken off the market. As he entered the pantry, he debated if he still wanted more coffee. He wasn’t really in the mood for it anymore. He darted his eyes back and forth between the coffee inside the coffee maker and the empty mug in his hand. He was feeling strangely heavy inside, and he wasn’t really in the mood for coffee anymore. However, after a moment of hesitation, he made up his mind. He was already there inside the pantry. He might as well get what he was there for in the first place. He just had to forget about all of his dreams of asking Justin out on a date. It wasn’t his style to poach on another man’s territory. Justin was strictly off limits. Blake would treat Justin in a very professional manner. He could do that easily. From now onward, Justin would simply be his colleague instead of the attractive man he was more than a little infatuated with. He could do that. He had to. He didn’t have any other alternatives.