Chapter 3

"...hey Fitz?" I ask sort of nonchalant as I sit atop the bar eating my Pop Tarts in a daze as he unloads the clean glasses from the dishwasher.

"yeah?" he replies as he just carries on what he's doing.

"what do you think of Spencer?" okay I know it's a stupid question, but ever since Kyla left half an hour ago it's all I can think about. What if what she said was right? Am I crazy to even start thinking about this? It's not like Spencer has ever showed any signs that she likes me.

She hasn't right?

"what do you mean?" he asks this time actually making eye contact with me as he puts the glasses under the bar

"I mean like...what do you think about her?" I rephrase, really not clearing anything up.

"she's cool. Her taste in friends is a little questionable though" he pokes fun at me.

"Hey, watch it, remember I control your pay checks." I shoot him a playful glare. "but I mean really, she's pretty great right?" I ask seriously this time, as if there's ever actually been any doubt in my mind that Spencer is anything short of awesome.

"are we talking Charlie-Sheen-winning kind of great or more like Lindsay-Lohan-didn't-steal-a-necklace kind of great?" he jokes and I can't help but smile and roll my eyes at the same time. "what's this all about?" Fitz asks me as he puts the glasses down and leans over the bar right beside me.

"Kyla came over this morning and went on this rant about how Spencer and I are like soul mates or something. She's crazy right?" I ask and just as I expect Fitz to agree with me I am met with silence. "...right?" I ask again.

"look, I can't really say much because I'm pretty sure disagreeing with you breaks some sort of clause in that contract I signed when you hired me, but I don't know... it doesn't really seem like that big of a stretch."

"seriously?" I ask as I sit there and ponder with my Pop Tart in hand.

"you two just...work well." He tried to tell me as he awkwardly tries to demonstrate by clasping his hands together.

"but as like...more than friends...?" I ask softly. For some reason this really baffles me. I've never even remotely thought about Spencer that way and now it's got me all flustered.

"look, do you like Spencer?"

"of course, she's my best friend." I retaliate quickly.

"well if you can honestly say she's your best friend and you can never picture her in that way then you're meant to be friends. But if there's the slightest bit if a chance that you could see yourself with her, then maybe it's worth taking the risk. You're not exactly just going to find a random girl on the street who knows you as well as Spencer does, or makes you laugh like Spencer does, or who will buy you Pop Tarts in the middle of the night" he says with a joking smile as he picks up the box of pop tarts beside me. "these are junk by the way" he adds.

"hands off the Pop Tarts" I warn him. "I don't know, Spencer and I are roommates, what if I do say something and it screws everything up? 'oh hey, I'm in love with you, see you at home later!' no, this is stupid."

"no one said anything about love." He smirks.

"shut up, smartass." I bite back. "you know what I mean."

"I do know what you mean" he agrees. "but I also know that you wouldn't be this concerned about it if you didn't think it was true." Fitz says as he goes back to unloading all of the glasses.

Just as I'm about to reason with his argument, as I have done so many times today, I feel my phone vibrating in my back pocket. I look at the caller I.D. only to see Spencer's name flash across the screen. "oh my god it's her" I freak a little as I quickly toss my phone onto the bar top. "she knows we're talking about her!" I panic. Spencer's always had a sixth sense for stuff like that.

"no she doesn't" Fitz rolls his eyes. "are you going to answer it or what?"

"No! What if Kyla called her after she left my place? What if Spencer is calling to say how ridiculous the whole idea is? I'd look like such a fool for even thinking that she could ever like me like that! Oh my god, I'm so stupid. Spencer is never going to like me like that. What was I thinking? I'm going to kill Kyla..."

Just as I end my panicky rant of stupidity the phone finally stop vibrating on the table. I let a deep breath I didn't even realize I was holding in. But before I can even say anything more the phone starts vibrating again. It's her. Calling for a second time.

"answer it" Fitz tells me again.

"ohmygodIcan't" I say so fast it's barely understandable. I watch as Fitz rolls his eyes again and snatches the phone from the table. "no, what are you doing?" I yell but before I can grab my phone back he already answers it.

"hey Spencer, it's Fitz" he smiles. "yeah, she's right here, one sec." Fitz holds the cell phone out to me and I push it back to him. He pushes it back to me and yet again I push it away. "answer it" he whispers harshly.

"no!" I whisper back.

"Just do it!" he says and somehow he manages to push my arms out of the way and holds the phone to my ear.

"hello? Ash?" I can hear Spencer say through the phone. I finally give in and take the phone into my hands.

"hey Spence... what's up?" I answer cautiously.

"hey what's with Fitz answering your phone?" she asks.

"oh, I was just busy unloading some of the glasses. I am the bar owner after all, can't let Fitz take all the credit you know?" I joke and I hear Fitz let out a loud "HA." in the background.

"yeah, right." She laughs. I knew she wouldn't believe it. "listen, do you think we could have dinner together tonight and talk? There's something I want to tell you."

"talk over dinner?" I repeat aloud. And just as I do, I can feel my stomach drop and my heart start beating faster. I glance to my right to see Fitz raise his eyebrow and smirk at my plans for tonight. "um, I'm not sure, I think Fitz might be short handed tonight so he asked me to help w-" before I can finish telling Spencer my fake excuse Fitz grabs my phone from my hand and pushes me off the top of the bar where I fall to the floor. "ow!"

"hey Spence?" he talks into the phone. "yeah, don't worry about the bar tonight. Ashley is free for dinner. Seven o'clock? She'll be there. Bye Spence" he says and hangs up. And for some reason all I could do was just lie on the floor of the bar.

"you know, I'm pretty sure pushing your boss off of the bar breaks some sort of clause in that contract you signed when I hired you."

"I have no recollection of said clause" he smirks.

"I hate you." I mutter from on my back.

"You're welcome." he says and goes back to work.

"so this dinner tonight..." I open up to Fitz as I pick myself up off the floor.

"don't you mean date?" he smirks.

"not a date. We've had dinner before, just the two of us. It's not a big deal." I tell him calmly even though I'm mildly freaking out on the inside. "it's not a date" I repeat to myself, just for assurance.

Fitz pauses what he's doing and raises an eyebrow at me. Just one eyebrow. And it's like that slightest eyebrow raise fills me with so much doubt.

"it's not..." I say meekly as a nibble at my Pop Tarts a little more and pull out my cell phone again. Pressing speed dial number 2 I wait for the ring.

"Kyla, I think I have feelings for Spencer..." I say admittedly.

Feelings are confusing. Even if they are feelings you didn't even know you had.

...

"you're late." My boss, Stephen, tells me as I burst through the office door into the video editing equipment rule.

"sorry, I slept in" even though I shouldn't really be apologizing. It's Saturday morning after all.

"okay, well I need you to load all the tapes into the system and we've got to add the tracks to the background of it so you'll have to load the cuts into the system as well. I think Derek printed off a list of which tracks go with which scenes. It should only take a few hours." Oh great, just a few hours. Which means I'll be here all day, while he ducks out before lunch. If you haven't noticed, my boss is kind of a dick. "by the way, Derek said he wanted to see you in his office when you came in"

"Derek said that?" Derek being my boss' boss.

"yeah, so you might want to head in there... like, now." Stephen says and without even saying another word I walk out the door and toward Derek's office. Shit, I can't believe I slept in this morning. Derek probably came in and saw that I wasn't here and now he's pissed. Great.

No big deal really, I'm just going to lose my job, have no income, can't buy food, can't pay for rent – which isn't really a problem since Ashley usually covers rent anyways, can't land a girlfriend because let's face it, who wants to date the unemployed lesbian? This is perfect. I'm going to lost my shitty job that I hate but secretly love. All because I was 5 minutes late to work.

"Derek, you wanted to see me?" I ask as I poke my head into his office, secretly praying that he's too busy to even see me.

"yeah, Spencer come in, close the door behind you." He tells me. Close the door behind me? Yeah, I'm for sure getting canned. I close the door slowly, prolonging this entire meeting. I take a seat in his messy office as he just puts a few tapes back on shelf behind his desk. "I'm going to make this as short as possible mostly because I hate coming in on Saturdays to do work." Well at least it's going to be a quick firing.

"do you like working Saturdays?" he flat out asks me. Not really where I was expecting this conversation to head.

"I uh..." how do I answer this? Does anyone like working on Saturdays?

"I hate it" he says before I can answer. "but I've noticed you here a lot on Saturdays." Oh just every Saturday for the last 3 months or so.

"I guess" I meekly reply. I'm so nervous right now. Can a person get fired for working too many Saturdays?

"you guess? Well Spencer, I think you work harder than any other employee we have here. So I guess it's pretty obvious what we should do about it." Is he going to cut back my hours or something? Cause I actually do need the money.

"...and what would that be?" I ask cautiously.

"look, I'm going to level with you Spencer. You're a very valued employee around here and we don't want to see you leave our company to work for another cinematography firm..."

"you don't...?" I am so confused. "I thought you called me into your office to fire me" I tell him flat out.

"fire you? Spencer, I'm promoting you" he says as if it should be obvious.

A promotion. I'm getting promoted. This isn't quite processing through my head.

"sorry, could you repeat that?" I ask.

"Spencer, you're not getting fired. We're promoting you" he says with a large smile and it's like the smile just spread to me because I can feel this huge grin just appear on my face.

Derek kept me in his office for a few more minutes just to talk logistics and pay and title and all that fun stuff, but to be honest it was all just kind of a blur. As soon as I step out of his office I give him a quick handshake and close the door behind me. Without even heading back to my office I pull out my cell phone.

I've got to call Ashley.