"What's that supposed to mean?" Nicola spat, internally furious that James was controlling her somehow.
"Forget it," sighed James. He, frankly, didn't believe that he had any power over Nicola and he mostly just wanted to get out of her sight so he could cry. He really thought she had been his friend.
Nicola, however, was very much being controlled by James' comments, his words picked up by the active remote. With "Forget it," she suddenly lost all memory that anything was off and looked up to see that the pair had arrived at the office. She didn't remember telling James anything bad or even that they had come across the mysterious shop.
"Want to grab a drink after work?" she smiled at her very confused coworker.
"You're a sociopath," James whispered at her and, as soon as the words were spoken, it was true.
Nicola was completely unaware that her conscience had, effectively, just been shut off. She grinned at James, leaning in with a flash of cleavage and getting right up in front of his face as though she was going to kiss him. Then, with no warning whatsoever, so swung a fist down and punched James directly in the balls. The she laughed as she dashed inside, leaving James moaning on the ground in front of the office entrance.
For a good long while, James just lay there, finally having a physical reason to give into his tears. After a short eternity, he stood and composed himself. One of the legs of his slacks was scuffed with dirt, but it didn't really matter anyway. Unless Nicola was lying, he was about to get fired. As he slunk away to his cubicle, he cursed himself for being such a pushover. Not only had he failed to stand up to Nicola, he was just sitting like a coward instead of confronting his boss this very instant. Said boss, Sylvia, was definitely not a fan of James. An imposing redhead, she tended to treat James like he was an unpleasant child and usually found a way to also make him feel like one.
Just as he was about to fully wallow in self pity, James looked up to see one his coworkers, Mark, moving steadily towards him.
"Heya, pal!" Smiled Mark. It was an odd thing, because James really wasn't very social with most of his colleagues. His desk was in an annexed section of the building that didn't see much foot traffic. Mark, on the other hand, sat over with Nicola and the "popular" sales team. "Mind if I hang out over here? There's some serious drama going on in the sales room."