Ashlee had something in her hand, and she didn’t look particularly happy.
“Is, there something wrong?” Dave felt the need to ask, closing the gap slowly.
“Other than this, nothing.” Ashlee replied with a distinct lack of enthusiasm in her voice, handing the paper over.
“Again?” Dave wondered aloud having read it, the details of it explaining that her latest attempt to secure a promotion had failed, and for the same generic reasons as all the other times.
“Yeah, I think they’re trying to force me back into the office throughout the week.” Ashlee pointed out glumly.
“So that they’ve get you where they can see you at all times.” Dave worked out.
“Pretty much.” Ashlee confirmed. “They know the travel time from here is terrible, that’s why I worked so hard to get those three days of the week here. Now they want to just toss that fact to the side.”
“Damn. I guess now may not be the best time to tell you this then.” Dave began.
“Tell me what? And why were you so late back anyway?” Ashlee probed.
“Well. Mike transferred yesterday, and I got his job now.”
“So you were promoted?”
“With a salary doubling and a lot of extra work now, after seven years.” Dave replied, wondering how she would take the news. “In fact, not only did I have to work late today, I’ll need to be in there on Sunday just to finish it in time.”
“How? How did you manage to get it?” Ashlee demanded to know, knowing a bit about his issues that he’d had there.
“Well in truth, I got lucky.” That part was quite true, there had been a fair bit of luck involved in that he picked up the Pen when he did.
“I’m sure you did.” Ashlee looked quite sullen, and Dave could see why.
Out of the pair of them, she tended to have the stronger work ethic, and did a lot more overtime hours than he did, yet she’d been struggling to make her way up the ladder, while Dave had simply gotten lucky and got one out of the blue. That’s how Dave saw where she was coming from.
“C’mon.” Dave wrapped a scaled arm around her. “Let’s sit down and talk about things.”
Guiding her to the sofa, Dave gazed at her. Most of her body could be seen since outside of her jean-shorts and t-shirt, it was clear that there was nothing else on her. In fact, the cut-off nature of them meant that the lowermost bit of her left breast peeked out, while the camel toe on the shorts made clear the lack of underwear, though she claimed that it was more comfortable to work like that in the home, and saved on the laundry.
Sitting side-by-side now, his arm still around her, Dave prepared to talk with her.