The Boyfriend

Julie closed her laptop and gave a sigh of relief, “I think that’s it for now, are you ready to go back and start everything?”

Nathan sat back on his chair, “Ready as I’ll ever be … I’m glad you’re on board, can’t wait for December, it’s gonna be exciting.”

“Me too, I feel like I’m a part of it already, I have so many ideas that I want to share with you for Ardor.”

Nathan sipped on his coffee, “Please, give me everything you’ve got, draft them up, send it through email or Skype me, I want to hear all of them, ’cause I got plenty of those too … just not sure if they’re doable, I guess we’re gonna have to wait ’till we get all the team ready.”

“True, at least you know what to look for when you’re recruiting, we’re setting a pretty high standard for a new business,” Julie said.

“I’m willing to compensate them for their contribution though, I believe that I need them more than they need me, looking at the task at hand, I need all the help I can get … it would be great if you can come and help me recruit since you know all the basics now,” Nathan looked at her with hopeful glances.

She laughed, “But I’m just the intern, that would be weird.” He laughed at it too, but he was already willing to hire her as an employee because of how competent she was. “You know, we should try that cooking videos you wanted to do in Bhorma, I’ll set up the social media accounts for Ardor and then we’ll make videos of you cooking there and post them … it’ll be a form of marketing too,” she added a new idea.

Nathan nodded, he always wanted to make cooking videos and start a traveling cooking channel but he was encouraged to start a steady business first by his parents. “That way, once you decided to travel and cook, you’ll already have a platform,” she concluded. Nathan smiled, she really thought of everything.

“What about you? What do you want to do after you graduate?” he asked, although he expected her to extend her internship into an employment.

“Get out of Gastonburry, for sure, I’ll probably go back to my parents for a month or so and do a little bit of solo traveling before plunging into the real world … so many things to do,” her eyes twinkled as she pictured herself in the future.

“Kelsey also wanted to go travelling after graduation, she told me she’d probably be off for months to travel the world, not sure that I’ll be invited though,” he chuckled. His eyes drooped and his smile faded away, “Do you think she’ll be fine when I’m not here?”

She wasn’t sure what he meant by ‘fine’. “You know what I mean, we’ve only known each other for a couple of months now, I know she’s not used to having a boyfriend around every day … It seemed like she couldn’t wait for me to go back to Bhorma and leave her to her normal routine … whatever that is,” he frowned.

“What gave you that idea?” Julie stalled.ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

Nathan shrugged, “I guess you can sense these things, I’ve been in a serious relationship and I can tell that she doesn’t perceive us that way, I want to try with her but at the same time I don’t want to smother her because she’s not used to it.”

She knew he was expecting her to respond, but she knew better to stay away from her best friend’s privacy. She didn’t have the right to say anything on her behalf. She nodded, “I think you’re on the right track, she did say you’re a keeper,” she was being honest.

His eyes widened, “Really? What else did she say?”

Julie laughed, “Oh no, you’re not going to do that if we’re ever going to work together, I won’t be the one who get stuck in the middle.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that, it’s just that … my business is very demanding at the moment, it’s hard to maintain a relationship in a time like this, especially a long distance one.”

She rested her face on her hand as she listened, she patted his arm, “Don’t worry, you know what they say … a good relationship shouldn’t be hard to maintain, if the both of you are equally invested in it, it should go smoothly. I’m sure everything’s gonna be fine,” she tried to ease his mind. He wasn’t convinced.

“I guess we’ll have to wait and see,” he took a deep breath. “What about you? Kelsey told me you’re looking for a relationship, she asked me to hook you up with one of my friends … ‘the best you have’ I might add.”

Julie covered her face with both hands, “Oh my God, I can’t believe she actually told you that,” her cheeks were reddened when she took off her hands.

“Yeah, she specifically said he has to be equally smart, mature, independent and willing to take you out on book shopping every month,” he added.

“Don’t listen to her!” She was terribly embarrassed.

“I told her that would be hard to find ’cause most of my friends are airheads which is part of the reason why we’re friends so I can fool them into anything,” he joked. “But then again, I said I want you to focus on working for Ardor and I wouldn’t want you to be distracted by my airhead friends.” They laughed, of course he was only kidding.

Julie was shaking her head and immediately tried to change the subject. He thought it was adorable, how clumsy she was when she had to talk about her private life. “I thought there was something going on between you and Preston? Although … he doesn’t seem to fit your criteria,” Nathan pushed on.

“No, we’re just friends, a complicated kind of friendship, but friends,” she said as her laugh reduced into a simple smile and pursed lips. “And I made him videos, I recorded him singing, edited the videos and uploaded them to his channel and other social media accounts … he got quite some likes and followers, just helping him out with his music career, you want to see what I did?” she finally stirred the conversation in another direction.

“Sure,” Nathan agreed. She opened up her laptop and showed him what she’d done. She told him how she was going to do the same with his cooking videos but with different styles. She explained her editing process and what could be done differently with Nathan’s videos. All he heard was brilliant ideas after brilliant ideas. He thought of how much he was going to miss these meetings with her as his eyes often slipped from the monitor and ended on her beaming face.