I might have felt bad when Al burst into tears if he hadn’t turned out to be such a douche last year. The other guys didn’t help when they started to make fun of him for crying. That wasn’t something guys our age did. Their derision was partly because they all thought he was a douche, too, and this gave them an excuse to give him a little back.
Al decided he would be better off just leaving. Maybe I could have handled that better, but f-him.
I told the guys I had to go and promised I would make an effort to surf with them.
“What was that all about?” Manaia asked.
I told him about Baby Dick.
“Hmph. I should have let him go,” Manaia decided.
“I’m liking you better all the time.”
“But I am supposed to save you from yourself,” he reminded me.
I rolled my eyes. He was probably right, but that didn’t mean I had to admit it.
We packed up our surfing gear and took it with us so we could surf in the morning.
◊◊◊
We had some time before our meeting with the NCAA. It was time to track down Lexi and talk about what happened last night. Unlike Brook, I had an appreciation of the issues around having sex with people who worked for you. I wanted to make sure Lexi understood that I would never expect her to do something because I was her boss.
The only reason I hadn’t freaked out yet was that Lexi had come to me and initiated our encounter. I wanted to confirm that Brook hadn’t made her feel like she had to have sex with me. In this day and age, sexual encounters between coworkers were frowned upon, especially if one party had to report to the other.
That didn’t mean that workplace romances and even hookups didn’t occur. There were too many examples of the boss marrying his assistant for that to be true.
The problem seemed to be when the relationship didn’t end well. It was becoming evident that grudges of this sort could linger for years. It seemed that half the time that someone was accused of misconduct, it was a relationship in their past that had ended badly.
Then later, it came back to bite them in the butt. This was especially true for someone like me who was in the public eye.
I’d only had sex with one other person who worked for me, and that was Cassidy. But she was different, in my estimation. She and I were friends first and had built up a level of trust. We also knew what it was at the time we got together. There were no expectations that we would be in a long-term relationship or that it would lead to more ... for now.
The only other one who fell into a gray area was Adrienne. As my agent, I guess she technically worked for me, even though she wasn’t on any organizational charts. She owned her own company. It never felt like Adrienne was my employee, though. If anything, it seemed like she was in charge, or we were equals at best. I guess that was because she was older and acted more as a mentor and friend to me.
I hated that common sense had gone out the window. It was entirely wrong to tie an employee’s income, advancement, or anything else to them acquiescing to the boss’s demands. If it was mutual and didn’t interfere with work, who did it hurt? The question was, how did you know? How could you tell that there wasn’t something that had made one person think they had to submit? That was what worried me. I didn’t know if Lexi felt pressured.
I could see a logical case being made against me. After all, I’d removed Lexi from her role as my PA, and her replacement had offered sex to get me to take her back.
At the time, I knew Aubrey meant what she said. We had a history and had a lot of fun together before I even thought of employing her. I’m not sure I would have gone through with it, though. But Lexi didn’t know that. Lexi’s a bright girl and knows how things work out here. It wouldn’t be too big of a leap to think that using sex to get what she wanted was a good idea. And, what’s more, that it probably was just what she would need to do to get ahead.
I could see why the best policy was not to have a relationship with an employee. With that in mind, I put on my bodycam and wandered off to find her.
◊◊◊
I found Lexi in her room.
“Hey,” I said.
“Come in and close the door,” she suggested.
“I better leave the door open.”
“You’re worried about last night.”
That statement confirmed she was a smart girl. I nodded.
“Let me put your mind at ease. While I did that to help you and Brook, I wanted to do it, too. If you must know, I wish it had gone further, and Brook was okay if it had,” Lexi said.
“It was hard for me to stop.”
She smirked at the ‘hard’ reference but refrained from commenting.
“I’m not sure if we should ever do something like that again. I don’t want you to think that you’re obligated in any way,” I said, trying to reassure her.
