Page 61 of Reaching Gavin

So, he wasn’t wrong exactly, he’d just missed the point about soothing the preservation committee’s anxieties—the public relations part.

When Trevor was finished, Gavin got to his feet, with a blank expression on his face.

“Thank you for that.” He didn’t sound grateful at all, but he kept his opinions to himself. “As we said earlier, we’re now going to open the floor to questions. Please address your questions to the entire group, and whoever is best suited to answer them will jump in.”

He looked to Imogen, who still seemed confused by the final presentation. That didn’t stop a flurry of questions from erupting from her entire group. Some of them were easy to answer. What did our timeline look like? One year. Others were a little harder. How could it be a restoration if we were gutting the building? Answer: we didn’t have a choice given its condition. I jumped in whenever possible to answer questions, but more often than not, Trevor beat me to the punch, displaying his keen lack of tact. We weren’t the experts here, but that was PR, organizing all the concerns of an entire company and succinctly coming up with a response on the spot. A few of the engineers I’d consulted, nodded enthusiastically whenever I spoke about the construction process. They weren’t the types to speak publicly, I was their mouthpiece. For the first time, I felt like I really knew what I was doing. All those years in classes had paid off.

When it was all finished, everyone looked to Imogen, the spearhead of the organization, for her comments. “First, I’d like to thank you all for taking our concerns so seriously.” Her eyes flashed to Trevor as if to warn him to stay silent. “We see the Majestic Theater as a historical landmark and we want it to continue to be a point of pride for the neighborhood. I think I speak for all of us in saying that Cassie’s plan understands the spirit of what this theater means to the community. With open communication and a clear vision, we're excited to see what NorthWest Investments can do for our neighborhood.”

This time it wasn’t a smattering of claps, everyone around me broke into applause. The people standing next to me congratulated me and patted me on the back. Trevor had pushed himself farther back into the corner, as though he was trying to fade from sight. It felt good to have it over with and even better that I managed to build a bridge between these two organizations.

Gavin stood and waited for the applause and chatter to die down. “Amazing job. Let’s hope that we don’t screw up Cassie’s plan while she’s off finishing college.” Almost everyone laughed. A few of the preservation committee members looked around in surprise. “I wanted to take a moment to speak with you, because it’s pretty hard to get us all in one place at the same time in the summer.”

From the back someone yelled, “We need a bigger office.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Gavin said dryly. “This actually isn’t about the restoration, so my apologies to our guests. Although, it somewhat concerns them, too.” He cleared his throat as if needing a second to collect his thoughts. What was he up to? “I unexpectedly spent the weekend with my father.”

“Did he finally convince you to take over his company?” Agnes called from the end of the table.

There was a round of nervous laughter and some shifty-eyed glances. No one wanted to lose Gavin to Sound Coffee, but they seemed to realize that it was a possibility. I hadn’t known until then, how many people knew about his dad, but Gavin believed in transparency. He might have taken his mom’s name to put on a business card, but he hadn’t hidden who he was. That would have been impossible.

“No, but he did remind me of a few things.” The seriousness of his voice instantly quieted the room again. “He reminded me that a good boss is transparent. Honest.”

Gavin looked directly at me in the same moment that I realized what he was about to do. It was like the seconds before a crash. I could see it coming, but I was powerless to stop it from happening. All I could do was watch.

“So, in the spirit of that, I wanted to tell you that I’m seeing someone in the office.”

This was met with a buzz of conversation, people began whispering under their breath and scouting the room as if they were looking for a suspect. No one looked upset. I didn’t expect anyone to get out the pitchforks and form a lynching mob. Still, silently I prayed that he didn’t name me. I thought he’d understood that I wasn’t ready to be in the spotlight in that way.

“It’s serious,” he continued.

Oh no. No. No.

“How long have you been seeing her?” someone asked before quickly adding, “or him.”

Either things weren’t as transparent as Gavin thought, or he really dated so little that no one knew for sure if he was straight.

Gavin only smiled. “Her. Not that long. I wanted to be sure before I said anything. Because I think there’s an office pool going around about whether or not I would die a bachelor. I didn’t want to screw up the stakes.”

“It’s up to $200!” Agnes quipped from the back.

Imogen was trying to hide a smirk as all this unfolded. She dared a peek at me and it fell from her face. Her lips parted like she might leap in and stop this runaway train before he wrecked everything, but she didn’t speak. Her eyes closed as if bracing herself as he continued.

At least, someone in the room was on my side when Gavin looked directly at me and ended the suspense. “I know that we all respect each other’s personal lives here and that this isn’t a big deal, but I wanted to be honest about it, and tell you that I’m dating Cassie Hart.”

Every eye in the room swiveled around to stare at me.