shit into the office so I came in casual.” He pulled the last loop on his teal-colored tie and examining it in the mirror, straightening it and adjusting his collar.
I swallowed. “I have to go,” I rasped.
He frowned and stepped away from the mirror, motioning toward the bathroom. “I have no idea why you walked all the way up here to use the restroom but fine, there it is. You’ll soon know what it’s like to have a private bathroom of your own.”
I blinked and adjusted my stance. “No, I mean I have to leave. I have to get to the airport. Please, can you… can you just tell Adam I’m sorry? And… I gotta go.”
Jordan was now staring at me like I’d spontaneously burst into flames.
“I have no idea what just came out of your mouth right now but you aren’t going anywhere.”
I drew a deep breath, trying to figure out how I was going to explain this to him without violating Kat’s confidence. “Yes I am. I’m going now. Kat had to leave the country this morning on urgent family business. I need to be there with her.”
Jordan rubbed at his forehead, then reached into his desk drawer, grabbed his keys and phone and nodded to the door. “Tell me on the way to the airport. And you’re gonna help me figure out how I’m going to keep Adam from going nova and giving Jeremy the job.”
As we walked out, Jordan’s assistant was just getting into the office, setting down her case. “Jordan, wanted to let you know I’m here a little early to get everything together for the board—”
He held up his hand. “Susan, grab a pad of paper and a pen. First off, delay the meeting by at least thirty minutes, more if you can manage it.” Her mouth opened, but he rode over her. “Next, I need you to find me the next flight to…?” He turned to me.
I turned to Susan. “Vancouver, British Columbia.”
Jordan clenched his jaw. “Shit, an international flight. I forgot she’s a Canuck. I have to run him up to LAX. There’s probably only one flight a day there out of John Wayne.” He checked his watch. “We have to leave now. We can use the carpool lane, and it’s early on a Thursday so it might not be that much of a clusterfuck. Find him the earliest flight two hours from now.” He turned back to me. “You need your passport, bud.”
I swore. It was at home. “We’ll have to take a detour.”
Jordan turned toward the entrance, following me while calling back to Susan. “Stay close to your phone! I have more things you need to do.”
Then we booked it out of the building, into the parking lot. Jordan refused to drive my “old piece of shit.” Fuck him, it was a perfectly maintained Mercedes 500 SL.
We got into his ginormous SUV instead. It would have been ideal if we’d had to take some mountain roads or ford some raging rivers on the way. As it was, the thing acted like a tank on the freeway and the minute he hit his blinker, cars got out of the way. Good enough.
“Tell me what the hell is going on now,” Jordan asked me. He’d just finished barking more orders at Susan on his speaker phone and told his car to text Adam to delay the meeting. With a knot in my stomach, I watched the screen on his dash, expecting the reply any moment now.
“I let her down. She… she’s facing some tough stuff she has to take care of at home and I’d promised her I’d go. We made the arrangements last week, the day before I got back to the office…”
“Which was the day before you found out about this meeting and the presentation. Okay, but can’t you fly up tonight and meet up with her then? Why right now?”
I ran my hands through my hair. “Because I’m a fuck up and should have just been on the plane with her in the first place. It’s legal stuff, she’s doing it this afternoon, and I promised I’d be there for her.”
He shook his head, clearly not pleased. “I just wish you’d told me all this in the first place. I’m not sure what we could have done but it would have been better than this. Honestly, bro, I’m not even sure I can save your job when Adam finds out about this. He’s not going to take it well.