* X x * x * x * Chapter 19 * x * x * x X*
Inside Zach's office, She paced while holding her chin after sitting in her chair for a good five minutes, pondering to herself. J sat comfortably on the couch, silently watching his friend panic, thinking this was not a good sign.
"Man, that was… uh, I don't know." Zach stopped pacing and told his friend.
"Dude, you've got to get it together; we have to be there in half an hour," Jeremy said, trying to calm his friend.
"I mean, I literally had no idea. Is she one of the new ones in your department?" about
"I don't know, Z. There's one guy, while the other name doesn't sound like they'd have Kaye as a pet name; she must be in your department," J shrugged.
"I don't like where this is going, J." Zach gave up the pacing and sat on the couch beside Jeremy. Both slouching.
"Z, dude, I know you don't like the idea of dating a colleague anymore, but it's time for you to move past what happened before. This is actually a good thing! I'm telling you." Jeremy emphasized the last few words with his eyes.
It's not because it's frowned upon; she can live with that. Their company doesn't have any issues with office romances, but she had a relationship with one of her co-workers before, and it was not in the least healthy, and everything went downhill after a few months.
"I don't know, man," she trailed off. "I just don't want the same thing to happen again—not that I think less of Kaye—she's such a sweetheart it's almost impossible, but having a colleague as your partner is such a hassle." Zach said agonizingly but joked, "Well you wouldn't understand because you just always slept around."
"Hey, I don't sleep around that much. I mean, not anymore." He laughed with her. "To be perfectly honest, it wasn't your fault. It was that bitch. I was there, and I saw you do your best. Well, I guess too much, since she turned out to be such an obsessive psycho. Ugh, damn! She still gives me the creeps." J said, raising his hand to show the hairs on his forearm, then rubbing them off.
"C'mon she wasn't that bad." She tried to defend her.
"Uh, no, no. Don't defend that psycho. Maybe not in bed, but still a psycho!" J chuckled. He opened a water bottle that was sitting on the table and handed one to Z.
"Oh yeah, Z, I meant to say this since I got here, but I think you have to remove those pictures up there before joining the ranks." J pointed out the pictures on the wall.
It felt like time passed by quickly when the time came for them to meet and greet the new hires. This is quite customary in their company.
She gave J a light punch. "Those are references, you fool." Z figured it out.
"You don't say." J chuckled, amused. "You either remove those or cover it with something else." Still laughing, he raised his hands and said, "I mean, I'm just saying!" before going out the door.
*****
The new hires sat quietly inside, taking up a quarter of yet another conference room. The room has a lot of swivel chairs and a massive wooden table in the middle totally different from what the other room has.
Comparing the two, the first room they went into is more like a war room for the teams and where some pitches are presented while this place looked like it was used for priority meetings, pitches, and meetings with large numbers of participants. so there must be a lot of people doing introductions today. Kaye thought they might see some Board of Directors identities just like in the movies and it got her thrilled in anticipation.
She hovered her eyes over the large company name up to the front. 'J&Z Multime…' and that's when it hit her.
'Wait, don't tell me they own this company and that those two are these J & Z?' Her mind was in a constant battle when a handsome man opened the door to the conference room and sat at the opposite end of the table.
Kaye thought that he might be the boss. After the 'boss' came, a few more people then she saw Jeremy followed. She was eager for Zach to come in almost impatiently but she didn't for another minute. She was the last person to arrive.
Jeremy pulled a chair for Zach which he thanked him for and sat at the corner of the table beside the boss across their chair.
She was not able to appreciate it earlier but can see clearly how hot Zach is right now as she gulps at the sight. She is wearing a body-hugging black turtleneck, partnered with black trousers. A brown, checkered coat that rested on her shoulders made her look so irresistible asking for her to take it off completely.
She let her eyes feast on the gorgeous entity across the room before Zach's eyes met hers. Her lungs felt like it has forgotten how to take in some air as their gaze at each other lingered for a few seconds.
Zach seemed like asking she was for something and she just gave Zach a simple and quick smile to let her know that she is doing fine.
Z smiled back and turned away. The old man with handsomely sharp features, probably in his late 40s is very tall, quite taller than J to her surprise.
Felicity whispered, "Why are the people here so tall? Is that part of the qualifications? Was I an exemption?"
Kaye laughed at her question. "I don't think that's the case. I saw people here that are of the average height."
"Well, Missy, let me tell you. Your take on average is still tall for us people standing in the 5 ft section."
"Shut up and let's focus." She laughed at her.
Zach has been looking at her and turning away the moment she looks at her and sees how beautiful Kaye is. She feels like she'd melt away with her smile. Zach just dismissed the thought because starting today, they will be colleagues, and they will have to work almost every day with each other.
The tall man and the others kept quiet until everyone settled down to either their seats or standing in place. He then signaled Arthur to begin which he nodded in response.
He let everybody speak for themselves after some introduction. He had the new hires introduce themselves first to the people in front and Kaye could feel the tremble in her voice when it was her turn to introduce herself.
"Good morning everyone. I-I'm Catherine Jones, you can just call me Kaye. First of all, I-I would like to thank you for giving me the chance to be a part of your company. It has been a dream of mine since my college years to be working here and I really appreciate that you took me in regardless of my lack of experience. Thank you." Was what she remembered she said, blushing as her eyes trailed off to the woman that was intently looking at her making her forget about everything and wanting to just get lost in her eyes.
First impressions are really important so she just hoped that she didn't say anything inappropriate and was able to introduce herself properly but having Z stare at her most of the time did not help at all. She makes her feel too conscious of herself.
So far, she found out that there are about 3 Senior Artists, and 4 Junior artists, scattered among the teams for design, character, concept, and background as they said, and a rough explanation of other roles that didn't have the need to attend the meeting. The numbers are almost the same on the Developer's side. She lost count so she would just go over them later on. Technically, they were introduced to the bosses and people that mattered.
Kaye has heard a lot of people have talked already but she hasn't heard either J or Z talking. Are they really that J & Z on the walls? She thought.
The tall man that she thought maybe the company's CEO, who she saw the name on their website together with the others, Ethan Scott. She was just not sure since they only have 2D avatars on their profile and not an actual photo.
"Thank you so much everyone for taking the time out of your busy day to come in here for our new hires. I guess it's my turn now. I'm Ethan Scott the CEO of this small company and the people right beside me are who this company is named after." He encouraged the two people that sat beside him to his left. "Go on son."
Kaye's eyebrows creased slightly at the revelation. She was quite interested in how the company ended up with their names and she took a mental note of asking her in the future.
Jeremy started talking, "Well, it's a bit embarrassing for you to introduce that like us, Mr. Scott." He said with a confident smile, looking back to everyone around. "Nevertheless, name is Jeremy Scott but everyone calls me J so feel free to do so. And I'd like to welcome you all to this company that we, hold dear in our hearts! We hope you'll always feel free to speak up, share your thoughts, and challenge us. We're all going to grow together here, and we look forward to it!" He exclaimed and nodded to Z to start.
"Hi, Good morning everyone. I'm Zachariah McCartney. You can call me Z and uh, glad to have you all here. If you have any questions or need help, you know where to find me." To every new hire's surprise, Z did the introduction so simply while the others didn't seem to mind it.
Kaye felt a sudden bump in her chest after hearing Z's full name. It's pretty and it fits her.
"Moving on~. I am a part of the Development team, one of the senior lead programmers, and anything with coding and programming in it that's me. However, my sister here is an all-rounder. The best asset of the company if I must say." He smiled at Z who shot him a stare of confusion.
"I'm not done yet," Jeremy said as he raised his hand to count, "she is a Senior Creative Designer, she is one of our best graphic artists, the best character designer and concept artist here, she can do programming, coding, uh what else, oh yea, Art Director of Team A, she handles almost everyone in the introv—I mean, she's one of the four team leaders in the Creative Department." He said beaming like he is trying to introduce Z to his parents.
Kaye's eyes wandered to the woman that Jeremy is talking about and felt nothing but admiration. A timid smile crept on her lips as she saw Zach's reaction to Jeremy's list. She must have not expected J to say those words as closed her eyes for a brief moment and scratched the back of her neck Jeremy decided to ignore her pleading looks for him to stop.
"To sum it all up, she's a responsible workaholic, if you have questions regarding programming and software development then you can ask me anything. If it's art-related stuff then you know who to find." He paused. "Well, a little tip though, you can find and speak to her through Arty." He said breathing, showing that he still had a lot to say but was interrupted by a commanding voice.
"I think that's enough, they get it." Ethan saves Z from his son's embarrassing rifle mouth and decides to end the introductions.
"Congratulations on taking the next step in your career! We see great things in your future — that's why we hired you. We hope you'll ask questions, make mistakes—but not grave ones—and try new things, so we'll all reach new heights together. Don't be afraid to take risks and come out of your comfort zone occasionally. Around here, it's all about the journey." He said ending the much-awaited introductions.
All the other people started leaving after the three big shots had left. Kaye is still overwhelmed and can't contain her surprise at the things she has discovered about Zach since she rarely talks about herself—not that they talked that much. They've been conversing here and there but never heard of anything else about her actual job.