stop...!

"Door's open!" Bryan called, as Allen pushed it open. He smiled at the sight of one of his favorite coworker. Actually, that was a bit of a white lie. He loved all his employees equally. They were like his children, in a way, and seeing them all give 110% to their growing business brought tears of joy to his eyes.

"Allen!" he said loudly, motioning his coworker in and gesturing widely towards one of nice guest chairs. "I was just thinking that I could go for a break, and nobody chats like you! You want some water? La Croix?" he asked, grabbing one for himself. "Help yourself to a candy too. I've just refilled the candied ginger. Good for focus."

"Oh. Sure!" Bryan said, bringing up an admin window on his laptop. "You can always just change that stuff through your account settings, but I'll make sure not to CC you in if you want to keep it a secret." A few clicks later and he's in Allen's profile. "I can change it now if you want though. What's your other email address?"

As Allen sat and worried about Nikoli, the majority of his thoughts went unsaid, so when he dropped a pronoun into the conversation it took Bryan by surprise. "He? Who's he?" Bryan asked.

Despite his reputation as the 'Cool Boss', Bryan's grasp on office romance and gossip was tenuous at best. But not for lack of trying. It was his job to be in the middle of things.

He cracked open his own La Croix, Pastéque, and took a sip before leaning forward across his desk. "Is there something I should know about?" he asked, secretively. "I can always keep a secret."

Bryan typed in the email and made the change. It's as easy as that. "Oh no worries," he chuckled, "we all have one of those older email accounts from our younger days. What was mine again? Uh, FlamesnWaves@******.com or something."

Bryan's face turned to surprise as Allen explained the reason for the change, but as the magnitude of the situation became apparent he turned serious. When Allen was finished Bryan just sat for a moment, La Croix forgotten.

"Allen," he said, voice quiet. "That's going a bit far, don't you think?"

"I mean, if you're doing secretarial duties on your time off then you should be getting paid. I can't have such a young go-getter like yourself working overtime for free!" The intensity drops a notch and he takes a drink of the watermelon tinged water. "I'm not sure how much time you're spending in game, but I'm authorized to pay up to 10 hours of overtime a week for someone at your salary level." He clicks at something on the laptop and a nearby printer comes to life. "That's an overtime pay form. Just fill in the details and send it to HR and, oh. Actually, better just bring it to me. I'll deal with the rest."

"Okay, well, I mean if you DO do any work while in the game you can claim overtime, that's fine. Lots of the staff do it," Bryan said, handing Allen the form. "We've got a budget for it, so it's no problem."

"Now Allen," Big Bee said, sitting back down at his desk. He tried to adopt a mentoral aura. "That sounds like something you should be discussing with Allen, right? I mean, if you want to spend time together just invite him out to an activity! Mini-golf or bowling or out to one of those gaming bars or something. I'm sure you know cooler places around town than me, but it's not that hard!" He took another sip of his drink. "And if you're nervous about going out just the two of you, invite a group of people! Set that foundation of hanging out in a more casual setting."

"Your secret's safe with me," he repeated, "but maybe it doesn't need to be a secret forever, yeah?"