I want You Deeper

Nicholas stood at the front of the room behind the podium, looking out at the groups gathered around all the tables. He hated to be stuck behind a podium, but he’d forgotten his clicker at his condo,

and by the time he realized it, it had been too late to drive over there to get it.

So here he stood, pressing a button on his laptop each time he had to advance to a new slide. It worked okay for the first half of the presentation -the slideshow was the star of that part of things. All eyes focused on the screen several feet to the left of him.

But then came the interactive part of the presentation. For that, he needed to be able to get a little closer to the audience. So he scooted just far enough to be able to rush back over and press a button every few minutes.

“I can do that for you,” Charlie offered, standing and starting toward the podium. He breathed a sigh of relief at the offer. He wouldn’t have asked anyone here to do anything like that, but now that it had been offered, he gladly handed over the reins.

“Thank you,” he mouthed as he stepped back toward the first table, which was a good twelve feet from where he currently stood. Then he turned to the group and continued.

“Now?” she asked when he nodded over to her. He almost laughed but held it in. They obviously hadn’t had time to coordinate this, so he’d have to work this out in front of everyone.

“I’ll signal like this when it’s time to move forward one.” He held up a finger and pressed it down quickly. Then he turned back and continued talking.

“Uh,” one of the developers mumbled at the front table. Nicholas didn’t know anyone’s name. He supposed he should get to know a few of them if they’d be spending the weekend together, but his brain seemed to scramble whenever Charlie was around.

Speaking of scrambled brains…

He turned in the direction the programmer-guy was pointing, which was the screen. It was still on the previous slide. He realized he’d never answered Charlie’s question. He gave her the gesture, and she promptly advanced to the next slide.

“This was me just a few weeks ago.”

It was a picture of a cat, hair standing straight in the air, weary look on his face. The word “Stressed” was printed across the bottom of the picture, just in case it wasn’t obvious enough. A small trickle of laughter spread across the room.

“This is me now.”

He gestured and Charlie moved to the next slide, which featured a cat doing yoga. Another round of half-hearted laughter.

“What’s changed in my life?”

He moved his gaze across the audience, landing on Justin. Justin merely smiled and looked up at the screen. At least this time he wasn’t staring down at his phone.

Justin knew what had changed. So did Brooke. It was the reason they’d worked so hard to make sure Nicholas and Charlie spent time together. But neither Justin nor Brooke would speak up here.

Or so he thought.

“You’ve realized what’s important in life,” Brooke said, seated at the table where Charlie had been sitting near the back. He was surprised to see Brooke wasn’t at the same table as her boyfriend, who was all the way on the other side of the room. Brooke and Justin were experts at keeping a professional distance from each other even though their co-workers seemed to constantly refer to them as a couple.

Nicholas pointed at Brooke. “Exactly. We’re all working hard to achieve some career goal we’ve set for ourselves, right? But one day you wake up and you realize it’s just not enough. You come home to an empty place-if you’re lucky, you have a dog or cat.”

He pointed at the screen, where the cat was still in a yoga pose. He quickly gestured to Charlie, who advanced to the next slide, which depicted a group of cats kicked back in beach chairs, wearing big floppy hats and sunglasses.

“And one day you look back and try to remember the last time you’ve taken a vacation. Not a guys’ trip to the slopes or a visit to see family or a weekend retreat like this one, but a real vacation. That’s when you realize your work-life balance is off.”

Nicholas stepped even closer to the first table, which allowed him to make more direct eye contact with the people gathered around the various tables. Some were still eating their slices of pie, while others were reclined in their seats, arms crossed over their chests, the area in front of them empty.

“How many of you go on an actual vacation every year?” Nicholas pointed back toward the screen. “The kind of vacation depicted here.”

A few hands went up around the room, including Justin’s. That didn’t surprise him. Although Justin was super smart, he’d also always had a love for the finer things in life. He’d take every chance to surround himself with beautiful scenery while enjoying the best food and drink money could buy.

Nicholas walked back toward the screen, then headed to the side of the room where Brooke sat. “The problem is you don’t really miss it at first. One day turns into two and soon, months have passed and all you’ve done is work. Does it matter? I think it does.”

Someone in the back coughed. A few people shifted. One of the developers yawned. The message was clear. Nicholas was losing them.

Time to turn up the energy. “We love what we do, right?” he said in his peppiest voice. “When you love what you do, you never work a day in your life, or whatever the saying is.”

He probably should have included a slide with that full quote on it. If he was being honest, he’d kind of thrown the presentation together. He’d been inspired at the last minute to talk about work-life balance and had to act quickly.

“But burnout is a real thing. You don’t even know that’s what it is. You say you’re annoyed with a co-worker or your boss or the work itself. You start to say you’re sick of things. And, in actuality, you are because you’re putting everything into your job.”

Now he saw a few people nodding. One guy sat up straighter. Even Justin seemed more alert as he looked around, probably noting the interested expressions of his employees.

Nicholas was getting through to them.

“How much vacation time do you get?”

Nicholas realized too late that was a risky question to ask. What if it differed from person to person? He could end up making matters worse.

“Two weeks!” someone called out.

That was echoed by a few others, then by Justin, who nodded, as well.

Good. Sounded pretty solid.

“How many of you have taken the full two weeks this year?”

Not a single hand went up. Nicholas was relieved to see it. It easily could have gone the other way, which would have gotten in the way of making his point.

“How many have taken one week?”

Some hands went up on that one. More than half the room, actually.

“What about last year? Did anyone take the full two weeks?”

A few hands went up, but after asking the one-week question, he safely concluded that one week was what the majority of employees took each year. He nodded.

The reaction when he asked how many had taken a vacation like the one the cats were enjoying in his presentation was even more lackluster. People weren’t taking vacations for fun. They were using all their vacation time to travel to see their parents in the summertime or have an extended holiday at Christmastime.

“I want you all to do me a favor.” Nicholas cast a quick glance in Justin’s direction. He probably should have cleared it with his friend first, but it was too late for that now. “I want you to take a vacation. One week where you go somewhere you enjoy and stay completely offline. Work with your HR department so that you aren’t all taking the same week off, of course.”

He glanced over at Charlie, whose eyes widened slightly in response. Clearly, Justin wasn’t the only one worth getting approval from on something like this. The last thing he wanted to do was make trouble for Charlie.

“I’m not asking you to do anything I wouldn’t do myself.” Nicholas crossed his arms over his chest, mimicking the stance of so many of the people seated in front of him. “I will be taking a full week off to do nothing but hang out here in Lake Tahoe, enjoying the outdoors and ignoring my emails. We aren’t alone. Even Justin can take a week or two off because he has all of you. You will work hard to make sure his business is still in good shape when he returns, right?”

Nods. At least the bored expressions had left faces in front of him. Brooke raised her hand, though. He was nervous, unsure what she was about to say.

“Yes, Brooke?” he dared to ask.

She dropped her arm, folding her hands on the table in front of her. “Will you be enjoying that week alone?”

There was no missing the mischievous smile on her face. Make no mistake about it. She was up to no good.

“I hope not.”

That was the best answer he could give right now. He could throw a look in Charlie’s direction, but he wasn’t ready to put himself out there yet. Or maybe he was. There were a few hours of sessions remaining, then dinner, then tomorrow… He didn’t want to spill everything to her right before she climbed into her car to head home.

“There’s a certain someone I’ve met recently,” he said, his body tensing a little more with each word he spoke. “She’s changed my perspective on everything. I’m hoping she’ll agree to take a week with me. I may have to wait a couple of months until we’re more serious, though.”

Nicholas didn’t miss the looks that were exchanged across the room. He was pretty sure there was no mystery here. Everyone but Charlie was well aware at this point that the woman who had changed Nicholas’s life was her.

“Looks like we’re out of time,” Nicholas said, giving himself a mental pat on the back for managing to drag things out to the last minute. Nobody else could ask questions now. There was no time. “We’ll split off for the first afternoon session after a brief break.”