The Overlap Read Online Free PDF Page B

that first Saturday night, knew that Josh and I had hooked up. Our instructors knew it too, and I could tell they were keeping an extra-close eye on both of us the entire next week. One of the lectures on our first week’s itinerary had been all about the firm’s policies regarding relationships among employees. The woman who gave us that two-hour lecture was the partner in charge of the firm’s Human Resources group, and she told us that whereas some of the other consulting companies had very strict rules against relationships among their employees, ours was fairly lenient. We went through the standard pitch about sexual harassment and what blatant – and illegal – actions were grounds for immediate dismissal. She also covered the next tier down: various scenarios which weren’t outright harassment or illegal, but which were viewed as damaging to the morale and operations of the firm and were subject to disciplinary action, up to and including being fired.
    However, she was also pretty cool about telling us that in any professional setting where young, unmarried professionals wound up working together, relationships were bound to result. Consequently, the primary rule she stressed to us was that if we entered into a relationship with another employee – whether a “single-night project” (as she tongue-in-cheek referred to hooking up) or something longer-term – as long as we left our libidos outside the workplace and working hours, there should be no problems at all. And when a relationship ended, it needed to end professionally: no angry texts to one another; no social media back-and-forth flame-war posts; no posting any previously hidden drunken making-out (or worse) pictures or videos for the world to see; none of that.
    “I don’t care how many angry, dramatic breakups you had during high school or college,” she warned us. “You will not have any here, at least to the point where working relationships are affected. And God help you if you ever play out a toxic breakup in front of a client; you will find yourself fired!”
    She even gave us a 25-question quiz that was comprised of various scenarios and every one of us had to score at least 92% otherwise we had to retake the quiz over and over until we did. Fortunately, I had no problem with mine the first time through: perfect score!
    And so all eyes were on Josh Chamberlain and me that week, wanting to see if we would be texting each other during our classes or showing up together late in the morning, or anything like that. No way! Both Josh and I were on high alert and that entire second week, we only got together one time; that Wednesday I spent in his room and since it had now been four whole days since that first Saturday night we had together, I was really ready for a steamy night, as I’m sure Josh was. And we didn’t disappoint each other.
    The pattern repeated pretty much the same for the next two weeks. Then that third week “together” I spent one of the weeknights in his room where we had sex over and over until around 4:00 in the morning. I was dead on my feet the next day and it took every bit of willpower and about two gallons of coffee to get me through that day’s lectures and group exercises, but that night Josh stayed in my room and we had an encore presentation of the previous night.
    But when the weekend came, and I expected that Josh and I would do something together at least one of the days we didn’t have any classes, he surprised me over lunch on Friday by saying that two of his Dartmouth fraternity brothers were going to be up in Fort Lauderdale and he was going to hang out with them for the weekend. At first, I didn’t really care, given that we had just had two nights in a row of the best sex yet. But as the weekend went on, and I didn’t even hear from him by text, I began to get increasingly pissed.
    I was in my room studying Sunday night around 7:30 when he finally texted me:
    Back now want 2 come up?
    I was fuming. I