303 Going Easy on Me


    I gasped as I covered my mouth with my hand when I saw Ace’s short message that told me to wait for him where I was because he was going toe over and see me. Instinctively, I turned around and started scanning the crowd of people walking by as if I expected to see Ace among them. He had just sent the message, so it didn’t make sense for him to be here already. Although I knew that very well, I couldln’t stop myself from looking around in search for him as my heart began racing faster in my chest.


    The moment of excitement quickly past and was reced by a slight sense of dread when I thought of how unfruitful my attempt was ining here. Ace would probably ask me questions and I didn’t want to tell him just how useless my attempt had been. My mind quickly raced to think of something to tell him that wouldn’t sound too unimpressive. Some passerby gave me curious looks as they walked past me while I shifted nervously from one foot to another. Time seemed to tick by at a slower pace as I stood there waiting for Ace to make his appearance.


    It didn’t take long until I spotted Ace approaching me. He was either close to this ce or he walked from the office at a much faster pace than I did earlier. Ace lifted a hand up and waved in my direction. I lifted my hand and waved back to him hesitantly as I tried to put on my best smile. He would probably ask me what I was doing here, and I didn’t have anything impressive to tell him apart from my little failure of a mission. That dreadful thought didn’t stop my heart from skipping a beat in excitement at seeing Ace.


    “What are you doing out here?” he asked when he came to stand right in front of me.


    I knew it. I knew that he would ask me something like this right away.


    “This is the closest spot where ourmercial is on disy…” I replied before pursing my lips together.


    Ace’s eyes nced over at therge screen behind me before shifting back to rest on my face. He had a slightly thoughtful look on his face that made me feel like he was about to ask me more questions.


    “So, why did you decide toe here?” he asked while sounding very casual.


    A few people walked past us as I tried to find the right words and hide the sense of dread at how unproductive I had been. I wondered if Ace had already figured out the next move for the team while I was just standing here.


    .....


    “I thought that I might learn something from talking to the people who saw ourmercial here…” I replied in a small voice.


    Ace turned to look at the people that walked by without paying any attention to therge screen where ourmercial was ying before his eyes refocused on my face again. My throat felt dry, and I knew that he was going to ask me even more pressing questions.


    “Did you find out anything useful?” he asked.


    “No, I didn’t. People here don’t seem to pay much attention to themercial and since I’ve been standing here, I haven’t seen a single person stop to actually watch themercial. Because of that, I haven’t had the chance to ask anyone any questions…” I admitted sadly.


    “Well, that’s too bad but it isn’t really your fault. No need to sound so down. When Julianna wanted to ce ourmercial here, I had already expected that things would turn out this way. She still wanted to give it a try, though…” Ace replied before he smiled a little my way.


    I knew that he was probably saying that in part to make me feel a little better. It surprised me how kind Ace had gotten and I didn’t quite mind that he was going easy on me from time to time. Hopefully, he appreciated the fact that I tried even if my efforts didn’t quite yield any useful results.


    “It’s a little sad that I didn’t manage to learn anything, though. What about you? I bet your walk was more productive than mine…” I inquired with genuine interest.


    “I would say so. I just stopped by the war room to talk to Julianna before joining you here,” he replied like it was nothing.


    “Did youe up with any ideas?” I pressed further.


    “I gathered some files for Julianna that might help her for reference. She’s going through them now with her team so we can rx a little and expect great things,” Ace said before shing me a confident smile.


    “Were there many past projects that needed to draw in donations just like this one?” I asked in wonder.


    Apart from the yearly Ashfordpetition where the amount of donations was part of the winning criteria, I haven’t heard of manymercial projects that had this as a requirement. I wondered if there were other cases that may be useful aside from the what thepany worked on for the Ashfordpetition in the previous years.


    “Not many but there are definitely a few that we did well on. Julianna was luckily involved in one of those projectsst year. Of course, because of how profit-oriented ourpany is we don’t get to deal with this type of project all that often,” he replied while sounding quite regretful.


    “I guess it’s a little more fun when you’re not trying to hard sell anything in yourmercial, right?” I asked to see what Ace thought.


    After working with him for a while, I still wasn’t quite sure what Ace preferred when it came to work. He was just so capable of anything that it seemed like he could make any project work out. On top of that, he had been working on all projects as demanded by thepany’s key clients regardless of their nature. Surely, there has been a good mix of projects; however, most of them are aimed at pushing sales of products or services.


    –To be continued…