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She's fucked.
What on Earth had she been thinking?
Well, obviously there hadn't been any thinking involved, because she had been completely and utterly drunk when she sent Katrin this insanely embarrassing picture of herself.
And that text message, God.
How is she gonna live that one down? Ever?
//
Katrin wishes her very first reaction to this picture hadn't been a shiver.
Her follow-up reaction is to put the phone away, shake herself out of this dangerous line of thoughts and wonder if maybe she had just imagined the text. And the picture. (Which wouldn't exactly make things better, right, her imagination coming up with something like this. But. You know.)
Anni is... impossible. How dare she? Katrin is her boss, for God's sake, and while Anni hadn't exactly been taking this hierarchy thing to heart as much as she should have (and while Katrin had mainly let her get away with this for whatever reason) this is clearly taking things too far.
//
"You did WHAT?"
Anni has her head in her hands and mumbles something. Sunny thinks it might be a mix of "Shut up", "Fuck" and "I know!".
"Anni?"
Finally Anni looks up again and she shoves her plate away from herself, not feeling like eating anything (ever. again.). Coffee must do, she thinks, and pours herself a second cup.
"I was drunk," she says.
Sunny raises an eyebrow, "We've all sent drunk texts, but this is--," and she reaches for Anni's phone again to look at the picture, "Jesus, Anni."
"I know, alright?" Anni groans, "I fucking know."
"I mean," and Sunny smirks, "It's not a bad picture. Considering you were drunk and half-asleep. I'll give you that."
"It's not funny."
"Cheer up, honey", Sunny says, "Katrin will get over it."
No, she won't Anni thinks and she tells Sunny that.
"Maybe she hasn't even seen it yet?"
//
Okay. Keep calm.
Katrin is in the conference room, her office is empty, her smartphone is lying on her desk.
Anni turns around - everyone seems to be busy working, no one is paying attention to her. Sunny is in the conference room with Gerner and Katrin and she promised her to give her some sort of sign (What kind? They should've probably specified this.) as soon as Katrin is on her way back to her office.
Anni gets up, enters Katrin's office and quietly closes the door behind herself. She lets out a sigh of relief - first step done. She makes her way over to the desk and reaches for Katrin's phone, hesitating at first because in a way this is not right, but she's doing this for the both of them. To spare them the awkwardness.
There's no code. Something Anni has been questioning before but shrugged off after Katrin had told her several times that it's "too time-consuming to unlock my phone every time I need to make a call". Oh well. Right now this carelessness is coming in handy.
Anni taps on "Messages" and scrolls through a few business related ones. Just when she thinks that maybe her text hadn't been sent in the first place she spots it and it's clear that it had been read.
Fuck.
She clicks on it anyway and there it is - the text ("Just so you know what you're missing out on...") and the selfie - her with her shirt pulled up, showing off her cleavage. And Katrin had read it, had seen it already. God, she needs to die right. now.
"... Sunny, not now! I need to call--"
And before Anni can react the office door is being pulled open and then Katrin is standing in the doorway, looking at her with a mix of surprise, anger and - God, Anni hopes she's wrong about that one - hurt on her face.
"And what exactly are you doing here?"
//
"Katrin, listen, I--"
"What are you doing here?" Katrin repeats, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
Anni looks away and swallows. What is she supposed to say now? Any excuse would only make things worse. Katrin already knows what she's doing here, she's a clever woman.
"I was gonna delete that text. Save us both the embarrassment," she says.
"So you decided to steal my phone, rummage through it--"
"It doesn't even have a code," Anni shrugs. And cringes.
"Anni!"
Anni sighs and finally looks up again. Katrin must've closed the door and stepped further into the room, because now it's just them, no eavesdroppers in sight, and for the first time Anni finds it a bit suffocating to be alone with Katrin.
"Katrin, I'm sorry," she says, "This message, I... it didn't mean anything, okay? I was so drunk, I--," she sighs, "God, I was completely shit-faced, I didn't know what I was doing."
Katrin just watches her and says nothing. The silence stretches and Anni can't seem to deal with it so she keeps on rambling.
"I wanted to delete it. Before you could see it, obviously," she snorts, "But of course Katrin Flemming checks her messages first thing in the morning."
"So it's my fault now," Katrin replies, coldly, and then she walks past Anni, turns her back towards her and begins to look through some papers lying on her desk.
"Of course not!" Anni says, "God, Katrin, would you look at me please?"
//
Katrin eventually turns around and says: "This isn't working, Anni."
She almost wants to take it back when she sees the look on Anni's face. Knowing but mainly sad.
But it's the right thing to do. Anni's behavior was unprofessional and it was wrong.
And Katrin can't seem to look at her anymore without thinking of this picture and the drunken text and everything it implied.
This cannot go on. She must end this insanity now.
"So you're firing me?"
Katrin runs a nervous hand through her hair and looks away. "It's better that way."
"Because of one drunken text?"
"Anni..."
"What?" Anni asks, "We've been-- this was going well. Us. Working together, I mean. I thought--"
"Come on, Anni," Katrin interrupts her, "We've never been the perfect match," she laughs and it's a hollow one, because - damn - she's lying through her teeth now, "You never fit into this business and we--"
Anni shakes her head and lets out a bitter laugh. "You know what? I don't even want to fucking hear it, Katrin."
Anni looks like she's fighting tears now and Katrin can feel her heart breaking a little at the sight. She wants to take it all back, wants to pull Anni close and--
And this is exactly why this was the right decision.
"You can leave your keys with Sunny," Katrin says, "And please close the door on your way out."
//