Team brief and later

At 2.00pm we all go down to the meeting room on the first floor. Junior gets a mention in Team brief for his promotion, for which he gets a cheer. He looks a bit embarrassed.
There are two sets of stairs at either end of the building. After the meeting most of the team went up the stairs at the canteen end. I go up the other set with Eric and a couple of stragglers. On the way up he asks about Neil.. I tell him that he came in Monday drunk and got sent home and advised to take the day as a holiday. Since then we haven’t heard a word from him. Except for Tuesday when his mom phoned to ask if he’d got into work yet. I explained that I wasn’t sure if his mom was covering for him, saying that he left for work, when all the time he was probably sitting there in front of her. As we get to the office we are just finishing off our conversation when Alan gets to where we are.
“What are you talking about?” he asks.
I don’t want to tell him we’ve been gossiping about Neil, so I tell him-
“Team brief. Eric was just asking about some of the statistics.” (I am out of breath because I’ve been talking as I’ve been walking up.
Alan -“Out of breath, just coming up the stairs?”
“Maybe.”
“I came up the stairs too, I’m not out of breath.”
“They’re steeper on that side.”