[I kind of just had fun with this one - I'm still getting my writing muscles back into shape, and there are a few tropes I wanted to include. The present tense was just to challenge myself to write a bit differently, I hope it pans out. Enjoy!]
***
Here I stand, holding my tray so tight my knuckles turn white, looking for a free table across the cafeteria. Listen to me - despite being an adult, I work in an office with a freaking cafeteria, like high school. And, like high school, it's full of cliques.
There's the nerds in data analysis, always stuck deep in spreadsheets and numbers. There's the jocks from finance, all sizzle and no steak. There's the mean girls from reception, whose entire job is to be pretty and nice, meaning they're really secretly mean and internally ugly.
And there's me, the loner, the weirdo nobody really pays attention to.
The math club - I mean, the strategy team - is sitting at the longest table, only taking up about half the seats, so I make my way there, hoping to use the smallest possible corner of table to eat my meal in 5 minutes flat, so I can retreat back safely to my office.
My foot catches on something and I stumble to the ground, my tray flying out of my hands and my plate crashing to the ground in a clatter of cutlery. The ambient buzz of conversations dies down as all eyes in the room search for the commotion and settle on me.
"Mazel tov!" someone shouts out, followed by laughter, cheering, and a slow clap from a few people in the room.
I feel my chest flush as I scramble to collect as much of the food and fallen items back onto my tray, when I spot some prick from finance grinning down evilly at me. Not bothering to hide, his foot is still stuck out into the aisle, and his buddies are all busy laughing and high fiving each other.
"Real mature," I mutter as I finish gathering my stuff and stand back up.
I even spot Ryan at the table, offering rounds of high fives. Ryan's such an asshole. He started working here around the same time as me - in fact, our interviews were on the same day. We'd actually kind of hit it off while we waited to be called in the room. Turns out we grew up in the same neighbourhoods, just never at the same time.
If I'm honest, I did have these thoughts - fantasies, really, there's no other word for it - about what might have happened if our paths had crossed earlier. There was just this instant chemistry when we met. I don't believe in love at first sight, or in soulmates, but if I did... damn, Ryan might have been it.
But then he started working in finance and... I don't know, there's just a vibe in that team. They've got all this lingo, FASB and EBIT and CAPEX and whatever, they think they're hot shit and that we'd all collapse if they stopped doing their job. And honestly, we probably would, which is fucking annoying.
In his first week, we still got coffee once or twice, bonding over our shared experience as newbies to the company. By the end of his first month he barely nodded when he saw me in the hallway. And I guess, now, he's as good as tripping me in the cafeteria. So much for soulmates.
I glance down at my tray - there's not much palatable food left at this point, so I stick the apple in my satchel, and go tip the rest into the bin.
I make my way to the bank of lifts, stabbing the button for my floor repeatedly. Then some more.
"Fuck this," I mumble. The office is only 18 floors up, I can walk that.
***
"Could you stop that?" I ask Max. "It's like working in a beaver dam," I grumble.
Max looks over and sighs, putting the pencil he'd been rolling between his teeth down on the desk.
"Well excuse me," he sarcastically rolls his eyes at me. "Why don't you blast some musicals in your totally ineffectual headphones some more? Listen to
Wicked
much, lately?"
I scoff and throw my hands up in the air. "That's better than having your stupid sports commentary on in the background!" I walk around to the front of my desk and pretend-kick an imaginary ball. "Oh, he kicked a ball... oh someone else kicked it now..."
"Whoop-de-fucking-doo!" I scream at Max, who stands up and slams his hands down on his desk to glare at me.
"You're the worst person to share an office with," he said between gritted teeth, leaning forwards into his rant. "With your annoying music, and the way you move your hips to the beat when you don't think I'm looking, and -"
"Yeah, well you're even worse," I interrupt him, taking a step closer to his desk, "with your stupid little post-it notes all around your computer -" I glance down at one stuck to the top of his monitor, which just says 'pick up mum's gift on 14th', which is actually kind of sweet but that's not the point, "--and, and, and you smell of sandalwood!" I finish.
We stand there panting, glaring at each other. He really does smell nice, now that I think about it - I'm close enough that his scent fills my nose, and I can see his chest puffing out with each breath. Damn, Max is kind of jacked.
"I...", I stammer. "I'm going to get coffee," I say before rushing out of the room. I slam the door behind me and rest my head back against it. I feel... weird. I can't stop thinking about Max's chest, the muscles I could see rippling under his shirt as he tensed up. The way his pupils dilated as he stared me down.
The way my stomach did a weird little flip when I inhaled his scent, the way I wanted to bury my nose in his neck to get more of it - wait, what? What? What the fuck?!
Max infuriates the hell out of me, sharing an office with him has been one of the most frustrating situations in my life, he's so stubborn and annoying and - oh my fucking god, I'm into Max.
I shake my head to clear the visions I've started imagining of his naked chest, of him sweeping off the damn clutter from his desk that he never freaking tidies so he could throw me down on it and - nope, not happening.
"Nope, nope, nope," I mumble as I make my way down to the kitchen.
Half a cup of coffee later, I'm feeling somewhat more settled. I decide to stop by the printer on my way back, to pick up a bunch of documents I'd queued up earlier in the day.
I'm nearly back at my office when I realise I'm missing the cover sheet for my printout. I turn on my heel to head back to the printer, and for the second time today, end up sprawled across the floor.
"Dammit," I exclaim as the remainder of my coffee splashes across my white blouse. I look up and see Ryan standing over me, frozen with his hand out as if he'd tried to... catch me?
"Of course it's you," I say, pushing myself up onto my knees to gather my scattered pages. "Did you need an encore after earlier?"
To my surprise, Ryan kneels down and helps me pick up my stuff. "This one was an accident," he says, "I'm sorry."
I reach for the last piece of paper, but Ryan reaches for it too and his hand covers mine just as I go to grab it. It's warm, with a rough texture - rougher than I'd expect for someone working a cushy office job like finance - and we both freeze in place.
"Um," Ryan clears his throat, breaking the spell, and I glance back at him as he pulls his hand back. He's actually blushing - I didn't think he was capable of enough self-reflection for that. "Yeah, sorry," he repeats. "I was distracted, and I just didn't expect you to turn around so suddenly."
"What were you distracted by?" I ask as I stack all my collected pages together in a semblance of a neat order, and stand back up.
"Um," Ryan says again, his blush somehow intensifying. "Nothing, just lost in thought," he says, running his hand through his hair. I have no idea what's up with him today, he's acting really strange. Where's all his finance bravado gone?
