“I understand. You said you were meeting people on level five?”
“Supposed to, yeah.”
“And I’m assuming they haven’t given you a keycard yet?”
I shook my head. “They said I would get a chance to take the picture for my ID today.”
He went to his computer and started typing. He asked for my name and date of birth, and luckily, I had already been entered into the system, so he was able to buzz me through the little security turnstile that separated me from the elevator. Once I was on the other side, he told me where to go. “Head up to floor five,” he said. “There’s a nice break-room up there where you can get some coffee and wait until the HR people arrive. When I see Jane, I’ll let her know you’re waiting for her.”
“Jane! Yes, that’s who I’m meeting.”
“I figured,” he said. “I’ll send her your way.”
“Thank you…” I smiled and looked at his name tag. “Morris. You’ve been very helpful.”
He smiled back. “That’s my job.”
I headed for the elevators and took one of them up to level five. When the doors opened, I was glad to see there was a little plaque with directions on it telling me which way the break-room was. This building was a lot larger than I had been expecting, but then again, I really should’ve seen this coming. I also read that Becker Technologies had grown exponentially in size over the last ten years.
The break-room was empty and since I’d already had two cups of coffee that morning, I switched to tea. I didn’t want to be a jittery mess on my first day at work. The tea selection was quite expansive, and I took my time looking at all the different colorful boxes before deciding on one that described its flavor as a combination of ‘cinnamon and starlight’.
Whatever the hell that means.
Fiddling around with the kettle, I heard the sound of footsteps shuffling down the hallway. I was both excited and nervous to meet my first new coworker, and I tried to come up with a clever opening line. I listened intently so that I would know when they were in the doorway to the break room, then I laughed and said, “Please tell me you know how to work this thing?”
Okay, so, it wasn’t mycleverestmoment, but still, I thought it was an effective way to clear the air.
I had yet to turn around when the man answered. “Don’t look at me,” he said. “I only drink coffee, so unless you need help with the espresso machine…”
That voice.
I spun around on a dime and looked the man right in the eye. I could tell he recognized me the moment he saw my face, but I waited for him to acknowledge this fact out loud.
“Oh my God,” he said. “Lily?”
He remembered my name?
Huh. He remembered my name.
It was at that moment I realized I never actually caught his name, despite the fact we spent the whole night together, and I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him—about the way he made me feel—in the months since.
“You’re—” I stammered. “Youwork here?”
He laughed. “Yeah, you could say that.”
The man was dressed in a nice, understated suit, and he looked like all he’d done that morning was run a comb through his bedhead. Still, he lookedgood. Like, really good. I couldn’t help but stare, and it took me a few seconds to realize that’s what I was doing and to pull myself together. “This is wild,” I said, abandoning the kettle and sitting down in the nearest chair. “I never thought I would see you again and now it turns out we both work for the same company.”
He smiled and walked over to the espresso machine. “That is wild. Is today your first day?”
I nodded. “Yup. I’m the newest hire, part of your legal team.”
“You’re a lawyer?” He went about making a cup of coffee.
“Does that surprise you?”
He shrugged. “Yes and no,” he said. “It wouldn’t have been my first guess as to what you did, but also, I’m not one to judge people based on a single, drunken night of fun.”
I wasn’t sure whether or not to laugh at that. I was feeling so deeply uncomfortable at that moment, not only because this was the only man I had ever had a one-night stand with, but also because being in the same room with him was bringing back memories of that night. Memories of bare skin, of roaming hands, of amazing orgasms…