left, then right into the cafeteria. There’s a table immediately on our right, which we grab.
We don’t talk much at first. She eats her ham sandwich, and I poke at my chicken salad. My courage is fast fleeing, and all my emotions are a tangled knot in my chest.
“So how are you liking it so far here?” she asks me, politely ignoring my awkwardness. “You’ve been here…what, around eight months now?”
“Six,” I correct her.
“Hm. Seems like it’s been longer.” She laughs. “Time does something weird in this building, I’ve noticed.”
“I have too.” I give a wry smile, trying to push aside the deeper meaning behind those words. Thoughts of Dane’s tongue plunging into my mouth make me flush slightly, but I desperately refocus on the person in front of me.
“You’re still in school, right?” she asks. “How are you liking your classes? When do you graduate?”
Lauren’s gentle questions start to open me up, and I find myself talking about my degree, about what I want to do once I graduate. I even manage to ask her about her own background and what led her here. Turns out she served a semester-long internship here in undergrad, and when she got her Master’s, she knew she wanted to come back here and work for real. Hearing that she started even lower than I did makes me feel a little better about my own position.
Soon, we’re both laughing about mess-ups we made when we first started at the company. I relay how I accidentally made a hundred copies of a document for a meeting when I only meant to make ten, and Carl was standing there while they all printed out, sighing and rolling his eyes the whole time.
Lauren snorts and takes a sip of her Coke. “Okay, that’s funny. I remember I was supposed to take notes and type up a report on what I learned from a meeting. Somehow I managed to paste a dating article I’d been secretly reading on my computer, into the document that was supposed to have my meeting minutes. I didn’t notice it in my haste to send it on time. Dane emailed it back almost immediately and suggested I ‘proofread’ it, and then I discovered what I’d done. I felt so mortified.”
“God, I bet.” Not as mortifying as having him see your private fantasies about him, but still pretty awkward.
She glances at the time on her phone and sighs. “I’d better get back to work. We have that meeting at three today, so I need to get my stuff done before it’s The Carl Show.” She rolls her eyes, and I can’t help the laugh that barks out of me. “Oh, pardon me. You totally didn’t just see that.”
“Not at all,” I say, crossing my heart with a smirk. Good to know I’m not the only one who disdains the man.
She stands and rolls her neck. “Can’t wait to hear his thoughts on how he’s going to woo some of these big companies. I’m sure it’ll be engaging.” With a salute, she adds, “I’ll see you in there!” then takes off toward the garbage cans to dump her trash.
I linger for another minute, letting myself relish the glow of what just happened. I reached out to her, and we really connected. Why did I wait so long to do so? Lauren is super nice and warm, and I feel stupid for hesitating because of shyness.
But within seconds of her leaving, my mind slips right back into thinking about Dane, how his lips felt as he nibbled my mouth, drank from me. I bite back a groan and press my bare thighs tighter together, fighting the arousal threatening to reignite beneath my skirt.
God, that stupid kiss.
Given that he didn’t say one word to me when he left to go on appointments right afterward, it’s apparent I need to let it go. Maybe he just wanted to get it out of his system because he’d found himself inadvertently turned on after reading my confession. I suppose if I’d stumbled across someone’s dirty thoughts about me, I’d be a bit inclined to find that person attractive, even momentarily.
Could it be that he was just getting it out of his
We don’t talk much at first. She eats her ham sandwich, and I poke at my chicken salad. My courage is fast fleeing, and all my emotions are a tangled knot in my chest.
“So how are you liking it so far here?” she asks me, politely ignoring my awkwardness. “You’ve been here…what, around eight months now?”
“Six,” I correct her.
“Hm. Seems like it’s been longer.” She laughs. “Time does something weird in this building, I’ve noticed.”
“I have too.” I give a wry smile, trying to push aside the deeper meaning behind those words. Thoughts of Dane’s tongue plunging into my mouth make me flush slightly, but I desperately refocus on the person in front of me.
“You’re still in school, right?” she asks. “How are you liking your classes? When do you graduate?”
Lauren’s gentle questions start to open me up, and I find myself talking about my degree, about what I want to do once I graduate. I even manage to ask her about her own background and what led her here. Turns out she served a semester-long internship here in undergrad, and when she got her Master’s, she knew she wanted to come back here and work for real. Hearing that she started even lower than I did makes me feel a little better about my own position.
Soon, we’re both laughing about mess-ups we made when we first started at the company. I relay how I accidentally made a hundred copies of a document for a meeting when I only meant to make ten, and Carl was standing there while they all printed out, sighing and rolling his eyes the whole time.
Lauren snorts and takes a sip of her Coke. “Okay, that’s funny. I remember I was supposed to take notes and type up a report on what I learned from a meeting. Somehow I managed to paste a dating article I’d been secretly reading on my computer, into the document that was supposed to have my meeting minutes. I didn’t notice it in my haste to send it on time. Dane emailed it back almost immediately and suggested I ‘proofread’ it, and then I discovered what I’d done. I felt so mortified.”
“God, I bet.” Not as mortifying as having him see your private fantasies about him, but still pretty awkward.
She glances at the time on her phone and sighs. “I’d better get back to work. We have that meeting at three today, so I need to get my stuff done before it’s The Carl Show.” She rolls her eyes, and I can’t help the laugh that barks out of me. “Oh, pardon me. You totally didn’t just see that.”
“Not at all,” I say, crossing my heart with a smirk. Good to know I’m not the only one who disdains the man.
She stands and rolls her neck. “Can’t wait to hear his thoughts on how he’s going to woo some of these big companies. I’m sure it’ll be engaging.” With a salute, she adds, “I’ll see you in there!” then takes off toward the garbage cans to dump her trash.
I linger for another minute, letting myself relish the glow of what just happened. I reached out to her, and we really connected. Why did I wait so long to do so? Lauren is super nice and warm, and I feel stupid for hesitating because of shyness.
But within seconds of her leaving, my mind slips right back into thinking about Dane, how his lips felt as he nibbled my mouth, drank from me. I bite back a groan and press my bare thighs tighter together, fighting the arousal threatening to reignite beneath my skirt.
God, that stupid kiss.
Given that he didn’t say one word to me when he left to go on appointments right afterward, it’s apparent I need to let it go. Maybe he just wanted to get it out of his system because he’d found himself inadvertently turned on after reading my confession. I suppose if I’d stumbled across someone’s dirty thoughts about me, I’d be a bit inclined to find that person attractive, even momentarily.
Could it be that he was just getting it out of his
Similar Books
