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She was going to need to chug one of the two coffees she had gotten herself stat if she wanted to last till lunch. She could nap then. At least, she hoped so. If she was gone for too long, Lou got big science-y ideas, and that was never good for anyone. Their budget had barely recovered from the last time Lou had gone on a science bender. But Grace still thought she could squeeze in one little lunch time catnap while she forced Lou to eat a burger.
“Morning, Muñoz.”
Grace straightened up so fast she nearly clotheslined herself with the ID lanyard she was still holding down at the kiosk. “Anton, hey, I mean, h-hi,” she stammered out. Of all the voices she’d anticipated being on the other end of the call, Anton’s had not been one of them. She blushed hot. Her earlier drunk thoughts about how he might be asking her out and how she was definitely crushing on the man coming to mind.
Did he know? Was that why he was calling?
Her heart started to pound as she thought that one over. How the hell would he know she was horny for him? There was no way he knew, right? She hadn’t drunk dialed him, had she? She panicked and juggled her phone for a second trying to see the outbound calls.
“Grace, what’s going on over there?” Anton’s voice was faint. She didn’t have him on speaker because that would require too much dexterity, and she was barely holding it together as it was.
“Nothing, nothing,” she said, even though she knew he probably couldn’t hear her that well. She let out a sigh of relief when she saw there were, in fact, no early morning drunk calls she’d made and had forgotten about.
Praise Odin.
“Heyyyy,buddy,”Grace chirped when she got the phone back to her ear.
“Buddy? Since when am I just your buddy?” Anton asked, and Grace’s stomach dropped again. Was she reading too much into it, or did this man have a flirty little edge to his voice? Holy shit was he flirting with her? “We both know I’m more than that.” Nope, she was not imagining it.
She heard it.
There wasflirtin his voice.
Crap. Had she texted him? Was that it? A drunk sext was not out of the realm of possibility when it came to her and too many cocktails. The last thing she had remembered was thinking about Anton and their maybe not really date, and how she had the hots for him and then…nothing.
“Uhhh…” Grace said, because her brain could think of nothing else. It was shorting out from the flirtatiousness she heard from Anton. She jerked her phone away again, sloshing hot coffee over the edge of the tray, burning her hand, and yelped.
“Hells fucking bells!” She winced when the only other person waiting for the elevators jumped and stared at her like the lunatic she was.
“Sorry,” she offered them and then looked back at her phone, tapping as best she could with one hand to get to her sent messages.
“Grace, are you okay?” Anton’s voice warbled up to her from her phone, but she didn’t even try answering him. She was focused. There was nothing in her sent text messages to Anton other than a Pac Man gif she’d sent him when he told her had secured funding last week. Okay, that was good.
What other ways could she get ahold of him? She hadn’t called, she hadn’t texted but that left…
Email.
Fuck. If she had emailed him something spicy she’d never forgive herself. Two taps later and she was in their email thread, which had nothing new in it. The last message stared up at her though. The one where he asked her to dinner.
Her belly tightened and flip-flopped. Had he asked her out? Was that where this flirtiness was coming from? Was it wholly unprovoked by her and all him? She blinked at that.
She hadn’t consideredthat.
She swallowed hard and stared at the phone in her hand. The elevator dinged and she stepped right into it, not even checking if it was going to her floor. She sagged against the wall and raised the phone to her ear.
“H-hey, sorry about that,” she said.
“What the hell is going on over there? Are you being mugged?” Anton asked.
Grace laughed and shook her head, even though he couldn’t see it. “No, just, ah, you know how mornings are sometimes.”
“I do. Kind of surprised you’re up right now,” he said, and she heard him sigh. The tinkling of ice sounded and then a swallow. Her eyebrows shot up. He was drinking, wasn’t he?
“What time is it there anyways?” he asked.
Grace opened her mouth and then shut it, because there was no denying the deep sigh and the sudden velvety smoothness of Anton’s voice. That telltale sound of a glass being shifted in his hand told her he was most definitely having a drink.
“It’s just past seven,” she told him. The elevator door dinged and the other person scuttled out without a backwards look. No doubt grateful they could get away from her and her chaotic coffee juggling and swearing on an otherwise peaceful morning.
