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“Um…” I’ve never been one to ply people with favors or treats. It’s always seemed disingenuous to me. However, that’s my father’s oldest trick. Send flowers, a fruit basket, a bottle ofchampagne, anything to get what you need. Me? I’m just…being nice.
Never thought I’d be that guy, yet here I am.
“Just because? Is that enough of a reason?” I say with a raised eyebrow.
Meghna narrows her eyes. “Likely story.”
“…Solace back in today.”
I whip around faster than I’d like to at the utterance of Kira’s last name. Two members of the department are chatting quietly in a cubicle. “Sorry, did you say something about…Kira Solace?”
The mousey-looking man nods. “Yeah, she’s back in from her vacation today.”
My heart starts to beat at an absurd rate. “Oh, that’s good to know.”Greatto know. I pour a cup of coffee, trying to ignore my shaking hand and then grab a bagel. “Well, enjoy. I’m going to go check on – yeah.”
“See, I told you, they always want something,” Meghna says with a laugh.
I rush out of the office and toward the elevator. My feet are moving without my permission. My brain has lost control and my heart is in charge.
The past few weeks have been plagued with me trying to push Kira from my mind. She clouds the corners of everything I do. I’ve tried to forget, tried to move on. But I just can’t.
I don’t know what I’m going to say when I get down there. I only know I need to see her. I need to see how it feels to be in a room with her again.IfI can even be in a room with her again without totally losing my mind.
I press the button for the basement and the high-speed elevator drops down the shaft, dinging open after only a few seconds. I could have used a longer time to meditate on this question, but here I am. The IT floor.
Again, without my brain considering the downsides of what I’m about to do, I navigate directly to Kira’s office where she’s barely just settled into her desk chair before I waltz in. “Kira!”
“Ah!” she shouts.
“Sorry!”
Kira shakes her head, resetting. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Well. Here I am.”
We stare at each other.
“Brought you coffee,” I say and place it at the edge of her desk. “And a bagel.”
Kira eyes both items carefully. “Oh. Thank you. I didn’t know this was part of the ‘welcome back’ package.”
I laugh. Too hard. “That’s funny.”
Kira doesn’t even crack a smile. “How can I help you, Orlie?”
Any hope I had of perhaps amending things back to the way they were is quickly dashed. Now I have to focus on maintaining. Where do we go from here when we know some of the most intimate parts of each other? And yet are committed to being strangers. “I heard you were back. So, welcome back.”
“Thank you.”
“How was the rest of your vacation?”
She shifts uncomfortably in her chair. “Good.”
“Good?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
