by Amy DeMeritt
Alex suddenly looks over while I’m looking at her legs. “How’s it going?” She has a small smile on her face. Being caught staring at her legs makes me blush. “Not good. I can’t find any wires to connect to.”
“Do you need me to move?” I shake my head. “Not yet. I’m just trying to think which panel they may be under so I don’t have to tear your entire office apart.”
I pull up a few more panels around her desk and still haven’t found the wires by the time Alex is standing to head to her meeting.
“I have to go to my meeting now. Do you know where the main conference room is?”
I stand up and brush some dust off my black jeans. Why did I wear black jeans today? I tell her how to get to the conference room, and just before she walks out of the door, she turns back to look at me, but she doesn’t say anything.
“Do you want me to show you how to get there?” She smiles and shakes her head. “No. I uh, just wanted to say thanks. Maybe I’ll see you later.” I nod. “You’re welcome. And there’s a good chance I’ll still be here when you’re done, if I can’t find those wires soon. Good luck in your meeting.”
When she leaves, and I’m staring at the now empty doorway, a thought occurs to me. There’s an office on the other side of the wall by her door, perhaps that’s where the wires end. I start popping panels in the floor and finally find them under the corner panel, about fifteen feet away from where I need them to be. Thankfully, I brought enough wire with me. With the wires being all the way over here, I’ll basically need to take apart her entire office. I start popping up panels all the way to her desk. Almost the entire floor is now open. I decide to place a chair in her doorway in case she or anyone else comes walking in so they don’t fall through the floor. Not that they would actually fall any great distance; there’s another floor six inches below the raised floor, but they could twist an ankle pretty badly if they fall through an open panel.
The wires are hot so I have to put on some electricians polyurethane coated gloves to uncap the wires so I can splice in the new wires without being electrocuted. Just to be positive, I check the wires to make sure they’re actually hot and not just some dead wires left behind after the reconstruction. The wires are good so I get to work. I think the gloves are more of a hindrance than a help since I have such small hands and these things are huge. It’s hard to manipulate the wires, twist them together, and cap them with a wire nut with these stupid gloves on. I send more than five blue caps flying, as I lose my grip from the floppy gloves, before I have my wires spliced and capped.
When Alex gets back from her meeting, I’m under her desk carefully feeding the wires up through the back panel of her desk wall. I hear her exhale impatiently and say, “Really? She just left my office torn apart?” I roll my eyes and shake my head. “Nope, still in here.” A long silence. I wish I could see her face right now, but if I let go of these wires, they’ll drop and I’ll have to spend another five minutes carefully feeding them up through the panels of her desk. I finally get them to the top and hook them through a thin bar so I can go topside and work on feeding them into the wire housing box to connect to her outlets.
When I stand up, Alex is sitting on the other side of her desk with her arms crossed looking at the floor. I notice her cheeks are a little red, probably from embarrassment from her reaction when she first walked into her office.
“I’m almost finished and then I can put your office back together and I’ll be out of your hair. I probably just need about ten more minutes.”
“Ok, thanks.”
While I’m working, I feel like I’m being watched. I glance at Alex and she quickly looks away. I almost laugh. She seems very high strung, like the stress of her first day is just too high.
“How was your meeting?” She slowly looks back at me and her face seems to struggle to maintain composure, but the look of near defeat is unmistakable. “That good, huh?”
“Just not exactly how I had envisioned it to go I guess.”
“Well, first days always suck. Actually, the first week typically sucks.” Alex groans and shakes her head. “I think it’s going to be longer than a week before I have a good day here.” I furrow my brow and regard her a moment, not sure how to respond. “Why do you say that?”
I have her outlets wired and quickly check them with the voltage tester. Awesome, we have power. I replace the top of the back of her desk and walk over to the far side of her office to start putting her floor back together.
“Let’s just say, my predecessor left me with a mess and my team didn’t exactly seem very warm to me.”
I’m kneeling down replacing the panel next to her and hesitate a moment and look up at her. “Ah, well, I can understand that actually.” She looks at me with narrowed eyes. “Why do you say that?” I smile and lean back on my heels. “Well, your department is made up of middle age and older ‘company lifers’ that are set in their ways and hate change.”
“And why would that make them unwelcoming to me?” I laugh as I lean forward to snap the floor panel in place. “Well, first of all, you are ‘new’, so you are a major change they will have to get used to.” I stand up and move to the other side of her desk. Before I kneel down to replace the panels on that side of the desk, I finish, “Second of all, if you haven’t noticed, you are young and attractive, and hold a management position. People like them tend to resent someone like you.” I kneel down and start popping the rest of the panels back into her floor and replace the back panels on her desk.
When I stand up, Alex is still sitting there with her arms crossed, but while she looks at the floor, she has a smile on her face instead of a scowl. I smile to myself as I turn to grab her monitors so I can put her desktop back together.
After getting everything hooked up, I turn her computer on. When the login screen loads, I look over at Alex, who is watching me with a small smile. I smile back and nod towards her computer. “You’re all set. Can you log in for me so I can make sure the technician set your computer up properly?”
She walks around her desk and I go to scoot back to give her room, but she just leans across me and starts typing. Oh, she smells fantastic. I smell sandalwood, lavender, vanilla, and maybe a hint of coconut. After she hits enter, she stands back slightly, but remains close as her desktop loads.
I quickly check to make sure her email loads and her access to the drives on the server works. Well, at least Todd set up her computer properly.
“Ok, looks like everything is working. Just let me know if you have any other issues.”
I stand up and Alex smiles warmly. Damn, her eyes are amazing. I noticed them before, but standing this close to her I can see more clearly how beautiful they are. I have a hard time not staring into them. They are such a light seafoam green that they look like glacier ice. They are just so light and clear.
“Thank you for spending so much of your time to do this. Sorry for taking my mood out on you a couple times.” I smile and shake my head. “Don’t mention it. I hope your day gets better. See you around.”
When I get back to my desk, my head is pounding even worse than this morning. I really wish I knew what happened last night and why my head is pounding so badly. I really feel like I had been knocked out in the ring. I pull my phone out and send Callie a text.
Me: I would like to take you up on the offer to hunting Tina down to find out what happened last night. My head is pounding and I can’t take not knowing. I feel like the bitch blindsided me with a dirty right hook or something.
Callie: I’m on it. I called her gym, but she’s not supposed to be in to train today. Don’t worry, I’m going to find that bitch.
Me: Thanks. I need to get back to work. See you later.
I lean my head back and close my eyes, trying to remember something, anything. I know damn well I didn’t drink last night. I’m not that stupid and I would be in the hospital if I had. I’m deathly allergic to alcohol, which I learned the hard way when I was sixteen. I tried beer at a friend
’s house party, and ended up leaving in an ambulance. A few days later, after nearly dying on the way to the hospital, I was finally released with strict orders from the doctors never to drink even a sip of any kind of alcohol because I could die.
My twenty first birthday was such a let-down. All of my friends still wanted to take me to a bar even though I couldn’t consume with them; it was not fun at all. It seems funny when you watch a movie, but when you’re actually in a building full of people that have been drinking way too much, and you’re the only sober one, it’s not as funny. Their IQ just seemed to drop by at least a hundred points and they were just so damn annoying. After that night, I vowed never to be the designated driver again.
I quickly re-open the ticket for Alex’s desk and update the notes with the actions taken. Once I’m finished, I forward it to Regina as requested. I have a feeling this might actually be the final straw for her; Todd might be out the door before he even gets back from vacation.
Before I dive into the dozen or so tickets waiting for me, I decide to make some hot tea with honey and lemon and take a few ibuprofen gel capsules to try and get this migraine under control. This is going to be a long hard day if I can’t get this migraine to settle down some. I may not be able to train with Callie tonight if the pain doesn’t subside.
I pop into HR to grab the ibuprofen from the first aid cabinet and nearly collide with Steph, our benefits director, as she’s coming out of her office. “Oh, sorry, Jordan. I was just on my way down to accounting. Are you here about the ticket I placed?”
“Uh, actually, I haven’t seen your ticket yet. I just needed some ibuprofen for a killer migraine I have. What’s the ticket for and I’ll try to take a look while I’m here?”
“Ok, great, thanks.” I follow her into her office and she logs in and shows me the issue she’s having. “Do you mind if I run to accounting while you’re working on this? I need to deliver some papers to the new accounting manager.”
“Nope, go for it. This shouldn’t take me very long at all. I’ll lock your computer if I finish before you get back.”
“Perfect. Thanks so much.”
This is the down side of being a support technician. Yes, it’s fun fixing things and it’s a nice change of pace, but you can’t be seen at all or you’ll get pulled over to someone’s desk for one issue or another.
I’m just finishing with debugging the program Steph was using, when I hear her voice and that beautiful velvety voice of Alex’s approaching the office. They both enter a moment later. I glance up and Alex looks slightly taken back by seeing me, but then smiles. Steph comes up next to me, reaching for a file. “Pardon my reach, Jordan.” I realize again that I’m just looking in Alex’s gorgeous eyes and quickly look back to what I’m doing. I do a test run of the function Steph was trying to perform and it works as it should so I stand up. Steph is looking through her file blocking my way out from behind her desk.
“Steph, you should be good to go now. Just ping me if you still have issues.” She looks up and nods. “Oh, that was fast! Thanks so much.” She looks back to her file, but hasn’t moved out of the way. I smile and glance at Alex, who notices I’m trapped and is smiling and trying not to laugh. “Uh, Steph?” She looks up and I motion that I’m trying to get passed her and she laughs and smacks her head. “Oh gosh. I’m sorry, Jordan. I’m a mess today. Let me get out of your way.”
I quickly exit her office and retrieve the packets of ibuprofen I came in here for fifteen minutes ago. When I get back to my desk, I swallow back the pills with the delicious hot tea that I was able to make without being grabbed again. I close out Steph’s ticket and then move on to the next.
As much as I had been looking forward to today, I’m so glad when its five o’clock and I can finally leave. I feel completely exhausted and my migraine is not any better. I really should just head straight home, take a hot bath, and then go to bed, but I get in my car and make my way to the gym to meet Callie.
When I walk into the gym, Callie is already there warming up on a speed bag. I walk over to say, “hi”, before going to the locker room to change. When she spots me, she stops the bag and takes swig from her water bottle.
“Pixie, you look like shit. How was work?”
“Ugh, long and exhausting.” I tell her about my day and she grins when I tell her about Alex. “What is with you and eyes? That’s how you got yourself in trouble with Tina. Just because the bitch has gorgeous eyes doesn’t mean you should have dated her. So, besides having ‘mermaid princess’ eyes, how else does she look? Is she as short as you?”
“Shut up, and no. She’s probably five inches taller than me. She has these perfect long legs that go on forever and arms that she could probably extend above her head and tickle the rain from the clouds with. But when she talks, oh my god. I don’t even need to see her face or body. Her voice is like velvet on the eardrums.” Callie laughs hard. “Damn, you got it bad for her, don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t say that, but there is something about her that is oddly comforting.”
“Ok, between this morning and this sudden poetic outburst from you, I need to toughen your ass up. Go get changed.” I roll my eyes and punch her shoulder. “Whatever, jerk.” Callie smiles and goes back to juggling the speed bag with a fast volley of punches.
Logically speaking, Callie and I shouldn’t have been able to become as good of friends as we are, if at all, given how we met. We met over five years ago in the ring and have been best friends ever since. We were in a tournament together and our match would determine which of us progressed to the finals. We both were fighting hard, putting everything into the fight. It was a nasty fight. We both had busted lips, black eyes, and were hurting badly. In the third round, we sent each other to the hospital. At the same time, I slammed my fist into her left rib cage breaking two ribs, and she slammed her right hook into my left temple knocking me out. The match was called in Callie’s favor since I was knocked unconscious. After I was cleared to walk around the hospital, I found her and congratulated her on winning the match and she congratulated me on being able to get a good enough hit on her to break her ribs. Since then, I’ve grown closer to her than I’ve ever been to anyone before. It’s odd that after beating the shit out of each other, we’re able to have this kind of friendship. Callie and I tell each other everything and would do anything for each other. Callie tends to have a bit of an abrasive and sarcastic sense of humor and loves to tease me, but I know she loves me enough that she would take a bullet for me or go to jail for me.
After getting warmed up, we enter the ring. We bump gloves together and start bouncing on the balls of our feet, dancing around each other and looking for an opening. Callie takes boxing much more seriously than I do. She wants to be able to go pro, but I mostly just do it to relieve stress. My parents enrolled me in boxing when I was twelve so I could learn how to protect myself from school bullies. Being tiny made me an easy target and I came home one too many times with bruises and cuts. My parents told me I had to pick between boxing and karate. I picked boxing because I hated that Karate Kid movie – that boy got on my nerves.
Our gloves start pounding against each other, left hook, right hook, left and right upper cuts, blocks, dodges, and fakes to the head followed by landing a hard punch to the gut. We release a flurry of punches on each other. Just as Callie is delivering a series of quick jabs and hooks, I get a sharp stabbing pain in my head and I’m not able to react in time to block her punch. I take it right to the jaw. I fall to my knees cradling my head. My head hurts worse than my jaw.
“Jesus, Pixie. I didn’t hit you that hard.” Callie kneels down in front of me and looks at my face. “It’s just a small cut on the lip.” I shake my head. “It’s not your punch. My head is still pounding from whatever happened last night. I haven’t been able to get rid of this migraine all day. I felt like someone was sticking a knife in my skull just before you threw your punch.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me your head is
hurting so badly still? You know damn well you shouldn’t be training with a migraine, at least not head shots, especially you. Come on, let’s get out of here.” Ever since Callie knocked me out cold in the ring over five years ago, I get pretty bad migraines quite often and I’m not supposed to train when I have one. That’s another reason I could never go pro if I wanted to. My head was so shaken up from her powerful right hook that I’m much more susceptible to concussions and comas now.
Chapter Two
“Jordan! Wake up, Jordan!”
“No, please, stop! Help!”
“Jordan, damn it, calm down. You’re just fine.”
My eyes fly open and Callie is above me pinning my shoulders down looking very concerned. I start crying hysterically. She sits down on the bed next to me and pulls me over onto her chest. “Jesus, Pixie. What’s going on with you?”
“Callie, what happened? Was it just a dream?”
“What did you see?”
I sit up and feel my head. Oh, thank God. “Callie, it was horrible. Tina, or maybe a doctor, I don’t know, it’s just so blurry, but someone was trying to cut my skull open with one of those small circular saws. I was strapped down to a bed with all these bright white lights everywhere. It felt so real.”
“Shh…you’re ok. Nothing bad happened; it was just a dream. Damn good thing I stayed with you last night. I won’t be surprised if the cops show up at the door soon. Girl, you were screaming bloody murder. I ran in here thinking someone was actually torturing you. It was the most horrible sound I’ve ever heard, and it was loud.”
