She woke up late for work and everything seemed to be going wrong. She’d stubbed her toe on her way to make coffee, forgot her keys inside when she left, and managed to knock over her coffee mug in the haste of grabbing her keys. Which meant she had to stop for coffee, making her even later to work, but she needed it to function properly.
When she got to the coffee shop, the inside was packed! She thought that maybe she would try asking people if she could cut in front of them. She explained to the woman in front of her everything that happened to her this morning. The young woman was more than willing to help her out because it was something she often had been through herself.
“Thank you so much!” She almost wanted to give the sweet woman a hug. She only had two more people to ask. The next person was like the first, willing to step aside and let her go ahead of him.
She got to the man who was second in line and explained but he didn’t even look up from his phone. “Sorry, I can’t do that. You’re not the only one who’s got a job to get to.”
--
She ended up being twenty minutes late to work, but at least they got her coffee right.
“Hey Jenna,” she heard her boss, Kat calling her name. “Hey so I noticed you weren’t here for this morning’s meeting. No worries, I know how hard you work. I just wanted to introduce you to the newest member of your design team. This is Evan.”
It was the man who wouldn’t let her cut him in line at the coffee shop. How did he get here before I did? She tried to wipe the scowl off of her face and be polite. “Nice to meet you, Evan.”
“And you as well, Jenna. I am very much looking forward to working with you.” He didn’t remember her. Ugh! I can’t believe I have to work with him!
“Alright, well I’ll let you bring Evan up to speed on the team’s current project, Jenna. Just remember it’s due at the end of the week.”
“Got it.” She led Evan into the conference room and explained to him the piece they were doing for the art section of the magazine. As she explained, she couldn’t help but notice how intense his eyes were. They were lit up with excitement and she noticed they were a deep sea green that were suddenly staring right at her.
“You okay?” He was looking at her with almost a smirk on his face. “Huh?”
“You stopped in the middle of your sentence.” That was definitely a smirk.
“Oh, sorry. I must have gotten distracted.” Was she really drawn to the guy who was so rude to her earlier? He was pretty attractive and those eyes...wait, no. She grabbed hold of those thoughts before they ran off down a rabbit hole she didn’t want to go.
“Oh yeah? What distracted you? Staring into my eyes?” He said with a teasing in his tone and a hypnotizing smile on his face. It was hard not to fall for it.
“No, it was uh...there was a bug flying in my face.” She stuttered not so subtly.
“Uh-huh, okay if that’s what you want to go with. You really have a passion for what you’re doing, you know. It comes out in the way you describe things. It’s kinda mesmerizing actually.” He continued to stare into her eyes with a smile on his face that was absolutely enchanting.
“Wait, are you seriously flirting with me right now? After how rude you were this morning?” She couldn’t not say anything now.
“You were the lady asking to cut in front of me?”
“Yes! And you were so rude! Why would I want to flirt with someone who was so rude to me?”
“I’m sorry, I was having an off day. Can I make it up to you over dinner?”
Was he serious? “You’re seriously asking me out? Just because I look pretty?” She couldn’t believe it.
“No, it can be a work dinner. I’m really sorry about this morning. And it’s not just your looks, I mean you’re absolutely stunning.” He stared at her a short minute. “Your eyes are a delicious chocolate brown and your hair is an overwhelming blend of red and brown.” She started to blush and look away. Was he seriously gushing over her right now? This was like something out of a fairytale. “You weren’t the only one staring.” He said with a smirk. “But it was the way you lit up talking about what you like. I’d like to get to know you better. But if you’d rather that start as colleagues, we can do that too.”
“You certainly are a sweet talker, aren't you?”
He laughed. “I’m a writer, what can I say. When I look at things I find inspiring, words like that kinda just fill my head. But you changed the subject...was that a yes to dinner?”
She thought about it. “I will say yes to a work dinner and we can go from there.”
“Perfect. That’s all I need.”
Dinner was almost like a dream, a really good dream. She couldn’t believe that there were men out there who still talked like this. But she also knew her fair share of sweet talkers and was always weary about them. She would flirt, but she wasn’t going to let it go too far. She had been hurt before and wasn’t eager to repeat it.
When dessert rolled around, he said, “Tonight has been really good.” She started to protest, but he held up both hands. “I know, I know, just a work dinner. But it was still a good work dinner to get to know a fellow colleague.” There was that smirk again.
“You do that an awful lot, you know.”
“Do what?” His look said he knew exactly what she was talking about.
“You smirk after almost everything you say like your flirting is this great gift to women everywhere.”
“I would never say that. Just a gift to the women who have the privilege of seeing it.” She could not believe his smug attitude.
“Which I’m sure is just about every woman you meet. Look, thanks for dinner. I’ll see you tomorrow at work.” She grabbed her purse and left the restaurant. She had already had her fair share of guys who were all about sweet-talking and not actually following through with anything. She didn’t need it from yet another guy.
---
She was not looking forward to seeing him at work today. He was a flirt, there was no other way to put it. He was a huge flirt. His smirk being a gift to women who had the privilege of seeing it. She couldn’t stand that. She walked into the office and sure enough, there he was flirting with the women by the pastry counter. She would not go there again.
She started getting to work on the project they were supposed to be doing together. She did her research on the art piece they were doing, Primavera by Sandro Botticelli; resurrecting old pieces to a new audience who may have forgotten the works of some of the greats. She was hoping that this piece would be one of many that might land her a new promotion; she had only been there 3 years without one.
Half the day went by and he still hadn’t been over to work on things with her. Was he really just going to leave all the work up to her? She decided to just go ahead and finish it for herself and he could look at it later.
She went to his desk when she had it finished. “Here. It’s finished. Take a look and then put your name on it.”
He looked up at her. “What’s this?”
“The rest of the project we were supposed to be working on together. You weren’t doing anything about it so I went ahead and finished it myself.”
“Why? We still have two more days to finish it.” She wanted to tell him that he was being a big flirt and wouldn’t work with him because of it, but that would be discriminatory and she was above that.
“I like to get things done before their deadline. Maybe that’s something you would have learned last night, if you hadn’t been trying to flirt with me the whole time.”
“Well maybe if you hadn’t left so abruptly, I would have gotten there.” She was not expecting an argument, but if he wanted one, she would definitely oblige.
“You were being obnoxious! If I had stayed any longer, I would have barfed into my purse.” There was something about him that was just so aggravating, it brought out the worst in her.
He handed her paper back to her. “I will not put my name to something I didn’t help make. If you are so insistent we get it done before the deadline, then we can get to work early tomorrow and do it together.”
She crossed her arms. All that work she did today for nothing. “Fine.”
---
They worked together the next morning on the project and had it done before the end of the day. They were able to turn it in early like she wanted to. They got very high praise from everyone in the office, especially their boss Kat. Jenna was very pleased with herself and working with Evan hadn’t been completely terrible. They decided to go out for drinks this time to celebrate a job well done.
“You know, for how bossy you are, I gotta say, it wasn’t bad working with you. Once we got on the same page.”
She laughed. “It wasn’t bad working with you either. I don’t know how I did it though, you’re impossible.”
“Wait, I’m impossible? Says the woman who did a group project that was supposed to take a week to do by herself in two days.”
“I’m an overachiever, what can you do.” She looked up and away from him batting her eyelashes in a joking manner.
He stared at her. “Be in awe.”
Oh no, she was not going to fall for that again. “Oh stop it. That stuff doesn’t work on me. If you want my attention for something other than business, try something original. I’ve had more than a handful of guys try the sweet talk and use the eyes and all of the playboy tricks. I’m over it. Be a man and impress a lady with more than your looks.”
“Dang. You don’t have a lot of faith in men, do you?”
She shook her head. “Nope. They’re liars or cheaters and the ones that aren’t, don’t exist.”
He sobered and put his hand on her knee. “I’m sorry that you’ve been hurt. Those men didn’t deserve you, and you certainly don’t deserve them.”
She was kinda shocked by how serious he got. “They didn’t. It was their loss.” He had no idea how long it had taken her to gain that kind of confidence after the things she had been through.
He looked into her eyes. “It sure was.” She couldn’t tell if it was the amount of alcohol in her system or if what she was feeling could be real, but the way he looked into her eyes -- as if she was the only woman there -- made her start to really like him.
She leaned into him a little bit expecting his lips to touch hers, instead his hands stopped her shoulders. “I want to kiss you, but not like this. I’d like for you to remember it and for it not to happen because you’ve been drinking. I’m not gonna take advantage of you like that, you deserve better.” He grabbed her purse and called a cab, then told the cab to take her home. She was definitely not expecting that. Most men would have totally taken advantage of her. Maybe the decent men existed after all.
---
They worked together the next week and the next with more and more ease finding a rhythm in how the other operated. She grew quite fond of him and he stopped all the excess flirting with her and stopped flirting with other women entirely. It felt good that all his romantic attention was being directed toward her. It made it that much sweeter when he asked her out for dinner again.
“This is not a work dinner. I want to be very clear on that. This is a date, or it will be a date if you say yes.”
She smiled. “Yes, I would love to go to dinner with you.” He did a small fist pump that he was hoping she wouldn’t see but she did.
The restaurant they went to was elegant; it was a very cliche, first date -- where the guy tries to impress the girl -- kind of restaurant. But she didn’t mind, a guy could only come up with so many original things. Their waiter came up, a petite redhead, and began to take their order.
“Hi, welcome to Fabios, what can I -- Evan?” He looked up and a pain she had never seen from him before covered his face. “What are you doing here? You said you were going to try to make more money to buy me a ring. If you’re eating here, I know you could buy that ring now.” Who was she and what was she talking about?
“Evan? What is she talking about it?” Was he really stringing her along while promising to marry someone else?!
“No, Jenna it’s not what you think. Evelyn, we broke up. I told you I’m not doing this anymore.”
Evelyn looked furious and Jenna couldn’t blame her. “What do you mean ‘we broke up’? You never told me that! The last thing you said was that you’d buy me a ring.” She couldn’t believe it, she fell for his tricks, just like everyone else. She got up and left, humiliated.
He tried calling her when she got home, but she didn’t answer. He tried again before she fell asleep, when she woke up in the morning, and even still on her way to work, leaving a message to call him back every time. But every time she ignored it. She felt completely humiliated. And to have it done to her in a public place was so much worse. She didn’t want to go into work and face him, but she wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.
She went into work trying to look her best. He would definitely feel the pain of losing what could have been. Kat, her boss, called everyone together to announce a new promotion. Clark. Aaron Clark got the promotion that was supposed to be hers. It was a slap in the face. She went to Kat to see what she did wrong.
“Jenna, you did nothing wrong. Aaron got that promotion because I want to make you chief editor of the art column. You and Evan have done such beautiful work together that I think you belong there.”
She cringed at the mention of his name, but tried her best not to let it show. “Thank you Kat, I don’t know what to say.”
“Of course, you’re my best writer. You have something that came for you in the conference room by the way.” She thanked her and headed over.
She walked in but saw Evan. Really? He was conspiring with her boss now? “Please don’t leave. I really would like you to hear me out.”
She huffed and crossed her arms. “Fine. You get five minutes.”
“I did have a relationship with Evelyn and I did say I wanted to get her a ring. But then I found out that she had been cheating on me with one of my best friends. So I told her I was done. I packed up and moved here looking for a job. All the flirting was because I was trying to get over it, not the best coping method, I know.” She lowered her arms and relaxed a little. “It wasn’t until we started working together on that project a couple weeks back that I stopped thinking about her. All I could think about was you and how much I wanted to get to know you. Then we started working together so well and I got to know you and...fall in love with you.” She looked at him, shocked. What? He loved her? Is that why it had felt like such a betrayal last night? Because she loved him too?
He walked closer to her. “I am in love with you, Jenna. Your crazy, bossy, beautiful, adorable self. I never knew I would feel it again. And it’s stronger than I’ve ever felt.” He took her into his arms and kissed her. His hands cupped her face and held her there, afraid she might move. Then she rested her hands on his chest and she felt his heart beat faster. He moved one hand into her hair and the other around her waist bringing her closer, deepening their kiss.
As they kissed, she let down her walls and his love came flooding through. It was in that moment that she realized she loved him too.