After lunch, I drove over to Kyle’s (and Ryan’s) building. I entered the elevator from the main lobby and pressed the button for the twenty-second floor. Two other men entered the elevator with me, both displaying their blue MS badges. The elevator stopped on the sixteenth floor and several more people walked in. Just as the elevator was about to close, a hand from the right jarred it back open. My heart stopped and a small gasp escaped my lips. It was Ryan.
Of course, this was one of those elevator rides where it seemed like every single floor button had been pushed between the sixteenth and twenty-second floors. There were six other people on the elevator and, of course, they each needed to get off on a different level. He didn’t spot me immediately, because I stood in one of the far back corners, but our eyes met only momentarily before he faced forward with a stoic expression.
Most of Ryan’s back was to me, but I could tell he was keenly aware of my presence. I noticed the vein on his temple was twitching again, but I couldn’t fully see his face to read his expression. A guy who had entered the elevator with him began speaking about the meeting they had both come from. Ryan sounded guarded, but polite, and asked the gentleman to provide more details to him in an email.
I painstakingly watched the buttons light on and off on each floor, impatiently waiting as the door repeatedly opened and closed. He finally exited on the floor just before mine. After walking out of the elevator, he turned around and looked directly at me. His eyes were hard, but seemed to soften a tad bit, before he walked away. A couple of the people in the elevator followed Ryan’s gaze, wondering why Ryan was looking at me. As the door closed, I slowly let out my breath, not realizing I’d been holding it for six floors.
I was about ten minutes early, so I used the time to grab a diet soda. I walked over to the lobby area behind the kitchen and sat for a few minutes on the arm of a bright orange, contemporary chair. I looked out at the view of downtown Bellevue, sipping my soda and trying to recover from the last few minutes. Why did Ryan affect me this way? The Ryan in the elevator was all business, not the warm and charming Ryan I was accustomed to. Despite his stoic, frozen look, he still looked dashingly handsome. It was hard to believe that it was only a few days ago that he was hugging me and nuzzling into my neck, kissing me sweetly. He had seen me almost naked and tucked me into bed, yet five minutes ago, we had just pretended not to know one another in an elevator. I bit my lip, wanting to cry.
I had to pull myself together. Just one more meeting, one more hour, and I could call it an early day. As I headed to Kyle’s desk, I found him sitting in his corner cubicle overlooking the Cascade Mountains. Now why couldn’t I fall for a sweet, sexy, uncomplicated guy like Kyle?
I tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, Kyle.”
Kyle spun his chair around and rewarded me a broad smile. He stood up and gave me a hug. “Hey, Julia, how’s it going?” he said cheerfully.
“It’s going well,” I lied, faking my smile. “I’m starting to get the hang of things.”
“Good. Well, you know, you can always reach out to me if you ever need help with anything,” he said happily.
“Yeah, totally,” I replied. “This is exactly why I’m here.”
“Well, let’s grab a focus room.”
I followed him down the hall, hoping to find an empty room for our meeting. Lincoln Square, unlike most MS buildings, was set up as office cubicles. The whole idea was to create an open physical working environment that fostered collaboration and the sharing of ideas. Frankly, in a company that was meeting-crazy, I found it cubicles rather inconvenient and all this talk about collaboration was a bunch of bullshit. It was just the MS way of saving money, though no one would admit it. I was thankful I still had the privacy of my own office.
I followed Kyle around the building for what felt like forever, until we realized there weren’t any available focus rooms on the floor. We were now running ten minutes late and resorted to walking down to Ryan’s floor to look for a room. My anxiety level rose as we wandered the halls, and I looked around nervously, bracing myself for another potential Ryan run in. We finally found a room and situated our laptops on the table. I sighed loudly and opened up Lync to conference in Mia, who was already waiting.
“Sorry, Mia,” I apologized. “We couldn’t find a room.”
“No worries,” Mia replied. “So, how are you guys doing? How were both your weekends?”
We all chatted briefly before jumping into the meeting. I shared some select details of Anna’s bachelorette party and Kyle told us about camping at Lake Wenatchee with several of his buddies. Matt would’ve joined him, but opted to stay home with Mia to get ready for their trip to Puerto Vallarta. They were leaving tomorrow.