12
LINCOLN
[88 weeks ago]
@theanswerisno:
Hey, hey, hey, that’s unfair. Stop it. Stop stealing my loot. And stop teasing me, you menace
@pancakesareelite:
I like teasing you
@theanswerisno:
Careful, I can tease too
@pancakesareelite:
Your move, playa
It was weird telling Elizabeth the truth yesterday. Weird because it didn’t feel weird at all. Suppose she was one of those people, like Rose. Easy to talk to. The complete opposite of me.
And yet, since then, I’d been obsessing about her. About it. Not her.
I should probably remind her that I’d prefer my confession staybetween us, but even as the thought crossed my mind, I knew Elizabeth wouldn’t go around telling the rest of the office. She didn’t strike me as a gossip because she was the subject of too much of it. I’d heard the whisperings about her family money, dating history, and about how she didn’t need this job. Someone went as far as to say she probably did engineering as a fun little hobby.
It wasn’t my place to judge her. Hobby or not. As long as she did the work the way it needed to be done. But something told me that wasn’t the case.
Other than her clothing and jewelry, she never showed off her wealth. Her car was a few years older than mine. Perhaps it was to avoid being seen as a member and possible shareholder of the Gordon-Bettencourt enterprise.
There was more to Elizabeth than what she let on.
And for the life of me, I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
It.
It.
I couldn’t stop thinking aboutit. Her situation. Not her specifically. That would be inappropriate. She worked for me, and I was responsible for evaluating her performance.
Main quest: Stop thinking about Elizabeth. Side quest: Stop thinking about not thinking about Elizabeth.
Shaking my head, I wondered what awaited me at the office.NotElizabeth, but rather what she’d come up with for the vertical alignment. I opened the door and stopped dead in my tracks as a large, white accordion divider stood unfolded between our desks. It was covered in flowers and photos and reminded me of what I imagined a teenage girl’s bedroom would look like.
Granted, the only teenage girl’s room I’d ever been in was Claire’s.
“Good morning,” Elizabeth almost yelled, a wide grin across her pretty face as she popped up and out of her chair.
“Morning.” I eyed the large, troubling thing.
She smoothed out her gray jumpsuit. It matched her eyes perfectly.
“Hear me out.” She gestured to the elephant in the room. “This way, you can’t see me. And”—she took my wrist—“it’s plain white on your side, so absolutely no distractions.”
Her fingers were ice-cold and soft, yet forceful lava seemed to spread from the contact point throughout my body.
“This is ridiculous,” I managed, staring at the plain white, inoffensive view I’d be looking at, which was completely different from her side.
