My tunnel vision and strange sensations had disappeared when he walked in, but now my heart pounded like a jackhammer in my chest every time his blue eyes looked my way.
“And so, I will decide on the new department director in the coming weeks,” he said, ever the professional, but this time it didn’t come off as effortless. His voice was steady, his expressioncalm, yet there was a sense of restraint in his demeanor. “We can start with the department updates now.”
He motioned to the man on his right, who began an unnecessarily long explanation of rising costs. Colin, however, seemed absorbed with every word, not once breaking his attention from the man speaking.
I know because I watched him the entire time. He was so good-looking it hurt. To think that I’d had those hands all over me. Inside me!
I started to get hot.
I moved to take off my cardigan, not wanting sweat stains to show through my clothes when it was my turn to speak.Maybe I should have Grant do the entire thing. No sooner had I pulled my arm out of the second sleeve (a tad rougher than I should have), than the cardigan whipped from my hand out to my neighbor’s open cup of coffee.
The problem wasn’t merely a small spill of coffee. It was the ensuing chaos. In my frantic reach for the cup as it was about to spill, I hit Grant’s water bottle with my hand. Unfortunately, it did not have the cap on, and the water bottle made almost a full spin across the table before it stopped and continued shedding its contents.
Of course, I hadn’t saved the coffee, and it landed all the way across the table and onto a woman from another department’s papers. Several people shot up to avoid getting wet, and a few even shrieked. After my rescue attempt with the coffee, I froze, my hand suspended in midair, as I watched the rest of the scene unfold.
I wanted to crawl under the table and die, but in under two seconds, Kaitlin was throwing paper towels all over the table. I didn’t dare glance over at Colin until Kaitlin handed some to him, and I was compelled to look.
It seemed the water had reached him. He was taking off his suit jacket, dabbing it with paper towels. Some of the others were drying themselves off. To make matters worse, I didn’t have a drop on me. Grant was still sitting, snickering next to me.
“I’m so sorry, everyone,” I said, my mortification on full display.
“I believe,” Colin said, “this means Katelynn is volunteering to go next.” He’d hung his jacket over the back of his chair and took his seat again.
I was flustered and speechless, but took a deep breath and began to speak from memory, drawing on everything I’d written in my notes. As I was wrapping up, I looked at my notes to see if I’d missed anything, which I hadn’t.
I’d avoided looking at Colin the entire time, but as I finished, I made the fatal mistake of doing exactly that. His gaze didn’t waver, his eyes bore into me, and I exploded into a thousand pieces inside. It took everything in me not to knock down every article on that table, crawl over to him, and offer him my body.
“That’s everything for now from me,” I said, reminding myself forcibly that Colin and I were over forever. “Maybe Grant has something to add.” I looked over at Grant and his usual smug smile.
“No thanks, Kate. You’ve covered everything,” he said. He patted my back when I sat down.
A few more people presented their department updates, but I didn’t absorb a thing they said. I kept replaying the water/coffee spillage, Colin taking off his suit jacket, and then our protracted stare into each other’s eyes in front of everyone in that conference room. Every time I remembered it, my face warmed up, and my stomach did somersaults.
As Colin thanked us all for attending, I gathered my notes, shot Grant a wide-eyed threatening look, and stood up as soon as the first person did. Grant followed my lead, and we wereout of the conference room in seconds. I was breathing out a sigh of relief and about to disparage Grant for laughing at my misfortune in there when Kaitlin caught up with us.
“Kate,” she started, offering me an envelope. “Mr. Slade asked me to give this to you.” There wasn’t the usual haughtiness that I’d come to expect from her.
I accepted the envelope. “Thanks. And thank you for helping so quickly with the paper towels!”
She gave me a quick smile, looked at Grant, and rolled her eyes before walking away.
“Are you two going to gang up on me now?” he asked.
“Probably,” I said. I played with the envelope in my hands as we waited for the elevator.
“Are you going to open that? The suspense is killing me. What if it’s a restraining order? Or a marriage proposal?” He pressed the elevator button again and stared at the envelope.
“You know what? You go on ahead. I’ll meet you there,” I said, walking away from him.
I stepped into the stairwell. It was empty and quiet, and the sound of the door closing behind me reverberated over the many floors beneath and above me. I sat down on the bottom step and took out the hand-written letter.
The words jumped at me (the neat handwriting was a surprise since I’d never seen it before), but the first thing I looked for was the confirmation at the bottom of the page that said his name, “Colin.”
I began reading it, my throat constricting as I read along and imagined his voice—the tone he used when we were all alone—saying the words to me.
Katelynn,
I’m writing this quickly before the meeting because I saw you logged in to your work computer. I’ve been worried about you, but Grant assured me you were well and with your mother. I’m sorry you deemed it necessary to block my calls.
