Page 3 of Glitter

Thomas chuckled. “It’s past seven on a Friday night. I had hoped that would mean you’d be packing up by now.”

I frowned while his words slowly coalesced to make a modicum of sense in my brain. It would always take a minute for my mind to recalibrate from one state of being to another. He patiently waited for me to play catch up with a soft smile on his face. He’d seen me in this state before many, many times, so this conversation, and his reaction, was nothing new. I would get so focused on designing the right three-dimensional model that the hours would slip away from me. It wasn’t unheard of for me to get suddenly startled by the cleaners when they came through at nine at night, long after everyone else on my team had left for the day without me even realizing they’d gone. “It’s seven already?”

“Technically, it’s seven-fourteen.”

“Oh.” I looked longingly back at the wire schematics on my screen. “I didn’t realize.”

“I thought that might have been the case.” He patted me on the shoulder. “What say we shut your PC down for the weekend and you come back to it on Monday? You’re already well ahead of release schedule, so I don’t see any reason for you to stay late on a Friday.”

My mouth dropped open automatically to argue with him until he smiled kindly and held up a hand to stop me before I’d even started.

“Especially when everyone else left two hours ago.”

I snapped my jaw shut, huffed a sigh, and frowned at him. Couldn’t he see I was so close to getting the design finished? Just a couple more hours now would mean that I could start the next section fresh on Monday.

“Come on, Henry. Take pity on an old man and walk me out to my car?” He smirked at me, knowing full well we were around the same age. He was also in much better physical shape than I was, so if anyone needed pitying, it would have been me.

“Fine,” I grumbled. “Let me save everything.”

“Of course,” Thomas said, happy now that he’d successfully coaxed me away from my work.

I expected him to go back to his office to do whatever management type thing he normally did during the workday while I saved my work and logged out, but nope. He settled into the chair next to mine and began playing with something on his phone, keeping half an eye on me to make sure I was doing what I said I’d do.

Seeing no other option but to comply with his frankly outrageous demands, I did what I needed to do before pushing my chair under my desk and coughing quietly to get his attention.

He looked up, absently clicking his phone off as he looked at my neat desk. “Ready to go?”

I nodded reluctantly, popping both hands into the pockets of my oversized black hoodie.

“Brilliant.” He pocketed his phone in the inside of his suit jacket and waved a hand in front of him to show he’d follow me out.

Damn him, he knew all my tricks. If he went before me, I could more easilyaccidentallylose him on the way to the elevator and double back to my PC. It might be possible I’d pulled that stunt one time too many.

I did as he requested and led the way to the elevator, half-listening to his small talk about his plans for the weekend. Something about taking his children and wife to the water park? I made what I considered thoughtful humming noises every so often to make it look like I was paying attention, but my mind was still on the work he’d pulled me away from. Thankfully, he didn’t call me out on my lack of focus.

When we got to the lobby, I paused nervously when I realized I needed to go to the bathroom. I knew if I mentioned it, he’d assume I was making an excuse to ditch him, but I actuallydidneed to go. I really didn’t want to be followed, though, and now my brain was glitching on how to bring the subject up.

“What’s up?” Thomas asked when he realized I’d stopped.

“Um,” I muttered. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

He raised an eyebrow.

Yup, there was the suspicion I was expecting from him. I shuffled a little from side to side to get the point across.

“Okay,” he said, looking around the lobby. “I’ll wait for you over there.” He pointed at one of the deserted tables at the building’s deli.

“You don’t have to wait—”

“I know I don’t have to, Henry,” he said, cutting me off like I knew he would. “I’m happy to.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Can’t have you going back upstairs now that I’ve got you this far.” His eyes narrowed further until they turned into a heavy frown before he held out his hand and made agimmemotion with his fingers. “Actually, give me your phone as insurance you’ll come back.”

Staring at the ground so he wouldn’t see me rolling my eyes at him, I made a non-committal affirmative sounding noise, reluctantly passed over my phone, and headed for the nearest bathroom without replying. I’d ditched him in the lobbyonetime, and he would never let me forget it. The sooner I got this over with, the sooner he would leave me in peace.

Keeping my eyes trained on the floor, I pushed the door open and was just about to head to the urinals when I heard someone already in the bathroom quietly singing a Kylie song. Without missing a step, I immediately changed direction for a stall instead and glanced up to see who had the voice of an angel.

That was when I stumbled.

It washim.

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