Page 12 of Written By a Woman

“Oh, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Zaid replied, opening a cupboard to grab a mug, and brewing a fresh cup of coffee. I glanced at the clock on the wall above me, it was six forty-five.

What kind of monster brewed coffee at six forty-five in the evening? Did he not need sleep?

“No worries!” My voice was higher and squeaked a little bit, but I tried to hide it by relaxing my shoulders and casually drumming my fingertips on the table. Except the drumming didn’t sound casual. I immediately stopped, but then pressed my lips together as Zaid leaned against the countertop to pull his phone out and scroll while he waited for his beverage.

I decided to turn in my seat to face him so that I could lift my phone and see who all had bailed on the muted, black livestream so far. This angle kept the screen facing me, and not him.

I was weirdly getting more viewers, so after mouthing a quicksorry one secto those loyal homies, I decided to try to wait it out. I did, however, mouth the wordswhat do I do?Which resulted in a lot of laughing and crying emojis.

“Are you still on the call now?” Zaid asked, making my heart thump against my chest with nerves. I widened my eyes at the stream and lowered my phone so they had a nice view of my nostrils, before I looked at him, remembering to relax my facial features. His lips were in a line, and his dark eyes darted between me and my phone behind his glasses.

“Oh! Um. No.”

Zaid blinked at me, “It just looked like you were talking to someone still.” The man had the audacity to lean a little to the side to get a better view of my phone. I quickly laid it face down in my lap.

“I am, but they, um, left the room to go get something.” It was a blatant lie, and based on the slow blink Zaid gave me after my words, I had a feeling he knew I was lying.

“I see,” he definitely thought I was lying, but didn’t seem to care enough to push the issue. Silent moments passed. Excruciatingly silent moments, and finally he reached for his coffee that had finished brewing and turned to face me again.

I held my breath when Zaid said, “We need more filters.”

“I know,” I replied.

He took a step towards the door but hesitated after my words. God, Zaid was so handsome. Even as he hesitated a step towards the break room door, he moved gracefully. Heat burned through my veins simply from being alone in a break room with him.

Zaid furrowed his dark brows for half a second before smoothing them and continuing towards the door, “Just a friendly reminder, employees are forbidden from filming personal content on company property.” Zaid stopped a step or two away from said door, and at his words, I felt my lips part in horror.

“Oh—oh god—I’m not—I mean, I am—but I didn’t know—”

“I’m not reporting you or anything, just a friendly reminder.”

He had one large hand on the doorknob, clearly intending to walk through it, but hesitating for whatever reason.

“Thank you, I’ll wrap it up.” I gave him a wide, apologetic smile. Hoping we could just blow past this situation, but he just studied me in that thoughtful way of his.

Ohmygodgothefuckaway, I wanted to scream.

Zaid’s lips twitched again, one of his large hands coming up to mess with his hair as he shook his head and finally, finally let himself out of the breakroom. Shutting the door behind him.

I sat frozen in my chair, watching the door and listening for his footsteps to thump away from the break room before I released a very loud and very obnoxious breath as I set up my phone again, getting ready to professionally end the stream for what little followers stuck around—all for thatnothingthey just experienced.

“Oh my god that was so embarrassing,” I slammed my elbows on the table and covered my face with my hands, before remembering to unmute the livestream. I had reached forward to do just that before I took a closer look at the mute button.

Which wasn’t a mute button, but instead was just a button to add a filter. My face currently had digitized freckles on it.

That, and my stream had almost fifteen hundred viewers now.

Emojis, hearts, fire, and sweating faces werefloodingthe screen.

What the hell?

I smiled and used my index finger to start scrolling through all the comments that I had missed while Zaid was in the room, “Okay, where was I again?” I felt my eyes widen in horror as I read the comments people had left.

OH MY GOD WHO IS THAT

Did I really just see Zayne casually walk into the room?

Zayne?? That you, bro??

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