Page 22 of Written By a Woman

He didn’t smile, he didn’t smirk, but his dark eyes looked slightly amused, and I forced myself to keep eye contact as a way to prove to myself that I could be normal around him.

“What’s up?” I asked, internally high-fiving myself at how cool and casual I sounded. As if this was just any other workday. As if he was just any other member of management. As if I didn’t once picture him licking my neck—I mean my protagonist, Sydney’s, neck—multiple times for the sake of authentic writing.

Zaid lifted one of his forearms off the ledge, holding a card in his hands, “Could you run out and grab some more coffee filters? We’re out, and it’s still morning.” …Oh, maybe he doesn’t know. At his words, I glanced at the clock to see that it was barely after ten a.m. and that most people were still nursing their first coffees at this point. Then I remembered that he had refilled his coffee after six p.m. yesterday and wondered if it was just him who had used the last of the filters before the delivery of the new stock arrived today.

“We should be getting the case of new ones within an hour or two,” I lifted a shoulder, “Is there any chance you could wait for it to arrive? I need to finish this for Brandon first, and I probably won’t do that before the delivery comes anyway.”

Zaid’s lips turned down the slightest bit, his dark brow furrowing as if he wasn’t expecting that answer. He lowered his hand with the card and released a sigh.

“I guess.”

I scoffed. It was with a closed mouth and mostly through my nostrils. The noise made his eyes lift to meet mine again, and I felt inclined to tease him, just a little bit, “Do you think you’ll make it?”

“Make it?” Zaid asked, his brow smoothing a little at my words.

“Without caffeine for an hour? Maybe two?” I explained. I had teased Zaid like this in the past. I teased everyone in the office like this. He had engaged with my riffs as little as he needed to, and usually turned away to make conversation with someone else or wait for me to finish before politely excusing himself.

Zaid’s lips twitched a little, “It might be a close call.”

“There are other beverages at your disposal here, in case you’re curious about branching out,” I adjusted myself in my seat, and I noticed how his eyes glanced down towards my waist as I did. It wasn’t an inappropriate glance. It was just a reaction from movement taking place in front of him, but for some reason I found myself crossing my legs over each other as if he was undressing me with his eyes.

Simply because he was attractive, and my body responded accordingly.

His gaze quickly met mine again, unaware of the effect he had on me.

“Are there? I had no idea,” He shook his head once, his expression serious and slightly confused as he confirmed his words, but my heart skipped a beat. I expected him to say something like, “I know” and then politely excuse himself and walk away. But he wasn’t. He was playing along.

Oh my god, Zaid Ansara is playing along.

“Well, believe it,” I nodded solemnly, “There’s this thing called water.” He wrinkled his nose at that, disgusted, and I snorted half a second before my hand came up to smother the sound, “I can’t tell if that was you playing along or if that was your genuine reaction to water.” I spoke through giggles behind my hand.

Zaid’s lips twitched, and a hint of a smile ghosted his features as he observed my giggling, “It’s just so…bland.”

“What are you, seven?”

“How does that make me seven?”

I was grinning, so shocked and delighted because this was the longest conversation that I had ever had with Zaid that wasn’t work-related, “You can’t appreciate water for the hydration it provides?”

“I don’t think that the fact that I like flavor outside of the taste of pipes and fluoride makes me seven.” Zaid raised an eyebrow, and my heart fluttered. It wasn’t flirtatious, but it was flirtatious. There was no way that Zaid was suddenly flirting with me at work, but my romance-loving brain and my body’s reaction to his playfulness didn’t care. My nervous system reacted as if he was eyeballing my chest.

He wasn’t, unfortunately.

“I would argue that most children go through a phase where they only drink juice or milk because of the flavor, before they grow out of it and accept that drinking water is delicious too.” I lifted an eyebrow back at him.

At this, his head tilted at me the slightest bit, “Do you have children?”

I blinked. Heat filled my chest and neck at his abrupt personal question, but I didn’t let myself expose my surprise before I answered, “No, but I’ve been around a child or two.”

“Nieces and nephews?” Zaid asked, his facial expression looked as if we hadn’t been joking about his dislike of water before. Now we were onto a completely new subject matter.

“Um. Kind of? I have friends who have a cute little kiddo.” I wouldn’t say who because I didn’t know if Zaid was into hockey. I wanted to lean towards no, but I didn’t want to share who my friends were too openly just in case he was.

Zaid nodded once, blinking, and looked down the hallway as if he realized that this was a personal conversation in the workplace. Something he never engaged with. Well, that probably wasn’t true. He was good friends with Nikhil, and they probably talked about not-work things all the time. But this was the first time he and I had ever asked questions about each other regarding anything outside of the company.

I could feel him retreating, and I didn’t want him to.

“Do you?” I asked, resting my elbows on my desk, and settling in.

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