Page 9 of The Attraction File

I hoped.

She nodded. I nodded. Then there was nothing left but awkwardness.

And silence. I forgot to mention the silence.

I should say something.

Anything. I could mention how tight her ass looked.

Evaleen began to squint at me. I wondered if she read my mind about her ass?

Her head tilted. She must have read my mind.

“I better be going. That’s all I came in here for. And I hadn’t noticed you bending over when I first came in here. I mean, I wanted to drop off this note,” I held up the blue sticky note now crinkled in my fingers, “but you seemed busy bending over. Not that you need to be bent over to be busy. Just, I thought I should give you some privacy. Because, uh . . .”

This was not going well. Evaleen was frowning, maybe even sneering at me. The slow tingle of desperation clawed up my chest as I realized how badly I needed to clean this up.

“Privacy for your lady business.”

I couldn’t look at her. My eyes snapped to the floor as I shuffled backward. First, I slammed into her office door. Searing pain shot up my back from the brass door knob but I wouldn’t let it show. I ground my teeth while fumbling to open the door.

Once I was clear and made it outside the HR department, I let out a huge breath.

I ran to the elevator and tapped the down arrow button wildly, many times. Each time with greater force while mumbling, “Come on,” under my breath.

The doors finally opened. The interaction with Evaleen kept replaying in my head as I was safely shuttled down to the lobby. With each passing floor, my heart sunk lower and lower.

Smooth Edgar, real smooth. She’ll never want to have sex with me now.

I made it out to the sidewalk with the brisk wind biting at my skin. Looking back into the lobby, I realized in all the chaos I dropped my coat on the floor when I fell in the HR department and left it there.

I didn’t even have to contemplate going back in to grab it. If I died of frostbite tonight on my way home it would be better than possibly running into Evaleen.

I hoped I’d never run into Evaleen Bechmann again.

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