Page 17 of The Boardroom: Jonathan
I quickly chewed the food in my mouth so I could answer. “Um…yeah.”
Samantha put her head in her hands. “Jesus,” she laughed. “Okay, I have never hated you as much as I do right now.”
I shrugged. “You said anything except anchovies.”
“I said nothing weird! That’s beyond weird! That’s an abomination!”
I chuckled. “I cannot believe you’re anti-Hawaiian pizza.”
“I’ll pick the pineapples off, it’s fine,” Samantha joked. I watched as she deposited the little yellow triangles into a napkin. “Now let’s get back to work, okay?”
I smiled and cracked my laptop back open, starting on my second slice as I worked. The pizza and our brief conversation had ruined the comfortable silence we had maintained for a while, and now it was broken once again. Opportunities to speak hung tantalizingly in the air around us. I hated how conscious I was of Samantha’s presence as I worked. I could barely focus, and she wasn’t even doing anything remotely interesting. I noticed the way she crossed and re-crossed her legs, the starts and stops of her typing, the way she would stroke the side of her neck when she paused to think. I noticed myself pulling at my hair again. Just one afternoon and the report would be in, and I could sit down in front of my wide-screen and relax.
When two o’clock hit, I excused myself to get my afternoon coffee and went out to the break room, where Kirk tended to get his coffee at around the same time. Sure enough, he was standing in the corner of the room browsing the selection of Keurig cups.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey,” Kirk replied. “You check the latest report? It’s up to twelve inches now.”
“Jesus,” I said, ripping open a sugar packet. “I totally forgot about the blizzard.”
Kirk grinned. “Who wouldn’t, being stuck in a room with Samantha Doyle all day?”
“Shut up,” I said, punching his arm playfully. “Anyway, I was going to ask, can you look over the report really quick before we send it in? I’d like a fresh pair of eyes to read over it first. I’m already feeling pretty braindead.”
“No problem,” Kirk said. “Have a good rest of the day with your girlfriend.” He winked and I rolled my eyes, and shocked myself a little bit when I noticed I was smiling.
The afternoon drudged on. I felt an even greater sense of panic when I realized I would have to figure out how to deal with everyone’s work for the next week if we ended up having to close the office due to the snow. There was still an incredible amount of work to do before we had to leave the office, and we were honestly pushing it a bit. The tension de-escalated a little bit as I acclimated to it, and I stopped being so paranoid about Samantha noticing me when I looked over.
“Okay,” Samantha said, looking up at the wall clock. “Now we’ve got about four hours of work to do in two. I don’t know how exactly we’re going to manage this.”
I shrugged. “Maybe if you had gotten all those good vitamins and nutrients from those pineapples you picked off you’d have more energy,” I joked.
Samantha met my eyes and laughed. “Maybe you’re right.”
The next two hours were a blur of furiously typing numbers into spreadsheets and Samantha mumbling under her breath as she read over her sentences. We were both in a state of hyper-focused energy, the kind of academic fight or flight you get during a final examination. When I emailed the last file to Samantha, I exhaled and threw my fist in the air.
“Yes!” I said, high-fiving Samantha. “Finally.” I took a deep breath and tried to shake myself out of work mode and relax now that the period of panic had passed over. “You write that last bit, I’m going to call Kirk in to look over everything.”
“You got it,” Samantha said, and I was relieved to see that she looked happy.
I brought Kirk in, and tried not to notice the grin on his face as he walked in…once again, he was far too giddy about the awkward situation I had been placed in than he was about checking over our report.
“Lemme see,” Kirk said. “Give me your laptop.”
I handed it over and drummed my fingers on the arm of my chair impatiently. I amused myself by thinking about all the television I would have the opportunity to catch up on when I got home. And the food. So many options…Game of Thronesand curry?Black Mirrorand an ice cream sundae? What the hell, I deserved it. Oh, and also, I could—
“Um, guys…” Kirk said nervously.
“Yeah?” Samantha and I said simultaneously.
“Er…” Kirk grimaced awkwardly. “Johnathan, you might want to check what spreadsheet of data you were making those graphs from.”
I grabbed the laptop. “The what?” I could already feel myself panicking as I opened the document on the screen.
“No!” I yelled, slamming my hand on the table. “Are you kidding me? We’ve been working on this all day! Shit!”
Samantha looked at Kirk. “I’m sorry, what happened?”
