I walked back to my office, annoyed I'd have to wait the entire day to have the meeting with the BSH.
Really, I was just annoyed that I didn't get out of meeting altogether. I liked keeping a more peaceful life, and part of that strategy was avoiding them.
As I walked, I was aware of more than a few women in the office peeking over their cubicles to watch me. Once in a while, I'd meet their eyes, watching them duck back down.
The way my office mates all looked at me sometimes made me feel like a gazelle on a prairie full of lions. If I wasn't careful, they'd all take me down.
I chuckled to myself. If they tried, they'd be very surprised.
"Zayn!" Ben's overly enthusiastic voice cut through all my thoughts.
I wanted to be grumpy with him given my mood, but it was like being mad at a puppy.
"Hi, Ben," I grunted, finding myself wrapped up in a huge hug.
He put me back down, and I pulled my shirt back in place.
Ben smacked me on the back, following as I headed to my office. "I hear you nailed it with your latest project."
Reaching the door, I was thankful not to be in the bullpen with the rest of the cubicle workers. I had no issue with them. I just liked my privacy.
Closing the door with Ben inside, I rolled my eyes.
"Candice, as usual, wanted to go in a completely different direction the moment we showed it to her. But data doesn't lie. This was the right choice."
"She means well." Ben saw the best in everyone. "Don't take it too harshly."
"I have zero issues with her trying to pick it apart. But you should have seen the team's faces when she tried to flip it."
Ben winced. "They okay?"
"Don't know. They now have the rest of the day off. The team worked last weekend, and it seemed only fair." I plugged my laptop into the terminal and booted up the two-monitor setup. "Can't work them too hard."
My impromptu office companion bounced his eyebrows.
"Working late in the office? I'm sure you've noticed that Kate is lovely."
I laughed. Maybe he had horny puppy energy, but he was harmless; most of the women in the office would be eager to jump into his bed.
"No, we do actual work. I'm not coming into the office to bang some chick. That's what bars and dating apps are for."
"You don't use either of those," Ben pointed out.
I kept my dating life low profile. I was pretty sure Ben didn't know about the dates I had gone on lately. I rolled my eyes, not wanting to discuss my dating life again.
But as I looked at Ben, I could tell it was coming, whether I liked it or not. Ben wasn't going to take no for an answer until he got me to agree to go to the bars with him.
"Fine," I cut right through the impending conversation. "As long as nothing comes up."
I didn't lie, but I was sure I could find something that would come up.
"Good. Your team will be excited." Ben smirked.
"My team?" I frowned.
"Kate, Mary, and Rachel all agreed to come to the bar with us." Ben grinned from ear to ear, looked at me expectantly, like a puppy waiting for his head pat.
I rubbed the heels of my hand into my brow. "Ben, I can't date my direct reports."
"Oh, come on. That sort of harassment stuff is only for when women date their male direct reports. Plus, they are pretty cute."
He said it like it was a temptation.
Melody had been hotter, and she couldn't even tempt me into something more serious.
"Ben, I'll go, but only if you don't push them on me."
"Fine. But since you started this whole harem campaign, you should really set a good example."
His brows bounced, and he made himself at home in my office, plopping down on the couch.
I rolled my eyes once more, shifting my attention back to my computer.
Ben pulled out his laptop and put it on his lap, beginning to type like crazy. Ben was a wiz with numbers and computers; he ran the backend for most of our systems.
It appeared that I now officially had an office mate.
Ben and I worked in silence for a while, both of us typing out emails before Ben reminded me again about my promise to go to the bar and left for a meeting.
I settled in.
Time flew by in the strange monotony of answering emails and joining calls that seemed like a temporal vortex sucking my time away as the day progressed.
A knock on my door broke my focus and made me look up.
As soon as I saw her, visions of smashed buildings filled my head. I was brought back to hundreds of dead supers surrounding me in piles of rubble. And she was in the middle of it all, the only other survivor, wearing her torn up costume.
Horrible feelings of guilt, dread, and confusion welled up in me. I did my best to remind myself that I was not there.
That was in the past, but it felt so fresh and real.
I worked to take even a single breath, pushing all of it down until finally, I was back in the office with Kim Smith, aka Wrath, knocking on my door.