“Alright, guys and dolls, I’m here. Now, anyone want to tell me why the hell that might be?”

It was some opening line, Elsie thought to herself, and she cringed a little bit at the sound of her own voice. Being alone almost all of the time was Elsie’s choice and the way she preferred to live, but it sometimes made it strange to hear herself when talking to other people. It wasn’t unheard of for her to go days and days without even speaking to another living soul. That was just fine and dandy by her, but it didn’t keep her from getting just a little bit self-conscious about the sound of it when she finally did speak. Not that she had any need to feel that way, not in this office anyway. These offices weren’t like most, after all, and the people who populated them weren’t exactly the sort you might find in your run of the mill organization. It was the only kind of place Elsie would ever be able to associate herself with, and one she felt legitimately lucky to have stumbled upon several years after coming to New York. She was now twenty-four years old and had been with Travis and The Cubed Company for four years. Before that, she had worked a bunch of odd jobs, all of which she detested while moonlighting at night as tech support for companies she couldn’t have cared less about. Finding out about Travis and Cubed had been pure luck, with her stumbling into the not-yet-completed office suite with the coffee she was delivering. As luck would have it, she was delivering it badly, running very late and with a poor attitude about it to top the whole thing off. Travis had mentioned something about it, and Elsie had shot back some kind of smart-ass comment about how she wasn’t meant to be delivering anyone coffee anyway. Travis had countered said comment with a sarcastic question of his own, asking her what she was good at delivering if it wasn’t coffee? She’d shot off her mouth about how she wasn’t meant to be delivering anything, about how she was going to be an awesome programmer someday, or maybe working for the FBI to track cyber criminals or maybe even terrorists. That was the moment when everything had changed, and Elsie had done her best never to look back. Travis and Cubed did a lot of discreet work, delicate work involving tracking down the insidious cyberbullies intent on harming others. They had helped some major big shots, some people that the American population at large would be very interested in learning more about. The people who worked for Cubed were a motley assortment to be sure, totally unlike most other companies. That was why Travis was able to handle (or mostly handle) an employee like Elsie. His whole company was pretty much built around really smart people, who maybe didn’t quite fit with the more “normal” members of society. Thank God for that, because Elsie had no intention of toning it down for anyone else’s benefit.

“Oohwee! Lookie there, boys. Elsie really did her up pretty this time, didn’t she? Bet she stopped all them boys on the street!”

“I sure as hell did,” Elsie shot back, not even batting an eyelash at the lovely opening comment of her coworker. “I stopped ‘em with my fist. Any chance I’m going to need to stop you the same way?”

“Aw, come on, babe. I’m only playing around. You would know that if you spent some more time in the office and less time hanging out in your own pad.”

“Bradley, give me one good reason why I would ever want to do a thing like that.”

“You cut me deep, Morrow!” said Brad Jenkins, a man who both looked and acted like a sixteen-year-old boy, but was—in reality—pushing thirty-five. “Are you for real saying you can’t think of one reason to come hang out with us? Not even one?”

He looked up at her with big, puppy dog eyes that made Elsie roll her own and then shrug her shoulders at the other men in the office. They weren’t exactly macho men, Elsie didn’t think anyone could accuse them of that, but they definitely seemed to share a chauvinistic streak that drove Elsie, Clara, and Finnley nuts. The thing about it, something one could either consider incredibly annoying or actually sort of funny, was that none of them seemed to realize they were being chauvinistic. Clara, who was easily the nicest of the three girls according to Elsie’s estimation, had tried to enlighten them on more than one occasion. Each time she made an attempt, her words were met by confused expressions and slightly wounded words. It was a lost cause, and the three females knew it, and so upon her entry and her banter with Brad, Clara only shook her head while Finnley gave the room in general the finger. Brad clapped one hand over his heart in feigned pain, and Sheldon, another one of the clueless dudes working at Cubed, made a clucking noise with his tongue. The fact that it was Sheldon who did this, Sheldon who was the least asshole-ish of the group and who always seemed a little bit like a lost puppy, reduced some of the tension in the room and got the rest of them laughing. Finnley dropped her finger back down to its normal position and allowed herself to smile. That helped Clara, who was the shiest of the three, as well as the sweetest, to calm down, and she let out a shaky little laugh and ventured out of her little cubicle of an office.

“Jeez, Elsie,” she said in her soft, musical little voice, “you sure do know how to make an entrance, don’t you?”

“I don’t know, I guess so. I really didn’t mean to though, that’s the thing.”

“Clearly. What exactly are you wearing, Elsie?”

Elsie looked down, completely confused as to what Clara might be talking about. When she saw what she had left her apartment in, she started laughing and then couldn’t stop. It was the kind of laugh that made a person feel like she might actually not be able to breathe the way she was supposed to, and she was grateful when Finnley slid a seat underneath her. She plopped down onto it, tucking her legs beneath herself while still laughing. Even for her, this outfit was pretty bad. She had on one of her older pairs of sweats and a t-shirt she’d gotten from Disney World back when her father was still alive. It had a picture of the Muppet—Animal—on it and the words, “Party, Party, Party.” Finnley pulled up a chair beside her, tucking her blonde locks behind one ear, and tossed Elsie a bottle of water.

“For real though, girl. You look a little bit like a hobo right now. You know that, don’t you?” 

“I didn’t really notice, but I guess I can kind of see it now. At least I remembered to put shoes on, right?”

“Ugh!” Clara exclaimed, wrinkling her delicate little nose in an expression of real concern. “You haven’t ever really done that, have you? I mean, good God, Elsie! This is New York City. You go outside without shoes on just once, and you’re probably looking at tetanus at the very least. More likely something like, oh I don’t know, syphilis!”

“Syphilis?” Finnley scoffed, rolling her eyes and then blowing that same strand of hair out of her face again. “You’re joking, right? You had sex ed when you were a kid, didn’t you? I mean, they have that in fricking Kansas, don’t they?”

“Oh please, I’m not from Kansas, okay? We’ve been over and over this. I’m from Wisconsin.”

“Same thing, right?”

“No! No, actually, it isn’t! And you can’t tell me it would be a good idea for her to walk around without shoes on, Finn, even you can’t tell me that. You’re from New York. You should know as well as anyone that it’s not the cleanest of cities.”

“Well sure, you’re right about that. No way should anyone walk around without shoes on. Even the bums in this city don’t do that.”

“Guys,” Elsie tried to interject, still laughing, but starting to feel just a little bit stressed by the weight of being around so many people all at one time, “please. Everyone try to contain themselves, and if at all possible, calm down. I’ve never walked around barefoot in this city. And just for the record, I’m from Houston, not some podunk town where everyone walks around without shoes. Houston is a freaking huge city. You guys know that, don’t you?”

This drew out another chorus of responses, the volume of which was steadily increasing. Elsie did her best to keep on smiling, but she couldn’t help but wish with half of her heart that she was back at home. The thing was, it honestly was only half of her heart, which was pretty freaking confusing. Despite the fact that Elsie preferred being home to just about anything else, she was always surprised when she was forced to be around these people she worked with again. Whether she liked it or not, whether the men were all kind of pigs, ninety-nine percent of the time, the people at Cubed were sort of like a second family for Elsie. That was something a lot of people said, but for Elsie it had real, legitimate meaning. Her mother didn’t really feel a whole lot like family most of the time, and she didn’t have any siblings. She may have had a love-hate relationship with them, but that was always how things went with family. At the end of the day, she was glad to have them, even Travis, who was now making his way out of his office and walking quickly towards the rowdy bunch he called employees.

“Woah! Does somebody want to tell me what the hell is going on here? I gotta tell you, if I didn’t know any better, I would think that this was a bar or something instead of a place of business.”

“I know, right?” Finnley answered quickly and with good humor, swinging her legs over the arm of her chair and giving Elsie a playful punch on the shoulder. “You know what would really help things?”

“No, Finn, I don’t believe I do. Would you care to tell me?”

“Booze. You’ve got to have a bottle of liquor back there somewhere? Maybe hidden in a bottom desk drawer somewhere? You know, where people keep the things they feel just a little bit ashamed of?”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Finn, but no. I don’t have anything like that. And even if I did, I wouldn’t break it out now.”

“Come on!” Brad interjected, catching onto the strange vibe of good cheer and running with it. “What’s the matter, boss? We don’t warrant a good bottle of imaginary liquor?”

“Not what I meant at all. All I’m trying to say is that it’s not every day that we have Elsie in the office, living, breathing, and in the flesh. I was kind of hoping to make good use of the time we do have…before she vanishes into thin air again.”

“Hey, Travis,” Elsie said dryly, thinking about the conversation in which he had apparently finally grown some balls and trying not to start laughing all over again. “Good to see you, too.”

“Please don’t mistake me, Elsie,” Travis said in a voice that was not unfriendly, “because I really am glad to see you here. I just wasn’t so sure after the last conversation we had.”

“Oh right!” Finnley said with a bark of laughter, as she turned her swivel chair towards where Travis was now towering over Elsie. “The conversation!”

“You heard that?” Elsie asked with genuine surprise, having totally forgotten that—in an office building—people oftentimes overheard other people’s conversations. “I didn’t realize.”

“Shit yes, I heard it! The whole office heard it! We didn’t even have to ask to know he was talking to you either.”

“What do you mean? How come? You don’t mean to say you could hear my voice on the other end of the phone. Because if you’re trying to tell me that, I’m going to have to call bullshit.”

“No, nothing like that, silly girl. But when we heard the boss man actually yelling, we knew who it was. Nobody ever gets him as pissed off as you do, Elsie. Isn’t that right, boss?”

“I wish you wouldn’t call me boss man,” Travis grumbled, looking decidedly disgruntled and blushing furiously. “You know I hate that shit. And we don’t have time for this. I don’t know if you guys all forgot, but we actually have things we need to get done here, okay? I didn’t just make Elsie come down here for the fun of the fight.”

“Yes, sir!” Finn barked out, putting one hand up to her forehead in a mock salute that only made Travis look more uncomfortable than ever. Everyone around them started laughing, with even Clara cracking a smile, and Elsie felt that familiar sense of panic coming over her that she always got in situations like this one. When she found herself in a situation where she had too many emotions, or where she felt like she was getting too close to people, she would start to feel like an elephant was sitting on her chest. It was the sort of thing shrinks across America would drool over—the analysis of what it was inside of Elsie that made her broken when it came to other people—which was precisely why she had never planned on going to see one. Instead she did things her way, which involved a lot of takeout food and time on her own. She did those things and then she sucked it up and went to the meetings she absolutely couldn’t get out of, trying very hard not to let herself feel too close to anyone while she was there. She did that by thinking about her work and about her computers (computers plural, seeing as she had five of them in her apartment alone) and by trying not to pay too close of attention to what the people at Cubed were doing. That being said, she couldn’t help but notice that the ribbing in the office had gotten to a level that maybe wasn’t one hundred percent okay. Travis didn’t look like he was having fun anymore. He looked sort of miserable, which made the mama bear (something that usually stayed buried deep down inside of her) come out to play.

“Alright guys, enough’s enough. No need to be mean to the man. And I don’t want to hang around all day with you folks, so we should probably go ahead and get this started.”

Elsie spoke these words and then a funny thing happened. It was true that Elsie rarely made appearances in the office and that she didn’t deal with people on a regular basis, but it was also true that she had a presence that people couldn’t help but respond to. She didn’t know it about herself, which was part of what made it work the way it did, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. When Elsie spoke, people listened. When she spoke up and came to Travis’s rescue, it was no different. The funny thing was, it was this undefinable something that made people want to be around Elsie, almost as much as she wanted not to be around them, and even though she was usually cranky and rarely what one might describe as overly friendly. It was also this something, along with other more definable physical characteristics she possessed, that had led Travis to pick her for the job he was about to give her. She didn’t know it yet and wouldn’t realize it for quite some time, as a matter of fact, but that didn’t make it any less true. In some weird way, it was almost like it made it truer.

“Right. Thank you, Elsie. You may not be here a lot, but you seem to be the only one who’s maintaining any kind of professionalism at the moment. Elsie is right. We’ve got things to talk about, and that’s precisely what we’re going to do. Anyone have a problem with that? Because if so, you might as well speak up now. Once we get started, I’m not going to stop for any of this crap.”

The group remained silent, heads bowed and appearing to be sufficiently chastised for Travis’s taste. And so, Travis’ meeting commenced and Elsie sat back and watched the whole thing unfold. She listened intently to the goings-on of the office, getting sucked in and interested despite herself. These people were interested in the same things as she was, and those were the things they were talking about. She fell into a kind of a haze, and by the time the meeting was over, she felt none of the stress she’d felt tearing up her insides at the start of her day. She felt so much better that she almost forgot there was a reason for her being there, and that Travis had yet to tell her what that reason was. He had held his entire meeting and then dismissed everyone without ever telling her why he’d asked her to come in the first place. He didn’t really say anything much to her at all, instead choosing to head directly back to his office and shutting the door. Elsie, who had never been a fan of being strung along for no good reason, felt the return of the annoyance she’d first felt when Travis had called her up and thrown a wrench in the planning of her schedule. Armed with this feeling and the total exhaustion that came from overstimulation, she marched directly up to Travis’ door, knocked twice with hard little raps, and then opened the door and stalked inside. Travis, who had only just sat down behind his desk, looked up wearily. When he saw it was her, he smiled, but it was a thin smile, a smile that told Elsie that perhaps she wasn’t the only one feeling a little bit drained after the loud, burbling meeting they had just sat through.

“Elsie. Hey.”

“Hey, yourself. Did you forget about me or something?”

“Forget about you? What do you mean, forget about you?”

“Um, I mean you didn’t say anything to me during the meeting. Not anything at all.”

“And?”

“What do you mean, and?! And you’re the one who told me to show up today! Was it just for kicks or something? Because if it was, I’m not amused, I can tell you that much for certain.”

“No, not for kicks. Believe it or not, Elsie, having you yell at me isn’t exactly my idea of a good time.”

“Good to know. But if that’s the case, do you mind telling me why I’m here? I kept waiting for you to say something about it during the staff meeting, but you never even looked in my direction.”

“That’s true, I didn’t. I thought you might appreciate having this particular conversation one-on-one.”

“How come? We never do things that way. You told all of the rest of them their new assignments in the meeting. That’s where all of the updates were, too.”

“That’s true, but this isn’t your typical situation. It seemed like a better idea to me if I laid it out for you in private. Do you want to have a seat?”

Elsie didn’t want to have a seat, not really, but that’s exactly what she did. There was no way for her to say no without getting into another fight with Travis, and she didn’t quite feel up to that. She especially didn’t feel up to that seeing how tired and worn thin the man looked. At the end of the day, she liked Travis, liked him a lot. Even more than liking him, she owed him. He was the first one willing to take a chance on her when she was nothing but a stubborn kid trying to make it in New York, the way so many before her had tried and failed. She was pretty sure she would have failed as well if it hadn’t been for Travis. New York was the kind of city where you needed to know someone to get anywhere, but in order to know anyone, you had to already be somewhere. It was one massive Catch Twenty-two and would almost certainly have swallowed her up whole if Travis hadn’t decided he liked her spunky—sometimes abrasive—personality and been willing to take a chance on her. If it hadn’t been for him and the company he built, there was a good chance Elsie would have wound up on a plane back to Texas, and that would have been just about the worst thing she could have imagined. She would have gotten off of that plane and her mother would have been standing there to greet her with a look on her face that would have only been able to be described as triumphant. She wouldn’t realize she was doing it, but Elsie would see it and then she would never be able to forgive her for it. Any semblance of a relationship between the two of them, or any semblance of a good relationship anyway, would have been wrecked and Elsie was pretty sure there wouldn’t have been anything that could have repaired it again. Travis had saved her that heartache, and for that, she owed him big time. Because of that and because she was a whole lot more empathetic than she liked to admit, she sat down across from him and kept her face as calm and as kind as she could possibly manage.

“Thank you, Elsie, really. I’m a little tired today. Didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“Too busy thinking?”

“Something like that.”

“Did that have anything to do with whatever it is you need to talk to me about?”

“Maybe.”

“You should probably go ahead and tell me then, don’t you think? Go ahead and get it off of your chest and put me out of the misery of wondering what the hell is going on.”

“I guess I’d better. I have to warn you, though, you can’t tell anyone about this.”

“I know. Confidentiality and all of that jazz.”

“Right, there’s that, but this is more than usual. You can’t talk to anyone about this. Nobody in the office, not your family, not your friends. The only people who can know about this are you, me, and Caleb.”

“Caleb? Who the hell is Caleb?”

“Caleb Grant, that’s who.”

“Why does that name sound so familiar to me?”

Instead of giving her an answer, Travis just stared at Elsie, waiting for her to work it out on her own, she supposed. She could feel his eyes on her, and it made her feel sort of crazy, making her want to just scream at him to tell her already! To just get it over with and tell her because the feeling of knowing who Caleb was, was right on the tip of her tongue. She could practically see the guy, and she knew—for some reason—that he had thick black hair and the kind of green eyes that looked like they had been photoshopped. She could see him in her mind’s eye, and then, all of the sudden, she had it.

“That guy?! Why the hell would that guy need to know about the work I’m doing?”

“Because,” Travis answered grimly, “he’s the project you’re going to be working on.”