The office is the last place I wanted to be today. It’s a Thursday, which means I’m already thoroughly exhausted but can’t quite delve into the relief of Friday quite yet. I made my way into the break room and whipped myself up a large caramel macchiato on one of the fancy Swiss coffee machines. Mark is waiting for a cup of tea to finish steeping in the corner, and he narrowly avoids my gaze. What a wanker.

 I’m still not quite sure why I flipped out at him so much the other day. I mean, I’ve never really liked him in the first place, to be honest, but my reaction was still a little bit over the top. I had already grown fond…and perhaps a bit interested, in Eliza Cameron, and seeing Mark act like such a dick to her must have made the old chivalrous instincts kick into full gear.

 Speak of the devil. I watched Eliza walk in, dressed in a tiny purple floral number, and make her way to the fridge to put her lunch away. She wasn’t looking at me either. Mark left, and I went up to the fridge to talk to her.

 “Hey,” I said.

 “Hi,” Eliza replied quietly, suddenly looking up. Her face was a bright scarlet red.

 “Is everything alright?” I asked.

 “Yep,” Eliza said, looking down at the floor. “I’m fine.”

 I smiled at her politely and went down to my office. She certainly didn’t look fine, and I mean by god, was she blushing. I suppose she could be one of those pale girls who blush at any human interaction—I had certainly met a lot of those back home in England—but she had never blushed like that around me before.

 Was she attracted to me? I smiled. I sure hoped so.

 I sat down in my chair and began to type up a memo, Eliza’s scarlet face sitting at the back of my mind. She was cute. Really cute.

 I finished the memo and hit the print button, only to hear a frustrated beep come from the printer. Out of paper. Figured.

 I got up and made my way to the supply closet, where two more people avoided eye contact with me. I guess word about my confrontation with Mark had gotten around, and I was the new office pariah. Oh well, I thought. It would probably only last for a week.

 I entered the supply closet, which was next to Eliza’s tiny closet office, which was even smaller. The paper refills were in boxes on the top shelf, and even at my towering height, they were still rather hard to reach. There was usually a metal stool sitting around, but it must have disappeared into somebody’s office. I would have to find something to stand on.

 I found a plastic box in the corner and propped it up so I could step on it, lifting myself up to a height where I could scooch the box of paper closer to me and probably manage to get it down. I nudged the box closer to me, and then—

 “Ugh, shit!” I yelled, as I toppled over onto the ground. I hadn’t had my hands under the paper box when I had nudged it towards me, sending it toppling down on top of me, knocking me off the plastic box and on to the floor, covered in paper and thoroughly pissed off.

 “Are you alright?” came a voice from the doorway, and I looked up to see Eliza standing there, trying not to laugh as she looked at me in my disheveled state.

 “Everything except my dignity is intact,” I muttered, sitting up and stacking the printing paper back into the box. “This is not my best morning.”

 “Let me help,” Eliza said, and sat down next to me, and we began the slow work of cleaning up the papers that had been scattered throughout the supply closet like confetti.

 It struck me suddenly that Eliza was sitting very close to me, her bare leg touching mine and her dress slightly hiked up from her sitting position. Her legs were tanned and fit in a way that seemed natural—not the tan and fit of city girls, with their sunbeds and expensive gym memberships, but that of a girl who loved to be outdoors and belonged there, and her body showed it. It was extremely sexy to me.

 Speaking of sexy, there was something undeniably naughty about the atmosphere. We were splayed out on the floor of a supply closet lit by a single, flickering lightbulb, and it looked like the kind of place where lovers would meet for a quick tryst in the middle of the workday. She knew it too, and the tension of this mutual, silent acknowledgement was exhilarating.

 Eliza leaned back against the shelf and spread her legs out in front of her, sighing. “You know,” she said, staring up at the ceiling. “You’re the only person who has been at all nice to me since I came here.”

 “People here can be snobs,” I said. “This place can change you. It makes you feel far too confident in yourself after a while, if you ask me.”

 “And why are you so different? Why are you being so kind to me?” she asks, her warm brown eyes seeming to pierce something deep inside me that I didn’t know was there.

 “I grew up in a place kind of like this,” I said, leaning closer to her. “I remember my mother kicking one of her close friends out of a dinner party once for wearing the wrong dress. And worst of all, her friends all thought it was a perfectly acceptable decision. It was a dreadful sort of way to grow up.”

 “I’m sorry,” Eliza said. “That doesn’t sound like the easiest childhood.”

 I laughed. “We all have our trauma. And of course, that made my escape all the more exciting.” I winked at her, and I could have sworn she swooned a bit. We held eye contact for a bit too long, and my heart began to race.

 Eliza put her hand on my face, running her fingers through my stubble, her eyes full of questions.

 “Do it,” I whispered.

 “Do what.”

 “You know what,” I said.

 And then she kissed me.

 I could hardly believe she had actually done it, this good girl who I thought would never, ever, make out with someone like me on the floor of a supply closet, but good god, it was actually happening. She moved her lips against mine slowly, and I could practically feel her smiling against me. The moment was electric—the chemistry was instant and gratifying and held the promise of so much more. It was hard not to push her onto the floor and take her right there—but she wasn’t that kind of girl, and I could already tell that this was the sort of thing that needed time.

 Eliza pulled away and giggled, looking like a child who had stolen something from behind someone’s back and gotten away with it.

 “I, um…” Eliza said, blushing adorably scarlet once again, and then suddenly the door opened, and it was Sabryna.

 “Everything alright in here?” she asked, looking a bit concerned at the sight of the two of us spread out on the floor amongst a sea of fallen papers.

 “Yup,” Eliza said, and she scurried back to her office without even looking at me or Sabryna.

 “I dropped a box of copy paper,” I explained, and Sabryna gave me a doubtful look.

 “You be careful with her, you hear me?” she said, giving me a look that I remembered getting from my teachers in school.

 “I know,” I said, getting up. “I know.”