the balcony ••• awsten knight

ten

may 2017

Emily's meeting runs a little longer than planned.

It was supposed to end at one thirty, which is why she had suggested two o' clock to begin working with Awsten on their project. She thought that half an hour would be plenty of time to get back to her office and tidy it before he arrived.

But, that was before Daniel from accounting stood up for his presentation and droned on for forty minutes more than he was supposed to.

It pushed the whole schedule for the meeting back and it's now creeping closer to three o' clock by the time she leaves.

Awsten is waiting for Emily outside of her office. He's leant against the wall, scrolling through his phone mindlessly, until he hears footsteps growing closer and he looks up.

"What happened to two o' clock?" He skips over a greeting, clearly annoyed.

"Ah, yes. Hello to you too, Awsten," Emily fakes a warm smile, breezing past him and opening the door to her office. He follows closely on her heels.

"Come on in! Welcome to my office," she continues with the falsely cheery tone when he walks in, as she dumps the stack of papers and folders in her hand into a box in the corner of the room.

She eventually drops the act, letting her feigned expression fall to a glare.

"How did you even know where my office is?" Emily asks him.

"Anna showed me," Awsten shrugs.

"Of course she did," she mutters, rolling her eyes.

Awsten laughs, dryly, earning a strange look.

"Obviously you dislike the nicest person in this whole building," he shakes his head in disbelief.

"The nicest person?" Emily's eyes widen as she scoffs. "You clearly don't know her all that well."

"Well, unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to hang around at her desk much longer because I thought we had agreed on two o' clock to start working," Awsten replies, snappily. "You're almost an hour late."

"I'm fully aware that I'm late," Emily states. "I apologise for the inconvenience. But, I couldn't exactly just walk out of a staff meeting," she states, matter-of-factly.

"That apology sounds real' sincere," Awsten scoffs.

"Can you just not start with me today? Just for once," Emily lets out a frustrated groan. "That meeting was almost three hours long! I do not need to come out of that pointless shit only to deal with your pointless shit," she rants and he crosses his arms over his chest, remaining quiet once she's done. "Thank you," Emily sighs, taking the dose of silence as a response in itself.

She begins moving things around her office, tidying as best as she can so that they've got even a little room to work.

"Can I help?" Awsten asks, quietly, catching Emily off guard.

"Uh...If we get everything off that table in the corner, then we could move it over here," she gestures as she speaks.

"Oh, yeah, we could put this table up against your desk. Then there's a little more surface to...yeah," Awsten nods, mumbling his own explanation, before doing as she suggests.