Building Bonds | Coffe Break Short Read

1 | Collide

"Luna?"
My attention was pulled from the pile of plans in front of me, laid out across the table without a care in the world. I shook my head and put on my best fake smile.
"You need to take a break," she said softly. "You really are working too hard."
"I know," I replied. "It's just since John-"
She raised a finger to cut me off and frowned. "Don't even mention that low-lifes name to me. You need to move on - it's for the best." She grabbed the folder that I'd been staring into, and closed it hastily as she shoved it on the floor underneath the table. "Stop. Enjoy the moment. Enjoy this overpriced coffee I bought you that you didn't even touch."
Amy was right - I needed to just stop. Stop thinking about a broken relationship, stop thinking about work, stop thinking about everything. Amy was frequently right - she'd helped me to keep my head screwed on when it felt like everything was going wrong.
"You're right, I'm sorry." I knew that she'd be grimacing at my apology like she always did. She hated when I apologised even though I'd done nothing wrong - it was a force of habit.
The truth was, since my ex boyfriend left me, I'd been in my head. Things had been planned out, and I was positive that I'd be spending the rest of my life with him. I'd had a problem with being too controlling, too overbearing. I always, always needed to know what was happening and I needed to have everything planned. There was no reason for it, it was just how I'd always been. Not that I was a control freak or anything, I just liked everything to be in order. Things always had a place and a time, but John didn't agree.
"Why are you so focused on work right now, anyways?"
I rolled my eyes and slumped down in the chair, taking a sip of the almost-cold coffee. "There's this big project coming up and I don't want to mess it up. Everything has to be just right - this is a huge client, and we can't afford to make any mistakes."
She eyed me curiously and tilted her head. "And they have you doing all of this alone?"
"Well, it's... not private, and they don't have just me working on it. There's this new guy who I'll be meeting tomorrow that's going to be helping me with it, but I know absolutely nothing about him other than he's this overly involved investor who wants it done his way."
She smirked. "His way means it won't be your way, and I imagine that you take offense to that."
The blood in my face rushed to the surface, sending bright, hot splotches across my cheeks. "That's not what I'm saying. Chances are he knows his job perfectly well!"
Amy saw right through my protest. She glanced at the clock on the wall and sighed softly. "It's getting late."
I nodded in agreement. I'd been working for far too long and I needed something to take the edge of - but being cooped up in a New York City coffee shop wasn't it. I enjoyed spending time with Amy, and on any other day there'd be no issue - but I needed to unwind. Meeting a key player in the largest project of the year in less than twelve hours put me on edge. Some alone time with my music and a bottle of wine would be just the thing, I thought to myself.
"We should be going," I remarked. "I think I need my bed and some wine, maybe a little music."
Amy began to laugh. "You're usually in bed by ten - I'm not sure how you're going to fit in music and wine in the next twenty minutes. Doesn't it take at least forty for you to get back home?"
I leaned onto the stacks of papers in front of me. "You're right-"
She cut me off once more. "I'm not saying don't go back and relax. But you only got out of work an hour ago. I think what you need is a week off, maybe even more. You should get out of the city."
"If things go well tomorrow with the first steps of planning, I will be getting out of the city. It looks like all of the documents that the design team sent over are all good and fine, so there shouldn't really be too much for us to get done. And then... we get to go check out the place. I hope they put me up in some nice hotel, with free drinks and maybe even a hot tub."
"Don't be silly, you know that your company will put you up in a random hostel just off the freeway if they can."
"That much is true."
I collected all of my papers, the old blueprints and the planning permissions into a pile and placed them into the large, brown folder. The edges were torn and crumpled - just another thing they needed to replace but didn't want to. Amy was right - they liked to cut as many corners as they could.
I'd been working there as an architect for some six years, and in that time, they'd barely been able to fork out the money for my raises. In fact, on two of my appraisals, they didn't give me a raise at all - not because I did bad work, but because it 'wasn't in the budget' - bullshit if ever I'd heard it.
Before we left, I made my way back to the counter and asked them for another black coffee. I wanted one for the way home, the consequences of late night caffeine be damned. Three minutes later and I had a piping hot cup in my hands.
"Don't forget to call me tomorrow and let me know how it all goes. I hope that this new guy isn't a piece of shit," she laughed, raising her brow. The last person they had me working with had been so overbearing, it hurt - anything I said or did was wrong to him - he wanted everything done a certain, incorrect way.
"I'll call you, Amy, now I really need to get going."
We exchanged a quick hug before we took opposite directions down the street. The streets were still somewhat busy, not that I minded. I'd never been overly scared of walking around alone at night - there was something about the city that made me feel safe, even though I knew it wasn't, not really. The more cars, the better I felt, though.
I mindlessly walked the route I'd walked dozens of times over the years, and when I took a left on New Burland Avenue, I was immediately pulled out of my thoughts, colliding with a tall man in a white and black suit.
"Oh my God," I said, looking at the massive coffee stain on his white blazer, and then at the stack of folders on the ground that I'd dropped from my bag. "I am so sorry," I said as I looked up at him.
He looked down at the stain, pulling his blazer up slightly to inspect it. My face burned with embarassment.
"I am so sorry, I was in my own world, I'm so-"
He shook his head and smiled as he helped me to pick up the folders. "It's no big deal," he laughed. "This is New York. If the worst thing that happens to me this week is some pretty woman walks into me and gets coffee down my shirt, then I'd say that's been a good week."
I bit down on my lower lip and looked away from him. A compliment from a stranger in the middle of the city after knocking coffee on them? That never happened. Let alone from a hot stranger - with a thick head of jet black hair, light tan, and standing at, what I thought to be impressive, six-foot-five at a guess. I was only five-foot-three in my kitten heels from work - so he towered over me.
"I am so-"
He raised a hand and began to laugh. "It's fine. Truly!"
"You aren't from around here, are you?"
"Was it the accent that gave it away?" He winked at me and looked around, making sure neither of us had dropped anything else.
I laughed at him. "That, and the fact you're so..."
The people of New York City, I found, were serious. Very serious. So much so, that I sometimes feared making eye contact with even the pigeons. It wasn't all that bad, and the people of New York City had been kind to me, good people with generous spirits - but I didn't want to get on anyone's bad side.
"I'm here on work," he smiled. "It's been a long day for me, I'm just headed to my hotel." I nodded. "And you?"
I inhaled sharply and puffed out my cheeks. "I'm heading home. It's late and I have work in the morning."
He nodded in approval. "Well, I suppose I can't tempt you out for a drink then? As repayment for soiling my new suit."
No, he absolutely could not. I was mortified that I'd walked right into him and spilled my coffee over him, there was no way that I was about to sit with him in a bar or a hotel or wherever he had in mind - no chance.
"I'm so sorry, but no - I am really sorry about your suit, though."
He smiled softly and shrugged his shoulders with a playful expression across his face. "No harm done. You stay safe out here - it's a rough area." He winked at me, and let me pass him.
I walked quickly down the rest of my route, replaying it over and over in my head. How could I have been so careless? So stupid as to think that completely zoning out in the middle of the city was a good idea? I shook my head, and finally called a cab once I managed to get away from the worst of the traffic. I needed a sit down.