THE GAME CHANGER
Anthony sat bug-eyed at his desk, fingers wrapped tightly around his phone. Either something was wrong with the presentation we were about to give to our key stakeholder - or the three years of working with me had finally broken him. I assumed it was the latter. Who could blame the guy? I was still trying to live down heating up tuna in the communal microwave.
'You alright, Tony?' I asked, bracing myself.
He was still staring at his phone.
Christ, I didn't think I wanted to know.
'I - um, oh mate.'
Something was definitely wrong.
I stood from my seat and leaned over my desk just as Tony turned his phone towards me.
A frown wrinkled my forehead as I glanced at our social media manager. 'I don't get it? Isn't this just our building?' He was showing me a video of our co-working space, a three-storey building full of small businesses.
'-'
I tore his phone from his fingers when I realised just what I was looking at.
'She's here,' he whispered. 'For Women In Business.'
I was staring at Emily Margot's Instagram Story. Correction: I was watching an Instagram Live of her walking around The Hub.
My stomach fell through my ass - arse - ASS.
She's here.
It felt like my brain was about to explode as thousands of thoughts fought for dominance, desperately screaming at me to run to her, away from her, to hide under my desk, to cry, to sing.
'How did we miss this?' I surprised myself with how calm I sounded, because I felt anything but. Maybe I was so panicked, I sounded calm. Is that a thing? Maybe it's a thing. Maybe I should stop talking shit.
Shut UP, Lincoln.
Anthony looked as stumped as I felt. 'Surprise appearance? Get ahead of the press?' He chanced a glance over his shoulder, as if Emily was about to step out of the lift. In that moment, I regretted the twenty-something emails I sent to The Hub's culture team, begging them to give us the first office on level three. You could see right into our space from the lift, my name was on the fucking glass door.
Exposure, I told the team at the time. It'll be good for us.
Ha.
'Lincoln?' I didn't realise Tony had been trying to get my attention. He stared at me with a mixture of concern and genuine panic. He knew our history - hell, he'd followed it online until I became as irrelevant as I felt.
'The meeting...'
'Not for another hour.'
'Good.'
And with that, I made a beeline for the glass door with my name on it. And Cameron's. Maybe she'll completely miss it. Maybe I can hide in the stairwell until Tony gives me the OK. For half a second, I entertained the idea of casually running into her.
Do I be funny, brooding, sexy – could I even be sexy?
Nope, absolutely not.
As I half-walked, half-ran to the emergency exit, I told myself that anyone would run away from their stupidly hot ex-girlfriend. This was reasonable human behaviour. While Emily Margot had become the It Girl - as a magazine I did not read described her as - I had... I'd become a grouch. A mess. Nothing but a suit of flesh and grubby clothes that needed replacing.
The doors to the lift slid open just as I was about to pass it, and just like that everything all at once came to a standstill.
Emily Margot has a face that can stop time, after all.
Familiarity sparked in her eyes as fast as my heart did a flippity-flop in my chest.
'Lincoln- '
'Emily-'
A/N
:)