Coming Back Home

Chapter 13

I got to work that morning and saw Natalie get out of her car out of the corner of my eye. I wondered if she had been waiting for me.

I had no idea how to act around her after what happened the night before. At least it would be better than her constantly being a bitch or ignoring me, but it really wasn't helping my usual awkwardness improve at all.

I walked into the building and on to the elevator and she stepped in shortly after me.

"Morning Mads," she said with a grin.

She stood next to me and leaned against the back wall of the elevator.

"Morning Natalie," I responded, returning her smile.

Words couldn't describe how happy I was to seemingly have the old Natalie back. I knew that our kiss was going to make things more complicated, but right now my sense of relief was overpowering that thought.

I rested my hand on the handrail as the elevator began to move slowly up towards the office floor. I felt Natalie's fingertips trace along the top of my hand and I quickly looked over at her.

"I'm not going to do anything in a public elevator," I said to her as I gave her a look.

"I'm not trying to do anything," Natalie said as she laced her fingers with mine, "but that sure sounds like you'd want to do something if we had more privacy."

"I don't - that's not what I was saying," I said as I pulled my hand back.

Part of me wanted to kiss Natalie again so badly, but the other part of me knew it wasn't a good idea right now. We both had too much that we had to figure out before I wanted to go down that road.

Natalie stepped back with a slightly defeated look on her face, but I didn't have time to explain myself before the elevator doors opened again.

We walked into the office and I stuck my head in and waved to Ella before I went next door to my desk.

"Morning Ella," Natalie said as she waved and walked by her office.

"Wow..." I heard Ella say quietly, "I mean good morning! Sorry."

Ella quickly popped her head over in my doorway with a shocked look on her face.

"What the hell happened to her?? I've never seen her be that nice to people," she said.

"Who knows," I said with a shrug.

I smirked at Ella and she narrowed her eyes at me.

"Okay I better hear whatever that story is at some point," she said.

"We'll see," I responded coyly.

Ella jokingly rolled her eyes at me before she went back into her office.

Luckily I was done training with Natalie for the most part, so I didn't have to be around her all day. I wasn't sure what would happen if we had to be in close proximity for a long amount of time.

Later that afternoon, an email from Natalie popped up on my computer screen.

"Can you stop over to my office when you get a minute?"

A nervous feeling came over me as I read it, and I quickly typed up a response.

"Sure, be there in a few."

First I had been nervous around Natalie because she was being a bitch towards me, and now the nerves were coming from a different feeling entirely. I was getting tired of it.