All This Time

New Guy

After almost twelve years, she finally found the guts to quit her job.

It was a painful discernment, because her job had been her life for the past decade. Her job was her escape-- from sadness, from heartbreak, from homesickness, from boredom. It was where she'd run to whenever she'd run out of places to go.

And now, she had tendered her resignation and will start the last thirty days at the place where she spent her half of her teenage years and almost her entire twenties.

If she was being honest, she didn't want to do it, because she really loved her job. She started as a part time filing clerk and climbed her way up to become the VP for Finance and Operations of the multi-million construction company where she practically grew up. But the past three months had been made miserable by office politics, and a whole lot of blaming games. Everything that went wrong eventually got blamed on her, including how the bathroom ran out of paper towels or how the trash was always overflowing. So she decided that her boss could shove everything up his whatever, then she could finally have a life.

Once she finished typing up her resignation letter, she printed and signed it with solid determination. She stood up, straightened her skirt, grabbed the piece of paper and stormed out of her office.

Good thing the floor was carpeted or the entire staff would probably notice her march to freedom by the loud click-clack of her favorite red stilettos. Her office and her boss's were at the opposite ends of the open floor office, so she braced herself to trek the long walk to the other end of the earth. She would need to pass by at least ten cubicles on her right, and two offices and a long glass walled conference room to her left.

While passing the two offices, she already noticed her boss was still in the conference room, having a serious meeting with a guy with the broadest shoulder and toned nape she had ever seen. Who tones their nape? She thought and shrugged. She continued walking, thinking of just leaving her resignation letter on her boss's desk.

Halfway through the long glass wall of the conference room, her boss and the guy with a toned nape suddenly stood up and shook hands. Before she knew it, they were opening the glass doors and exiting the room, just as she was about to pass them by.

"Oh hello, Sir! I was just about to drop off something in your office." She said awkwardly, debating if she should go ahead to his office or turn around and go back to hers.

"Oh yeah? Why didn't you just ask your secretary? Okay, give it here then, you can just hand it to me. Let me save you a few steps, yeah?" Her boss replied, holding out his hand.

Meanwhile, the other guy was just staring at her, eyeing her immaculate dark grey suit and skirt ensemble, her baby pink inner tank top lined with white lace on the neckline, and her luscious brown hair cascading like silk on her shoulders. Then his brown eyes moved to her long neck, full pink lips, cute nose, and the most beautiful expressive eyes he had ever seen.

She was going to say something to her boss, but as if she felt the gentleman's gaze at her, she turned to him and their eyes met.

Her boss noticed, but just smiled and dismissed the quiet interaction of the two.

"Aherm... So, you were going to give me something?" Her boss broke her eye contact with the dreamy dimpled new guy.

"Oh uhm... yeah, it was nothing, just uhm, forget it." She said, chewing the inside of her cheek.

"Oh come on, you wouldn't be walking all the way to my office for nothing? Hand it over." And with that, her boss grabbed the folded paper from her hand.

The new guy just stood there, like he was enjoying an inside joke by himself. She just felt more awkward and was praying for the ground to open up and swallow her when her boss finished reading her letter and started tearing it to pieces while shaking his head.

"No. I do not accept your resignation. Not going to happen." He said, tearing the paper further to smaller pieces.

"You are the best at what you do and the only person I trust here. I would rather fire ten people on this floor and give you their salaries than let you go." He said with finality.

"You're resigning? Just when I thought I've found my first office friend?" The new guy teased.

She remained tongue tied, briefly side-eyed the new guy, then stared at the pieces of her resignation letter that her boss just dropped on the floor.

"No, she's not leaving this company. You two will be my eyes and arms in this office. I can finally start thinking about retiring now that I have you on board." Her boss said while firmly shaking the new guy's hand again. Then he started walking away.

"But Dad..." She said, but the old man had already disappeared in his office. She took a big sigh, then turned around to take the trek back to her office.

"Wait..." The new guy stopped her by her elbow.

"What?" She's puzzled as to what he was still doing there. She assumed he was already given instructions for his first day at his job or something.

"Uhm, I'm supposed to work with you all day today, according to him." He said, then pointed his mouth at the boss's closed door.

"What are you talking about?" She really had no idea.

"Wait, you don't remember me, do you?" He asked sincerely, looking her straight in the eyes.

She looked clueless and didn't know what to say. Yes he looked familiar but she was so sure she'd never met him in her life. She was lost in thought, diving in her memories for anything that would remind her of him, when he suddenly pulled out a piece of bazooka bubble gum from his pocket, carefully unwrapped it making sure she was watching, put it in his mouth, then deliberately chewed it. She raised her right eyebrow at the ridiculousness of what this guy was doing in front of her and was about to turn around again, when he started blowing the gum into a huge bubble and when it was big enough, he popped it.

She was stunned and immediately turned pale.

"You. It's you! Shit! You, little shit! You popped gum on my hair when I was five that forced my mom to give me a hideous bowl cut!" She was fuming mad at the memory and at the guy in front of him that she didn't realize how loud she yelled.

The guy in return almost bowled over laughing, his guffaws probably heard maybe up to the next two floors.

"And... hahahahahaha.... you.... oh my God... hahahaha... you were so mad... you made me eat mud! hahahahahah" He said in between loud laughs, holding his stomach and wiping his teary eyes from laughter.

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