Love At First Sight

Of all the offices in all the Hoover Building, she had to walk into mine. Looking up, I took in the sight of her. Legs that seemed to go on forever; a pair of rosy lips that were set in a firm line; eyes burning with determination… hair that glowed as golden as the sun.

She was a vision in lilac… or lavender… Whatever that light purple color was called. If I'd been standing, the sight of her had just about knocked me off my feet. It was love at first sight.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. I think we need to backtrack a bit to find out just why I let this beautiful angel to storm into my life and take me by surprise.

The day had started off bad. No. That's wrong. The entire week had started out bad. But that morning had been the worst.

I'd woken up to the sound of the couple next door arguing—nothing really new—only to realize that the power had gone out the night before due to a bad storm. I'd opened my eyes to find the numbers 12:00 continuously blinking in my face.

Glancing at my watch, I'd see that it was quarter to seven. I was late!

Skipping my jog that morning hadn't been a big deal. I would try to make it up during my lunch break; if I got one, that is. So I quickly jumped into the shower to find that I had absolutely no hot water.

The day was getting worse by the passing minutes.

I didn't have enough time to call my landlord and get him up there to fix it, so I braved the icy stream of water and took my shower in record time. Even worse, when I finally did call the landlord, he'd told me that the hot water was out in the entire building and it wasn't going to be fixed until later in the week. Oh, joy.

Traffic had been miserable. An accident had cars backed up for miles and I'd called ahead to D to let him know of the situation. We both knew I wasn't going to make the morning briefing.

Finally, after sitting in my car for twenty minutes—and stuck behind a bus nonetheless—I'd arrived at the Hoover Building. At least I'd managed to remember to grab my wallet from the top of my dresser because I wouldn't have been able to make it through security without it. It was one good thing among a dozen bad ones.

If I hadn't already known this just wasn't going to be my day, it would have occurred to me when I saw that the elevator had been shut down for routine maintenance. At least I didn't have to trek all the way up the stairs to the sixth floor anymore. It was one of the good reasons for this little office switcheroo Lucy had arranged.

I don't even remember what time I'd finally ended up strolling into the bullpen. All I could remember was the hot, sticky feeling of my skin. The room was like an oven because the air conditioner wasn't working properly and Randy Pitts, office dictator extraordinaire, was taking his dear old sweet time of getting it repaired.

Just perfect.

But seeing as though, I couldn't do anything about it, I simply rolled up my sleeves and dug into the mountain of paperwork that seemed to have grown overnight.

I was working on the third report when I began thinking that I needed a change; that something was missing from my life. And it bothered me that I couldn't figure out just what that was.

That was when she entered my life; the angel with burning hazel eyes.

She told me that her name was Sue Thomas and that she was looking for a transfer. She was very adamant and blunt with her story, explaining how hard she'd had to work to get where she was. Why she was telling this to me, I had no idea. Then it hit me. Our new office used to be Personnel and I was almost positive they hadn't changed the directory yet.

Standing up, I tried to give her an apologetic look as I explained to her that she had the wrong office. Her embarrassment was obvious, a rosy tinge tinting her porcelain white cheeks as she spouted her own apology for bothering me.

But she hadn't bothered me at all. In fact, seeing her had been the highlight of my day. She was a breath of fresh air and I had to know more about her. And I would too. Even if I had to chase her through the entire Hoover Building, I would find Miss Sue Thomas again. And if I was lucky, I would never let her go.