Falling For You

Lunch

"You think I'm scary?" she asked quietly, her eyes still on the view of downtown. I guess I had said that a little louder than I meant to.

I gazed at the remains of the aquarium, hoping that most of the creatures were alive, since the building had a piece of the roof collapsed. Several other taller buildings looked to be in rough shape, as was ours, and over all the whole city just looked tired. As though everything had somehow sagged because the city was exhausted.

"Yes, you're scary. I thought that was what you were going for?" I admitted.

She looked over at me with a little smirk. "It is, absolutely. If the assholes I deal with don't fear me they'll try to take advantage of me. I don't like that. I'd rather make them wet their pants when we're done in a meeting."

I knew what she meant. I had a coworker names Jenny that constantly complained that nobody took her seriously because she was a girl. We even tested something, where we both submitted identical proposals, and hers was shot down where mine went through. Maybe if people were terrified of her, things would be different, but it shouldn't have to be that way.

"If I wet my pants today, I'll give you credit then, though it might be this view instead." I nodded towards downtown, and she just nodded in agreement.

"Come on, let's get out of here. I don't think we want to stick around if we can help it," she suggested.

I was on board with that plan, and with a last look at the view we headed for the closest staircase. We were travelling down the other staircase this time, since it was closer, and it was just as dark as the other. Eli had her phone out, and it kept a steady light for us as we walked quickly down the stairs. I had no idea how much of a charge she had left, but I hoped there was enough for a few more hours. Really, I had no idea how long it would take to climb down so many flights of stairs, but I was hoping that we'd make it with no more drama.

Earthquakes and snow in Atlanta were more than enough.

Our shoes echoed though out the stairwell, and it was very disconcerting. I didn't like the silence, but what do you say to the CEO's scarily hot daughter? Better to let the silence reign.

"So how do you like the IT department?" Eli asked while keeping her eyes looking down the stairs.

Well, consider the silence broken.

That seemed pretty safe though. "IT is good. I was a computer science major, so it was what I had been hoping for."

"Isn't it boring though? I could use someone with IT knowledge in Acquisitions. Ever think about moving over to us?" she wondered.

Well, that was interesting. "I mean, you do have a roof, while my office doesn't!
I joked. "But why would you need an IT person over there? And why me?"

"Do you know what we do over in Acquisitions?" She spared me a glance as we rounded the corner around the 63rd floor. Yep, still scary and hot.

"You buy new companies, take the good parts and sell the rest," I replied. I wasn't sure that was all they did, but that was what I understood.

I could see her head nodding as she agreed with my answer, and then she stopped the next time we came to a landing, causing me to stop as well. "You're not wrong. At a high level that is probably what it looks like. But we also need to do careful analysis of what companies we buy, and which parts we keep and sell. A lot of that involves data mining and trend analysis, both of which you're very good at."

I stopped breathing for a moment when she said that. "How did you know that?" I wondered.

"I research the people I'm interested in. My team is the best run in the company, and if I'm going to recruit someone, I want to know everything about them before I bring them aboard," she explained. "You might want to change your Tuesday Thai order by the way. Pad Thai gets old after a while. Try switching it up Tyler."