Broken Souls Don't Cry

Chapter 7

Kai

Kai looked down at his phone that had just gone off with an email notification. Work was kind of slow at the moment and his orientation had ended an hour ago. Kai was familiarizing himself with his cubicle and others in the office. It seemed like a nice place to work, and his coworkers were friendly. Justin, one of the people from his interview, was in a cubicle next to his. Kai would mainly be working with Justin for now, learning about Sudo's clients, what programs they use for their IT needs, who is difficult to work with, and other points of contact for the different clients.

The email he had received was from his philosophy professor with the project details and contact information for his partner. He added Sara's information into his phone so he could text her later and find out when they could get together to start planning for their project.

"Kai," Justin popped his head over the top of the cubicle, "Janice from Stewart and Associates needs help logging into her computer. Is that something you want me to walk you through or do you think you can handle it?"

"Would you mind walking me through it? I can be on the phone with her doing the work if you'd be ok telling me what to do since I'm still not sure where to find everything in Sudo's system."

"Yeah, I can do that. Give me a second and I'll transfer her call to your phone"

A moment later Kai's desk phone rang, and Justin rolled his chair over into his cubicle to join him. "Sudo, this is Kai" Janice started speaking, telling him what her problem was and the things she had tried to log into her account. He asked a few clarifying questions, such as if she was a work from home employee or an onsite one. Each one had slightly different access to the client's main system and resetting the password would be different for Kai.

With Justin's help in navigating the back end of the system for Stewart and Associates Kai was able to reset her password and get her logged in. He hung up the phone and thanked Justin for his help.

Kai took a few more similar calls, and he was able to manage them on his own. 7:00 rolled around and he logged out of his computer ready to head home for the day.

Reaching his car, he decided to send Sara a text before taking off. He didn't want to text her too late in the evening.

"Sara, this is Kai from Philosophy class. I was wondering if you had anytime tomorrow before class that we could get together and discuss possible options for our project?"

Yeah, Kai thought, that looks ok. It's not like I'm asking her on a date. He hit send and backed out of his parking spot to head home.

**

Sara

Sara was working on an assignment for her Social Development class when she heard her phone vibrate. She looked down at her watch to see the notification come through there to decide whether or not to look at her phone. She liked to use her smart watch as a gauge on whether or not things were important, otherwise she'd constantly be on her phone getting distracted. Her heart hammered when she saw the first few words of the text. It was from Kai.

She pulled out her phone to read the whole text.

"Sara, this is Kai from Philosophy class. I was wondering if you had anytime tomorrow before class that we could get together and discuss possible options for our project?"

She knew he'd gotten her number from the email the professor sent out. She fidgeted; she didn't really like the idea of him having her number. What if he gave it to someone else? Knowing she was being slightly irrational she pulled up her calendar to go over her day for tomorrow. She had two classes in the morning, an hour for lunch, and then Philosophy afterwards. She had work at the shelter this afternoon.

Sara: "Kai, I have some time around 9am, then I have classes until noon. We could meet in the morning or over my lunch break. What works for you?"

She set her phone down to keep working on her assignment. Thirty minutes later she received another text.

Kai: "Over lunch sounds great, meet in the food court at noon?"

Sara: "Sounds good. I usually like to grab a smoothie before heading to class."

Kai: "Perfect. I'll see you by the Jamba Juice then?"

Sara: "Ok"

Putting her phone down again she continued to try and work on her project, but thoughts of her meeting tomorrow with Kai kept gnawing at her mind. She hoped he wouldn't ask her questions about what happened in high school or after. That wasn't something she wanted to discuss with him, ever. She needed to move around, sitting in this desk was starting to feel like torture.

Letting out a sigh Sara stood up from her desk to go check on Casey.

"Casey" She said as she knocked on her door, "Would you like to go for a run with me? I have some pent-up frustrations and need to hit the pavement"

"Sure thing boss!" Casey grinned up at her over the top of her laptop. "Let me get changed, I could use a break from Econ"

Five minutes later they left their apartment to take a jog around the city.