Reckoning in the Sunshine State

Chapter Three

I arrived at the Loews Lakewood Corporate Offices for my orientation. I messaged my mother I had arrived and got a notification on Life360 that my little sister liked my location. I messaged her back on the app, Creep. She sent the laughing emoji and winking face shortly after. I closed my phone and walked up to the one story building.

I walked inside and there were quite a few people and even a line for security-check. Once it was my turn I was able to greet the security officer, he was a tall man, maybe six-foot or so. I was wanded down and my bag was x-rayed. Shortly after I was able to walk up to the check-in desk where a woman who had a clipboard was checking for names. After that was complete I found an empty seat and waited. It was 1:45 PM and there was still 15 minutes before Orientation started.

As the last few people checked I looked around the room wondering if this was all for front desk agents like myself or was it a mixing pot. I began shaking my leg as my ears began to hear the ticking sound of an analog clock that was above me. Shit. What were the chances?

"Excuse me, is this seat taken?" A voice asks, breaking my thoughts and my leg stops shaking as I look up to meet a pair of brown eyes. His black hair is like a thousand coils, but it's not really an afro. They fall just about his eyes and the rest of his hair is about halfway down his neck. He has full lips and an amazing full smile. He's tall, skin dark like the color chocolate, and very attractive. His hair reminds me of the actor Corbin Bleu from High School Musical and for a moment I forget that he asked me a question until his smile turns sheepish.

"Oh! Sure you can sit here." I say moving over even though there is plenty of space for the both of us comfortable in our individual chairs. Then I remember that he had asked if the seat was taken but my response didn't match the question he had inquired.

"I mean, no, the seat is not taken. Feel free," I say, making a waving motion with my hands presenting the seat next to me and I can only hope I have enough foundation on that prevents a blush from showing on my face. He chuckles a bit and proceeds to sit next to me.

"Kenny," he says, offering me his hand to shake.

"Nicki," I reply, smiling back, and shaking his hand. His hand was nice and cool compared to how hot it was outside. It's hard to believe that he would have been outside just before coming up to me.

"Nice to meet you," he says before letting go of my hand. I almost held it more than I should but decided to use both my hands to hold my phone instead of embarrassing myself any further.

"Likewise," I respond, mentally forehead slapping myself. Who talks like this? Get a grip!

"So I'm curious if everyone here for orientation is part of the same work position, but with my line of work I would be concerned if that was the case. What position will you be working here?" He asks me in a slight New York accent and I'm a little confused by his statement.

"Ah, Front Desk. What about yourself?" I ask.

"Site Reliability Engineer or SRE for short," he says and I'm a bit confused but understand now why that would be strange. There were about 30 people here and if we were all engineers that would be a little strange, I would guess anyway.

"What does an SRE do?" I ask perplexed at a job title I had never heard of before.

"I work using software tools to automate IT infrastructure tasks such as system management and application monitoring," he explains and my lips pull tightly and while my forehead furrows. He chuckles and I'm sure this is not the first time someone has been confused about his explanation of his job.

"Let's just say I work in IT." He says and I nod my head smiling.

"Gotcha," I say, not knowing what else to say. Before he is able to ask me anything else the woman who checked me in begins speaking.