Paper Wings

"You're an-- asshole?"

Martin was barely smothering his chuckles into his beer as he leaned back against the doorframe, the casual action drawing Paige's eyes to how his tux highlighted broad shoulders. Shoulders she'd never really noticed in his business casual garb.

She thumped the back of her head against the opposing side of the frame she found herself leaning on. "I know. It just came out. I turned around and he was there and being so smarmy and I couldn't just--"

"-- keep your mouth shut. You've said."

Paige curled her free hand high on her stomach against the dark grey of her formal gown, the soft, glossy textures catching her eye in the low light. She raised her head, not wanting to be observed by other passersby as though she were ashamed of herself. Damned Irish pride.

She took a sip of the water in her champagne flute. "What am I going to do? I'm gone, come Monday morning. Pink slip of doom."

Martin's mouth turned down. And it was a lovely mouth, something else she'd never noticed before. But that was probably because he was always clean-shaven at work and now... now, he'd let a short beard grow out that framed the aforementioned lips she'd not paid attention to. Likely due to the time off he'd taken recently.

"They're not going to cut you loose over a little verbal vomit. This is an after-hours event."

Paige tossed back the remainder of her water as though it were liquid courage and reached out to deposit it on a passing waiter's tray. "This is a company-sponsored event."

"And someone always gets hammered at the Christmas party and says something they regret," Martin said. "Nobody's ever gotten fired over it, to my knowledge."

Paige sighed and shifted her hands behind her, trying to keep from nervously clutching at her skirt. "I just hate to have all the professional groundwork I've laid get swept away by eggnog. Three years I've been here. I was going to apply for that Project Manager position that went up on the intranet."

She wanted to be at home, burying her face in a couch cushion and binge-watching something on Netflix. This evening of dressing up and putting on a show that she'd been looking forward to had gone to hell before she'd been able to blink.

After polishing off his beer, Paige watched Martin study his bottle, his face contemplative and rough-hewn and something she suddenly wanted between her palms as it descended toward her upturned face.

She looked down and away, pride forgotten, face burning hot. What was going on with her? Martin was the guy who hosted Star Wars marathons and organized trivia nights at local bars for his IT team, who'd park himself in her recliner with a fantasy novel while she caught up on crappy reality TV shows. He was earthy and occasionally unapproachable because when he was frustrated, thunderclouds loomed in his gaze, but he had never been fantasy fodder.

Doubts assailed her and she realized she was breathing fast, panicking as she realized another confession was about to spill out, this one even more damaging than the first. Because if she misstepped on this, she'd lose her best friend.

"Hey."

She looked up, realizing Martin had stepped away from his side of the frame into the middlespace of the doorway, his hand outstretched.

"Mistletoe! You guys gotta kiss!" Verna from accounting had pointed at the two of them from where she'd grown roots at the bar and nearly every head in the small ballroom twisted to observe the spectacle.

Paige would've given anything in that moment to have something with heft to chuck at the number-crunching lush.

Her eyes tracked to Martin, who hadn't looked away from her. Her insides felt like they'd been kicked by a horse but she reached out to put her hand in his, her lips rolling inward to press together to keep from quivering.

One of his gold-brown eyebrows lofted in question. "You okay with this?"

Blowing out a breath, Paige thought, Don't hate me, Don't hate me, and stepped into his space.

He lifted her hand to his lips and banded the other arm around her middle, drawing her closer, and Paige exhaled loudly as her blood thundered through her veins.

"My breath probably smells like eggnog. It's not too late for you. You can still make it out alive," she laughed nervously while his mouth lingered on the backs of her fingers.

"And lose my chance?"

"Your... what?"

"Be my Leia. Let me be your Han," he whispered near her ear.

Her head tipped back with a laugh. "You scruffy-looking Nerfherder." Tears were gathering in the corners in her eyes and she couldn't blame that on her earlier adult beverages.

He was smiling down at her now, cinching her tighter to him.

"That a yes?"

She locked her arms around his neck. "Well, it's no moon."

When he kissed her, she felt her heart explode into a thousand paper cranes taking wing and she was ever-so-grateful he hadn't asked her to be his space station.