False Starts

Chapter 4

“DUNHAM, you’re doing Omaha, right?”

              Abbie looked up from her laptop and frowned at Owen. “Is that automatic? Because I kind of don’t think I should.”

              Her boss raised an eyebrow. “And why is that?”

              She shrugged. “I just think I have a biased eye for these things,” she said. “You saw the Charlotte pics, you were complaining about them not five minutes ago.”

              Owen sighed. “You missed the point, Abbie,” he muttered. “It wasn’t that they were mostly of Ryan. I was complaining about how we didn’t have enough out of water photos of him for a photo profile.”

              “What?” Abbie gave Owen a confused look. “When did we decide we were going to do a profile on Ryan?” Everyone at the conference table looked at her and Abbie started to feel like she missed something. Sometime between Owen going through this week’s assignments and handing out next week’s, Abbie had started a Twitter conversation with Michael on her laptop, and her attention had split, which was never good.

               “Come on, Dunham, keep up!” Owen said in exasperation. Normally, he was a kind, considerate, soft-spoken employer, but end of the week staff meetings tended to put him on edge. “What have you been doing this whole time?”

               “I’m sorry, O, I was just –“Abbie reset with a wave of her hand. “Never mind. Whatever you need, I’m all yours.”

                “All right, then. You’ve got Omaha with Noel. Drop by Gretchen’s desk before you leave so you can discuss your travel plans.” Addressing the whole room, he continued with the meeting. “We’ll talk about the Lochte profile after the Olympic trials. What do we have up next with the Gators?”

                Abbie blew out a quick breath and turned back to her laptop. At least, she would finally have an answer when Ryan asked. “Hey, @MichaelPhelps, it looks like I’ll be seeing you in a few days,” she tweeted, tuning out Owen, who was now yelling about the bright pink someone had chosen for the editorial page.

      A minute later, Michael had tweeted a reply. “Oh, @abbiekadabri, I hope that means what I think it means! But I hope you don’t mind seeing me before then.:) ”

      Curious about what he meant, Abbie would have replied but the meeting was over and she had to do some actual work. Her phone vibrated and she pulled it out of her pocket as she made her way back to her desk. “Does your tweet to Michael mean you’re going to Omaha?” said Ryan’s text.

                Of course, Ryan had seen the tweet. She just didn’t think he’d be looking right now, seeing as how he was training. Apparently he was on a break or something, and had taken the time to check his Twitter feed.

                “Yes, Ry, it does,” Abbie quickly replied.

                “How come he gets a tweet and I don’t?” said the next one.

                She sighed as she replied, “Because I was gonna come over later and tell you anyway.”

                “Sweet. Bring food. Later, Spazzee.”

                Abbie rolled her eyes and went back to work. Since it was Friday and Ryan would be leaving for Omaha on Monday, Abbie decided she would drop by his place to hang out. It had been two weeks since she’d been back in Gainesville and after the last time they went out, she hadn’t seen Ryan at all. Not that she minded much, knowing that he was training.