Lucky Coincidence // Stuart Twombly

V

"Good morning, Mister Watts," Lara chimed gleefully as she entered her boss's office twenty minutes early.

"Lara, good morning. You're in a happy mood," He noticed and Lara nodded. 

"Yes, I came to talk to you about that promotion," She said. 

"Very well, have a sea-" Before he could finish his sentence, she had plopped down in the chair. 

"I'm doing it," She smiled and tried to hide her overexcitement. 

"That is great to hear," Sebastian stated and offered her a genuine smile. "Of course, we'll have to arrange a lot, but there is a meeting in two hours about the general set up of the program, you're welcome to join them if you want to. You can get to know the team and the whole idea of the program." 

"That would be great, are you sure I can leave for a bit?" She asked. 

"Absolutely, I'll be fine," Sebastian chuckled. 

"Okay, great. This is great, thank you so much." Lara stood up from her seat and exited the office with excitement bubbling in her stomach. She sat down in her desk chair and sunk her teeth in her bottom lip to calm herself down. She brushed a hand through her hair as she blew out a long breath. 

She spent the next two hours scribbling down small ideas for the program, using the information Stuart had given her last night. After he had signed up for the internship, he had received an email with detailed information. 

Turns out it wasn't an actual internship. It was a competition in which the winning group could gain an internship in any of Google's departments. This had surprised Lara, to say the least, because around her, Stuart seemed like a really open and social guy but around people he didn't know, he was the most introverted person she had ever met, exactly like he had been when they had been forced to sit next to each other during Chemistry back in High School. He relied on his phone a lot when he was with people he didn't know or who he didn't like and could come off as quite an unpleasant person to be around. 

So to say she was curious how he was planning on gaining a spot on the winning team was an understatement. 

She checked her phone and saw she had fifteen minutes until the meeting would start so she figured she could stop by the cafeteria to grab a quick snack and apologize to Oscar again. She still felt guilty about having to reject his offer. 

She gathered everything she thought she would need and stuffed it in her messenger bag before she heaved it on her shoulder and started her journey through the Google headquarters and down to the cafeteria. Sebastian's office was on the third floor and to stay slightly in shape, Lara used the stairs and tried to avoid the elevator and the escalators as much as she could, she only used the elevator when she was in a rush.

The cafeteria came into sight and to her surprise, Lara didn't see Oscar's cheerful smile behind the counter, instead, Amelia was there. Amelia often worked in the kitchen, but Lara had seen her behind the counter sometimes. "Amelia, good morning. Where is Oscar?" 

"Hi, Lara. I don't know, he asked if I could cover his shift," The girl shrugged as she was polishing a glass jar. 

"Oh, okay. Well, could I have a banana?" Lara asked. 

"Sure, here you go." Amelia handed her the banana. "Anything else?" 

"No, that was all. Thank you." Lara waved her goodbye and continued her trip to the conference section of the building. Once she had found the right one, she saw the door was already open. She peered through the glass and found an Asian looking man, a young guy with curly hair, and Dana Simms. 

The brunette spotted Lara behind the glass and waved her inside. "Lara, so good that you could make it." 

"Dana, hi, I didn't know you were on this team as well?" Lara said, more as a question than a statement. 

"Yeah, I've been on it for two years," Dana smiled. "Let me introduce you to everyone. This is Lyle, he kind of does this year's program to discover any flaws for coming years so we can work them out. He joins a group and does the program just like any other intern but he's not really an intern," Dana stated as she introduced the curly haired guy. 

"Hi, nice to meet you." Lara held out her hand but Lyle went straight for a fist bump. Lara awkwardly balled her fist and softly fist bumped him.

"Lara Atkinson, right?" Lyle asked and she nodded. "Well, it's good to have another Brit on the team." 

"I'm Australian, Lyle," Dana chimed. 

"Right, knew that," Lyle muttered, earning a giggle from Lara. "You are from England, right?" 

"Yes, I am. I grew up there and moved to the States when I was fourteen," Lara replied.

"Awesome," Lyle stated softly.

"This is Roger Chetty, you will be leading the program alongside him." Dana motioned to the Asian man sitting at the head of the table.

Lara stepped up to him and offered him a handshake, which he took. His large hand nearly fully covered all of Lara's. "It's so nice to meet you, Mister Chetty. Thank you for letting me join the team," She smiled gratefully.

"The pleasure is all mine, Miss Atkinson. I've heard good things about you from Sebastian," Mister Chetty said.

"You know Mister Watts?" Lara frowned slightly.

"Of course, he's a good friend of mine. He was the one who asked me if you could join the team." Chetty stepped back. "Alright everyone, Eleanor will not be joining us today so we can start this very first meeting." He clapped his hands and everyone found a seat at the oval-shaped table.

"We will be changing a few things from last year, we want the teams to be more active. Does anyone have a suggestion?" Chetty started.

Both Lyle and Lara raised their hand. "Yes, Lara."

"We could include some kind of sports match? It is good for the team spirit and it will hopefully give them the motivation to actually participate if they could gain points with it."

"Great idea, anyone else?" Chetty looked around the room. "Lyle?"

"I agree with Lara, a sports activity could take their minds off of being so focused on winning that they forget to have fun. We could do a Quidditch match?" He suggested.

"Quidditch?" Dana asked.

"Yeah, it's the sport they play in Harry Potter," Lyle said.

"Yes, I know that but how do you suppose we do that? Those brooms flew in the movie. As far as I know, Google hasn't developed those," Dana continued.

"I know, but there is an actual sport made out of it. People run around with brooms between their legs as they try to score points," Lyle elaborated.

"That just sounds ridic-"

"We'll do it. Lyle, you're in charge of this one. I expect you to arrange everything. Lara, would you like to help him?" Chetty intervened.

"I would love to," Lara grinned at Lyle, who replied with a nervous smile.