Wicked Games

Echoes of Silence

The next few weeks went by fast. I ran into Brandon a few times on break, or getting coffee, or even during lunch. I noticed him looking at me, but I never really said much. The mark on his head finally went down and I prayed he didn't go around telling people I hit him with the door.
About a month later from the door incident, my boss called Alex and I into her office and explained to us that an internal employee was going to be transferring to our team from another department. I instantly got a bad feeling.

"Um, which department?" I asked.

"Finance" my boss replied.

My heart felt like it was in my throat.

"Actually, here he is now!" My boss motioned to the doorway.

Alex and I turned around to see Brandon walking through the doorway and smile a huge smile at us. He was wearing a fitted blue suit with a white button-down shirt that showed off his impressive muscles and... are those tattoos?

Oh God, I thought to myself. I have a weakness for tattoos, and I couldn't tear my eyes away from his chest where some seemed to be peaking through his tight shirt. Alex cleared her throat to get me to pull me out of my trance.

"This is Brandon James, he will be your new teammate." My boss says to Alex and myself.

Brandon smiles a dazzling white smile and I slightly roll my eyes in his direction. I want him to know that while ever other girl in this place may be all over him, I will NOT be one of those girls.

"Oh this is gonna be funnnn" Alex whispers to me.

We all exit my boss's office and head to where our clusters of desks are. Not only do I not like Brandon, I'm worried about how this is going to affect the team. Alex and I have always worked so well together, we basically can read each other's' minds when it comes to work stuff. I don't know how adding a third person to the team is going to mess with that dynamic.

I walk up to my desk and start getting back to work, not bothering to even look Brandon's way.

"Here you can sit on the other side of Izzie!" Alex says enthusiastically.

I glare at her. I know what she's trying to do and it is not going to work. I will not get involved with this dude, plus he has a girlfriend, right? Brandon slides into the seat next to me. We have a open floor desk layout, meaning that our desks are pretty close and you don't really have dividers between you and the people next to you. I really wish we had cubicles. I continue to work without even glancing in Brandon's direction. He is setting up his desk, which doesn't take very long since he hasn't been at the company for more than 2 months. I do see he has one picture on his desk and I lean over to take a quick peek. It's of Brandon and some other boy when they were younger. A brother maybe?

"Alex, could you come in my office for a moment please?" My boss call from the doorway.

Alex gets up and walks into my boss's office and shuts the door. As soon as the door closes, I feel a hand on my knee. I instinctively jerk away.

"I'm sorry, I said your name, but it looked like you were deep in thought and didn't hear me" Brandon says.

"Oh, my bad. It just took me off guard" I reply while trying not to blush. I haven't really had any male contact in over a year since I broke up with my ex.

"Haven't been touched in while I see..." Brandon says so quietly I'm not even sure I heard him correctly.

"What?"

"Look Iz, I just—"

"Its Izzie or Isabella"

"I'm sorry, Izzie. I just wanted to say that I don't know what I did to make you not like me, but whatever it is can we talk about it? If were going to be teammates, I don't want it to be awkward." He says shyly.

I think about what he is saying and decide its not worth the trouble to talk about everything when I don't even know why I don't like him. Is it because all the girls are talking about him? Or what he said in the break room to me? He probably didn't even mean it that way.

"No, you have nothing to be sorry for. I'm just having a bad day and I'm sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable on your first day here." I say with a smile.

As I finish talking Alex walks out of our boss's office and practically skips over to Brandon and me.

"Guesssssss what guys!" she says excitedly.

"What?" both Brandon and I say in unison. We both look at one another and I immediately blush.

"Jinx" he says whiling winking at me.

"The big boss gave us money out of the budget to do a team building event. He said it would be great for all of us to hang out and get to know each other" Alex says.

"I would love that" Brandon speaks as he glances in my direction, making me blush.

What is this man doing to me?

"Great! Now what do you guys wanna do? I was thinking dinner and drinks since Izzie and I loooveeee Mexican food and tequila. But we can definitely do something beforehand! Any ideas?"

"How about an escape room? Apparently, there's a new one downtown that just opened." Brandon suggests.

"Izzie loves those things! How many have you done? Like 100?"

I cough. "Um, no. Only a few. They're really fun" I say while blushing again, feeling Brandon's eyes on me.

Geez since when do I blush this much?

"Perfect it's a date then" Brandon says nonchalantly while giving us his best smile.

"When do you guys wanna do this?" Alex asks.

"Tonight." Brandon states.

Alex and I both look at him with questioning looks.

"What? Izzie said she's having a bad day, this should cheer her up" Brandon responds to us.

"Izzie..?" Alex says with concern.

"Yeah, sure, uh, tonight is great." I reply not wanting to have to talk about why my day has been bad.

Oh, lord a whole night out with Brandon, my new hot teammate, and Alex my best friend who thinks he has a crush on me. This should be fun...