The World As We Know It

Chapter 4: Reverie

Art credit: the.diamonds.sword on Instagram

Walking over to the elevator at the end of the parking garage of her office building, Yelena hit the elevator button with one of her gloved fingers before waiting for the doors to open. Once the elevator doors parted a few seconds later, Yelena entered into the elevator and pressed the button for the office floor.

The elevator only managed to travel up one floor before stopping once again. Moving over to the corner of the elevator, Yelena expected a large crowd to enter when the doors would open, but to her surprise, only one person was waiting behind the elevator doors.

And that person being, was Blair Dorsey.

By now, it had been several months since Blair had started working at the office, and since then, the two had only interacted only a handful of times. Yelena had made a point to avoid interacting with her, not because she disliked Blair, but because quite the opposite, Yelena had developed a small crush on her.

Blair was just so intimidatingly beautiful that Yelena always found herself being anything but composed around her presence. Yelena hated feeling so out of control of her emotions, so to avoid being seen as a fool, Yelena just flat out ignored Blair all together, unless their work forced them to collaborate with each other.

Entering into the elevator, Blair sent a smile over to Yelena, who tried her best to give a casual nod in return. Yelena could feel her face heat up from the gesture, making her thankful for the cold that already flushed her cheeks.

Looking down at her hands, Yelena pulled off her gloves from her clammy hands and stuffed them into her pockets. She could feel nervous butterflies that formed in her stomach, now squeezing at her lungs. The silence between the two felt incredibly awkward, and Yelena desperately wanted to remove herself from the situation.

"It's freezing outside." Blair said, clearly trying to engage in some form of small talk. "I heard it might snow tonight."

"Maybe upstate." Yelena countered, with not a single hint of nervousness in her voice, even though it secretly overtook her body.

Blair hummed and the elevator went silent once again. The elevator would go up two floors before she would speak again.

"I've been meaning to ask you something for a while now." Blair began as she turned to face Yelena. "I was wondering if you would like to go to dinner with me? There's this restaurant not too far from where I live, and I figured I could invite you... if you aren't busy."

Yelena could only blink as she took a second to fully understand what Blair had said to her. She definitely wasn't expecting Blair to ask her to dinner, her mind just naturally assumed that she would ask her something work related.

"Sure." Yelena answered a few moments later. "I'm available this weekend."

"Great!" Blair exclaimed, her pretty smile returning to her face. "How does Saturday at six sound?"

"That works." Yelena agreed, flicking her eyes nervously away from Blair once she felt her face warm up again.

The elevator suddenly dings, alerting the two that they have arrived at their designated floor. Once the elevator doors part open, Yelena lets Blair exit the elevator first before exiting herself.

"I'll see you on Saturday then." Blair nodded, sending Yelena one last smile, before heading over to her office.

Yelena stood frozen by the elevator, as she took a moment to process what had happened between the two. Finally snapping out of her trance a few minutes later, Yelena realized she had been standing by the elevator for an unusual amount of time. Quickly regaining her usual composure, Yelena made her way over to her office, scolding herself for acting so strange around Blair.