Unlikely Places

Chapter 21 Polar Opposites

An incoming email flashed in the lower right-hand corner of my screen. As I did with all of Mr. Jones's emails, I clicked on it immediately. Mr. Jones didn't contact me unless it was needed. I liked that about him. The least I could do was read and respond promptly.

I groaned as I saw another meeting had been scheduled for tomorrow. Considering I never went to the office and was now going twice in a span of a week, I was a bit frustrated. I wondered if this would be my new norm.

My mind immediately conjured an image of Pierce. I knew I had him to thank for the alterations taking place in my work life. They weren't impossible changes. I could cope. But they still irked me. Why all of the sudden did things need to be different?

'Chicken'

Pierce's last text flashed through my mind. What was his game? I hadn't been brave enough to find out and now that two days had passed it seemed a bit farfetched to try and reply now to find out.

I had ignored the message and the implied challenge. I had gotten brave and then backed off at the last minute when Pierce had responded with his irksome one-word provocation. For the life of me I wasn't sure why I hadn't.

The need to protect his feelings from what I had wanted to say seemed silly now. Pierce was a big boy and he certainly dished out whatever he was thinking. Why had I hesitated to respond in kind?

He wouldn't have fired me. Instead, his last reply of 'chicken' kind of made it feel like he had wanted me to speak my mind. But of course, that was part of the problem. I had never been the type of person to say whatever I wanted.

I subscribed to the old-fashioned theory of, if you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all and that just because I could doesn't mean I should.

Two concepts I felt sure Piece had never met in his life.

He and I were total opposites. I was a lump of coal and he was the hidden bright and flashy bauble beneath. He spoke his mind, I stayed silent. He was elegant and refined, I was boringly normal. He was elite and I was... well... not.

Polar opposites yet with an undeniable attraction.

It was tortuously confounding. One minute I wanted to run and in the next I couldn't look away. My body reacted to his presence. My mind shied away. My heart beat faster and my nerves screamed. He affected every molecule of my being so that I could feel myself now in a way I never had before, layer by layer.

If that wasn't the very definition of discombobulating, I didn't know what was.

I sighed again, something I had been doing a lot lately as my tangled thoughts beat at me. With determination I shrugged them off and went back to work. Numbers I understood. Numbers made sense. Numbers held irrefutable logic. I needed some of that right now.

***

I arrived at the same conference room that we had met in before. Mr. Jones hadn't met me downstairs this time as I now knew where to go. I braced myself before turning the doorknob and stepped into the room. I needn't have been worrying. Pierce was not present.

"Glad you could finally join us," Fern said into the silence.

I turned to look at him with a questioning frown. I glanced at my watch. I was five minutes early. His tone implied I was late.

I stepped further into the room and noted everyone from the last meeting was present except for Pierce. Mr. Jones gave me his normal salutation of a brief smile and Amber beamed a welcome my way. TJ and Fern's expressions remained the same as they had upon our last meeting. Possibly even a little more unwelcoming if possible.