I'm struggling to focus - minimizing another handful of nonsense websites and pulling back up the statements I 'm supposed to be editing. My computer's glow is a window of white in the increasingly dark 25th floor. Shut up and get it done, I tell myself, drawing a deep breath and straightening up in the rolling chair. There's no manacle on my leg, no bars on the doors, but this office has always had a way of making me feel captive all the same. Rows of empty desks and bouncing screensavers sit beneath the ticking clock, whose longest hand waves in leisurely, torturous circles. A few rows over, the scrape of Jenna's chair against the carpet breaks the still air.
"You want a drink?" she says over her shoulder, headed toward the break room. Her green jacket stops just above her waistline and I find myself watching her hips rock under her cotton dress as she walks. Beneath it, I can see the faint outline of her underwear, an arc starting high on her hips and disappearing in the middle of her grey cotton curves.
"Sure," I call back, turning my eyes back to the screen. It's not a huge company, and even thought we only sit a few rows apart, I wouldn't say I know much about Jenna. You can make small talk with someone everyday and still know nothing about them. I guess there were a few things - I remember introducing meeting her boyfriend at the holiday party, the retention project she was leading that completely bombed, and I remember seeing her out on Houston St., but don't know if she ever saw me. I hardly recognized her then. She was dressed in tight jeans and a red top, leaning on a lamppost, face buried in her phone outside some dive bar.
"I thought you might be the type - no beer left," she says, setting a high ball glass at the corner of my desk.
"That looks like the end of productivity," I reply, dragging it over to watch three fingers of whiskey roll and lap against its sides. The pour she gave herself is just as generous, I could see.
"Cut the shit," she laughs, jabbing a finger at the chat windows and pages peaking from behind the documents I'd been staring blankly at. "Those a project you're working on?"
I stopped doing any actual work an hour ago, but somehow I was still in that chair, going through the motions. She saw right through it – maybe because she was doing the same thing.
"You should report me," I say, taking a slow sip. I try not to pull a face as it burns down my throat. "Rough day?"
"No more than any other," she says, retreating to her desk. Her fingers clatter on the keyboard for a moment before she looks up again. "And you?"
I shrug, falling back into the chair and letting my eyes wander over her features. The computer illuminates her features in the darkness– her thick, dark hair falling over her shoulders and a single, unruly curl dangling in her eyes. I've seen her lose her cool only a handful of times, when those brown eyes sharpen and her orderly white teeth clamp down to keep her mouth from saying things she might regret. I don't blame her. Really, it makes me like her more.
"What are you working on?" she asks after a few minutes.
I drop my eyes, afraid to be caught watching her.
"Other than this?" I hold my empty glass up. "You keeping up?"
I hear the ice cubes slosh as she drains the rest of hers. She holds the glass aloft, waving it at me. "Your turn."
"Yea, fine," I mumble, making my way to the break room to find the whiskey sitting on the countertop beside the fridge. Matching the height of the first round, I frown at how much of the bottle is already gone. This might be a painful morning.
"Ice, please."
Startled by sound of her voice in the doorway, I nearly drop it.
"A bit jumpy, aren't you?" she leans over my shoulder, the very edge of her body resting against mine. "It's been a long day," she adds, topping off both glasses.
