Unfurling

Introducing Neesy

Heart still pounding, Paige sits at her desk wondering if she should be concerned about this guy. Knowing that they do background and security checks before hiring anyone regardless of whether it is a contractor, she cannot believe that David is a serious threat with the checks that are done.

Realizing that she needs to be on a conference call, she opens her calendar and selects the link so she will be connected. She focuses on the meeting and forgets about David.

Close to five, Paige sees that most of the office is packing up to head home for the evening. Feeling good about her productivity, she decides to do the same. She begins shutting down her apps and systems on her laptop, clears the top of her desk, and then when her laptop has shut down, loads it into her briefcase.

She pulls on her coat, grabs her briefcase and steps out into the office with the hordes of others walking out of the door.

Neesy steps up beside her and they chat while walking towards the door.

Plunking into his armchair in front of the window, he takes a gulp of his iced coffee knowing he needs the caffeine to make it through his shift tonight. He waits for the people to begin leaving their buildings and wonders how the couple in her building are holding up.

He isn’t concerned about seeing her because she usually doesn’t leave until after he’s gone to work. Wait, is that her? It is her!

She is in the middle of a mass of people exiting the building and once they hit the sidewalk, they stream into three sections. There’s a section that walks to the right, a section that heads across the street, and a section that heads to the left. She’s in the section heading to the left and she appears to be in a deep conversation with a long, leggy blonde.

I don’t remember seeing that blonde before, he thinks. She’s a looker too.

He watches as they talk and continue towards the parking garage. They pause outside of the vestibule and then he notices from the corner of his eye, a big man in the middle of another group of people. Looking closer, he sees it’s the maintenance man from her building on the sidewalk in a crowd of people attempting to blend in.

He’s too big to blend in, he thinks. What’s he doing now?

Paige says goodbye to Neesy and proceeds into the vestibule, stepping onto the elevator to head up to the floor with her car.

Neesy turns the corner and heads down the street to catch the bus as she shared with Paige her car was getting inspected.

He watches as the maintenance man hangs back enough to get into the next elevator with a crowd of people. The door opens on each floor with the maintenance man still visible in the corner. When it gets to the fourth floor, he watches the maintenance man look out of the elevator and then step off. He also notices that she is just getting into her little white car.

The shaggy maintenance man quickly steps back into the far corner of the elevator and the doors close.

He watches the little white car start heading down the floors to exit the parking garage. Briefly, he loses sight of the car and then it resurfaces outside of the parking garage, heading to the intersection then stopping at the red light.

Moving his eyes back to the parking garage, he sees the maintenance man coming out of the parking garage and walking back towards the office building.

Hmmm, he thinks. He hasn’t done that before.

Then he sees her car zipping out of the city. He should be feeling happy since he got to see her tonight before heading into work. Instead though, he’s feeling disconcerted about the maintenance man and wondering what exactly he is doing this evening. He’ll have to keep a closer eye on that man.

Paige is enjoying the drive home and grateful for the opportunity to leave work earlier than normal. The traffic is heavier but with the right tunes, she can put up with anything. Finding herself tapping the steering wheel to the song currently playing, she can’t help but thinking how the world might be a better place if everyone was always listening to music.