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“It’s gonna be fine, it’s gonna be fine, it’s fine, it’s fine it’s fine, I got this.” Asher whispers under his breath as he steps out of the subway station and onto the busy Manhattan street, squinting slightly at the brightness.
He probably looks like a loon, he thinks, whispering to himself like that, but he would look more like a loon if he started crying on the street, so best to keep his mantra going – or at least say it in his head for now. The nerves are like a pit of cement in his stomach, but also a piranha eating him from the inside out. As he makes his way towards the looming office building at the end of the block, making himself as small as possible and trying not to bump into anyone – why can’t people walk on the right side of the pavement? It’s not that difficult and it would make everything easier for everyone – while also making sure not to scowl at any of his fellow pedestrians – they might be having a hard day too, who knows – Asher repeats his steady mantra as best he can through all the lurking anxious thoughts that bite at his consciousness. Easier said than done, but it’s the most he can do for now, until he gets inside his office building and finds Yindra, who was kindly ready to pep talk him all weekend if it meant their presentation going off without a hitch.
Before he can launch himself through the doors, a person launches out of them, a guy in a highlighter yellow vest and shorts, not also highlighter yellow, thank goodness, the vest can probably be allowed as it seems to be for safety – the guy almost slams into Asher as he exits the building, heading towards a bike fastened to the closest streetlight.
“Oh! Dude, I am so sorry!” The guy – Asher can barely concentrate on his apology as the guy smiles and looks him in the eye. His smile, his whole demeanour, catches Asher off-guard for more than a moment, before Asher realises he’s dropped all his notes and remembers he’s about to be late for a Very Important Presentation.
“No problem, uh don’t worry about it,” Asher blurts as he scrambles for the notes falling out of his folder. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he thinks, he should have replaced his folder back in his bag before he got off the subway; he should have timed his arrival better so that he wasn’t rushing off the train; he should have gone to bed earlier last night so he had more time this morning; he should have – Asher is pulled from his thoughts again by the dashing messenger, who hands him two of the pages blown further adrift.
“Thank you, um,” he hesitates to say more, before again recalling his haste, “I have to go, um, important meeting,” he gestures to his folder and heads for the office doors, taking one last glance at the guy, who smiles again in response.
~~~
Wow, wow oh wow. Dylan had just met possibly the cutest guy on the surface of the planet (are there cute guys not on the surface of the planet? Aliens? Miners? Anyway-) and he’d practically trampled him. What’s the point of wearing an awesome bright yellow vest if you still can’t safely navigate the busy streets of Manhattan without crashing into cute guys? Or maybe that shouldn’t be seen as a bad thing!
Dylan glances up at the huge building, with huge letters spelling out the name of some marketing firm, and sighs. By now, the gorgeous young office worker could be anywhere from the first to the fortieth floor, probably talking to some cool office colleagues with fashionable patterned shirts and forgetting all about the guy who had just crashed into him. Anyway, anyway, anyway – c’est la vie (Isa had taught him this phrase, French for ‘that’s life’ but way more fun to say).
Dylan turns to the signpost where he parked his bike, grappling with the fact that life is able to hand you an encounter with a gorgeous man on the street and then rip it away from you the same way Taylor Swift almost won the Album of the Year Grammy for Red but tragically lost to Daft Punk. Just as he’s reminding himself to listen to Red later and think especially of cute office guys, Dylan spies the paper lodged in the wheel of his bike.
No way. No way no way no way! This is Fate! Dylan thinks as he grabs the sheet from its forlorn situation pressed between his bike tyre and the dusty pavement. It is! A rogue sheet from the same notes that the office guy dropped when Dylan accidentally dislodged them. A name at the top, under the same marketing firm logo that Dylan was just staring at (but obviously way, way smaller), demarks the notes as belonging to one Asher Garcia. Wow, of course he also has a beautiful name, fit for his beautiful face! But Asher said he has an important meeting and now he’s missing the first page of his notes!
Dylan quickly checks his bike is still securely fastened to the signpost, before launching himself back inside the crazy big skyscraper, on a mission to find a strawberry blond guy by the name of Asher.
He asks the guy at reception if he knows this strawberry blond, really nicely dressed guy called Asher Garcia and where to find him. Reception Dude does know Asher and can have whatever it is that needs delivering to him sent up immediately.
“Oh… but actually this is a really important delivery and my boss made it very clear that this, um, memo should be hand delivered by me, and only me, to Mr Garcia himself.” Dylan explains, off the top of his head. He’s always been good at this type of impromptu stuff, sometimes it’s how his brain works best. The Reception Dude hesitates for a few seconds, glancing between Dylan and his computer screen, ultimately sighing and shrugging. “Yeah, okay, man. Just go straight up to the tenth floor and find him, then come right back.” Victory!
“For sure, for sure!” Dylan nods and starts moving immediately towards the elevators, thoughts already onto the next part of the mission – finding Asher in a sea of office people. He’s joined in the elevator by a few suits, who hit the button for the thirty-fifth floor. They must be pretty important, Dylan is pretty sure that’s how skyscrapers work, the big wigs get bigger, the higher up you go. Antsy to get going, Dylan darts to the front of the elevator before more people can cram in and subtly hits the ‘close door’ button. The tenth floor is the first stop! Dylan can’t believe some people have to go all the way to the top, it must take so long – it seems like an age to go even a quarter of the way. The important senior people must spend half their day taking the elevator!
Dylan is out the doors the second they open wide enough – he’s surely gotta take the stairs down, no way can he stand around in that elevator for another five years. Okay but now! Find Asher!
He scans the open-plan office space, full of young, smart-looking and well-dressed people and many, many desks. The only way this is gonna happen is by asking.
“Hi! Do you know where Asher Garcia is?” he blurts to the young woman sauntering past him. The woman assesses his attire and the paper carefully clutched in his hand.
“You better hurry if you want to catch him, he’s got the Danforth meeting in like one minute,” she points to some glass on the other side of the office, where some suit-types and other people are gathering.
“Thanks!” Dylan calls behind him as he takes off towards the group. It takes everything he has not to sprint over there, but his mom always tells him that there’s something to be said for decorum when the situation demands it, and Dylan is pretty sure she means times when no one else is running across an office, he probably shouldn’t either.
He scans the group as he gets closer. No Asher to be found among them, oh no, his brain whirs way too quickly, what if Asher realised he forgot his paper and went all the way down the slowest elevator ever to get it, and now he might miss his meeting? Dylan has to find him – or! Find his desk! Maybe he’s at his desk. Dylan turns abruptly to start looking at each desk and, for the second time in one morning, whams into someone. Asher!
“Asher! Oh! I have this!” Dylan can see the confusion (and something else?) skimming Asher’s gorgeous features as he takes in their second altercation of the day.
“How do you know- how are you up- I-“ Asher’s face relaxes with relief as he takes the note page from Dylan “Oh my god, you saved my life, I thought I’d have to do it off the top of my head.”
“No problem!” Dylan is slightly distracted as a faint smile breaks through the nerves written on Asher’s face, but manages to grin and look into his green eyes. “You got this!”
“Seriously, thank you so much, um,” He glances down to Dylan’s name badge on his vest, “Dylan. Thanks, Dylan.” Dylan is either going crazy or having a heart attack or falling in love when he hears Asher say his name like he just saved the world or something. Before he can reply, a ridiculously cool-looking girl with awesome braids sprint-walks over to them and grabs Asher’s arm.
“Asher, dude, we’re about to start! You good?” she pulls him towards the meeting room, again out of Dylan’s life.
“Good luck” Dylan remembers to say, as he watches Asher and the girl walk into the room, all business, and address the suits now seated and ready to hear what they’ve got to say. Dylan turns to leave. Effortlessly distracted, he notices a neatly arranged desk with a perfectly ordered stack of papers next to a pen perfectly parallel to the exceptionally clean keyboard and desktop computer. Pinned to the board dividing this desk from the one opposite, Dylan spots a photo, the only personal item at the workstation. The picture shows Asher standing with a pretty brunette and a tall blond guy in front of an old-looking building, each of them dressed in maroon graduation regalia and grinning. Asher’s desk.
Before Dylan can think twice, he grabs the pen and a square of note paper from the note cube (with the little papers arranged in rainbow order! A good sign, surely?) and scribbles a note.
~~~
The weight off of Asher’s shoulders as he finishes up the presentation to the Danforth Group is like losing fifty pounds. Yindra is gleeful and pats him on the back, literally.
“I think that went really well. We totally crushed it! Asher!” she grins at him. This was their first big project since they had started at the firm and it really felt like it Mattered. “We should get drinks after work or something! I’m gonna go tell Nigel and Zay how it went!” she whizzed away to find the other associates from their cohort, leaving Asher to breathe. Just breathe.
He moved to his desk, noting that his favourite pen was skewed out of place before he noticed the peach coloured square of note paper on his keyboard, suspiciously unorderly on his perfectly ordered desk.
Asher,
Let me know if you need saving again.
Dylan 😊 1-553-1998
Asher’s breath caught. Dylan. He pulled out his phone but put it down again almost immediately. This is really not what he expected… but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing, he reminded himself, picking up the phone again and adding the number as a contact before hesitantly opening the messaging app. He had no idea what this was, just that he would do anything to see that smile again.