Green Light
The next day at work was almost impossible for Gen.
When she got to the office, Kent was not at her desk working on her computer, and she never saw him for the entire day. He worked from home, and she felt so guilty because she knew he was not there because of her.
She had had the female equivalent of blue balls when she went to bed the night before because she had ached for him. He took her not wanting to sleep with him as a rebuff. The truth was she was terrified to sleep with him and lose him like she had lost Kevin. She was terrified to feel anything for someone and then have it yanked away from her again. Gen had learned that that was too easy to have happen.
But all she felt now was yearning for Kent as she typed on her Mac. She could not deny that what she had known of the feeling of him and his scent had gotten under her sheets with her last night. She felt desire for him that she could not even have anticipated that she would have felt.
His name was accompanied with a green light by it currently, but she did not feel like she could utilize the light at all. Even now, she had work to do at home because she still had insane deadlines, and his name was still green, meaning he had the same dynamic as her. Normally they would have been messaging each other until one of them was offline and still have managed to get something done for the day.
And then it happened. Her computer had a blip, and she was not sure what she was going to do. The program that she needed to work on kept freezing, and she knew after troubleshooting she needed help. Kent was the after-hours point person in their IT department, which was why she had gotten so close to him in the first place.
She was terrified to reach out to him, but she had to.
Kent, my pdf viewer keeps freezing. Can you help out when you have a chance? she messaged him.
Usually, when he was green, he started typing right away. It seemed an eternity before he replied, and she saw the tiny bubbles in his dialogue box moving on her screen. She saw that she had a remote connection on her desktop.
I am checking now Gen, let me see what is going on. As usual, with a few taps and movements on her screen, he was done. There you go. You should not have any trouble now.
Thank you so much.
No problem.
Missed you at work today.
Nothing.
After a bit, tiny bubbles appeared.
Someone had an emergency today, and I was working on it remotely for so long I just stayed in my apartment. I would have rather have come in…
So it was not me? Gen gasped after she typed that sentence and the delay that followed.
Then she saw the tiny bubbles populate on her screen.
No, Gen, it had nothing to do with you.
Okay.
See you tomorrow? Or do you need me to come over and look at your computer?
Yes, I think I need you to take a closer look…
Read the previous and next stories here:
My friend Marie A. Rebelle writes stories for Diana C’s Creative Corner prompts, and I appreciated the inspiration. I was inspired by the below prompt for this story. Click on it if you want to be inspired as well.