Chapter 5: Professional Feelings (2)
The door swung open from the inside.
El's hand froze mid-reach.
Standing in the doorway, looking up at him with wide eyes and a face that was rapidly turning pink, was Mira Castillo.
She was dressed in her usual impeccable blazer—crisp lines, professional cut, not a single hair out of place.
But her grip on the door handle was too tight.
Her shoulders were slightly too stiff.
And the faint flush creeping up her cheeks was absolutely, definitely, undeniable.
They stared at each other for exactly one second too long.
El's expression didn't change.
It never did.
His face remained perfectly neutral—the same expression he used for quarterly reports, for Demi's antics, for everything.
Mira, on the other hand, looked like she'd been caught doing something illegal.
"Oh," she breathed.
Just that.
Just oh.
Then, with visible effort, she straightened her spine and smoothed her features into something approaching professional.
But her fingers stayed curled around the door handle, gripping it like a lifeline.
"Good morning, El."
Her voice came out slightly higher than usual.
She cleared her throat and tried again.
"Good morning, El. You're early today."
El nodded once.
"Good morning, Ma'am."
Ma'am.
Something flickered in Mira's eyes—a micro-expression so quick he almost missed it.
Was that... disappointment?
No.
Probably not.
He was imagining things.
"You're early too,"
El added, because he'd been raised with basic politeness, even if his delivery was as flat as day-old soda.
Mira blinked.
"I—yes. I always am."
She finally released the door handle, but her hands immediately found each other, fingers twisting together in a way that was completely unlike her usual composed demeanor.
"I like to get a head start before everyone arrives. It's... quieter."
El filed this information away.
Mira liked quiet mornings.
Noted.
"I understand," he said.
Silence.
Mira shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
Her eyes darted to the side, then back to his face, then to the floor, then back to his face again.
She looked like she wanted to say something but couldn't quite find the words.
El waited.
Patient.
Neutral.
Unmoving.
Well you could say the man who can't be moved.
Say something, Mira's expression seemed to plead.
Anything.
Ask me a question.
Comment on the weather.
Just—
"The template was helpful," El offered.
Mira's eyes widened.
"The—the template?"
"For the quarterly reports. Section 4 was clearly explained."
"Oh." She swallowed.
"Oh, good. I'm glad. I spent a lot of time on that section."
A pause.
"Janet from Accounting helped."
"Janet from Accounting is thorough."
"She is. Very thorough."
Mira nodded a little too quickly.
"I appreciate that about her."
More silence.
El stood there, waiting to be dismissed or allowed to pass.
Mira stood there, apparently incapable of moving her feet.
It occurred to El, vaguely, that this interaction was lasting longer than most of his conversations with Mira.
Usually, she gave him instructions, he nodded, she left.
Simple.
Professional.
Efficient.
This was... different.
But he couldn't figure out why.
"Did you need something, Ma'am?" he asked.
"I can step aside if you're heading out."
Mira's face went through several complicated emotions in the span of two seconds.
"I—no. I mean, yes. I mean—"
She pressed her lips together, visibly frustrated with herself.
"I was just getting coffee. From the break room. But I can—you can—"
She gestured vaguely at the door, then at the hallway, then gave up entirely.
"I'll wait," El said.
"You don't have to wait."
"I don't mind."
"It's fine. I'll just—"
Mira finally, finally stepped aside, pulling the door wider.
"After you."
El walked past her into the office.
The air smelled like her perfume—something light and professional, like flowers that went to business meetings.
Behind him, Mira took a breath that sounded almost like a sigh.
He turned back.
"Ma'am?"
She jumped.
Literally jumped.
"Yes?!"
El's eyebrow twitched—his version of confusion.
"The coffee. You were getting coffee."
"Oh. Right. Coffee."
She pressed a hand to her chest, as if checking that her heart was still there.
"Yes. I'll... do that. Now."
She didn't move.
El waited.
Mira stared at him.
Neither of them spoke.
Then, from somewhere down the hall, a voice boomed:
"EL! THERE YOU ARE! THE INTERROGATION BEGINS NOW!"
Demi.
Of course.
Mira's expression snapped back to professional in an instant.
She straightened, smoothed her blazer, and became the ice queen of marketing once more.
"Your friend is loud," she said flatly.
"Yes, Ma'am."
"He's going to be louder when he gets here."
"Almost certainly."
Mira looked at him for one more moment—something soft flickering behind her eyes—then nodded once.
"Have a good day, El."
"You too, Ma'am."
She turned and walked toward the break room, her steps measured and controlled.
But El noticed she glanced back once. Just once.
Before disappearing around the corner.
He filed that away too.
Then Demi rounded the opposite corner at full speed, skidding to a stop directly in front of him.
"YOU!"
Demi pointed accusingly.
"YOU IGNORED MY MESSAGES! YOU LEFT ME ON READ FOR 47 STRAIGHT MESSAGES! DO YOU KNOW HOW THAT FEELS?!"
El's face remained perfectly neutral.
"I'm sure you'll tell me."
"I WILL TELL YOU! IN GREAT DETAIL! WITH VISUAL AIDS!"
Demi grabbed his arm and dragged him toward their cubicles, already launching into a dramatic reenactment of his emotional journey.
El let himself be dragged.
But in the back of his mind, he was still thinking about Mira's flushed cheeks.
Her twisting fingers.
The way she'd looked at him like she wanted to say something but couldn't.
Strange, he thought.
She was acting strange.
He'd think about it later.
Right now, he had a Demi to survive.
---
TATE ASSOCIATION MARKETING DEPARTMENT - 9AM
Demi's interrogation lasted exactly fifteen minutes.
El knew because he counted.
Fifteen minutes of dramatic gestures, flowchart reenactments, and increasingly creative theories about why El hadn't called the mystery café girl yet.
And it's been two days since mystery cafe girl gave him card.
"So let me get this straight,"
Demi said, pacing in the wide space between their cubicles.
"A beautiful, mysterious woman gives you her card. A card that probably costs more than my monthly rent.
And you haven't called. You haven't texted. You haven't sent a carrier pigeon or a smoke signal or a strongly worded letter via owl.
And it's been two days since that encounter."
"That's correct."
"WHY?!"
El considered his options.
He could tell Demi the truth—that the card didn't actually have a phone number, that it had a cryptic warning and a symbol from his childhood, that he was possibly being haunted by multiple women and a shadow demon.
Or he could deflect.
"I've been busy."
"BUSY?! El, you organize your pens by color. Your version of busy is alphabetizing your spice rack. That's not an excuse!"
"My spice rack is already alphabetized."
Demi stared at him.
Then he threw his hands in the air.
"I CAN'T WITH YOU. I LITERALLY CANNOT."
"Then stop."
"NO! I'M COMMITTED! THIS IS MY LIFE NOW!"
"Time to work, everyone. It's already 9 AM."
El and Demi both turned their heads at the sound of their Head Manager's voice.
Their conversation died instantly, frozen mid-flow like someone had pressed pause on their reality.
Mira stood at the entrance of the cubicle row, arms crossed, expression as sharp as a blade.
She wasn't looking at them—not directly.
Her gaze was fixed somewhere in the middle distance, the way people looked when they wanted you to know they were talking to you without actually looking at you.
"I don't care what you want to tell your co-worker,"
she said, her voice carrying that particular tone that meant I'm not angry, but I will be if you test me.
"But if it's work hours, you should work."
The words hung in the air like a polite warning wrapped in a threat.
El and Demi exchanged a quick glance.
El's expression remained neutral, but something flickered in his eyes—the faintest acknowledgment that yes, this is definitely about us.
Demi, for once, had the good sense to look vaguely guilty.
He mouthed "sorry" without sound and immediately turned back to his desk, grabbing a random stack of papers and pretending to look busy.
El straightened in his chair.
"Yes, ma'am. I'll go to work," he said calmly.
He knew she was talking to him.
Or rather, at him.
The message was clear:
Stop letting Demi distract you and do your job.
Mira's eyes finally flicked toward him—just for a second, just long enough for him to catch the tiniest softening in her expression before it disappeared behind her professional mask again.
"Good," she said simply.
Then she turned and walked away, her heels clicking against the floor in a steady, authoritative rhythm.
Demi waited until she was out of earshot before leaning toward El's cubicle.
"Dude," he whispered.
"She totally has a crush on you."
El didn't look up from his computer.
"She just told us to work."
"EXACTLY. That's her love language. 'Do your work' means 'I notice you and care about your productivity which is basically the same as caring about you.'"
"That's a stretch."
"It's NOT a stretch. It's pattern recognition. You're good at patterns. Recognize THIS pattern."
Demi gestured wildly at the empty space where Mira had stood.
"She came ALL THE WAY over here just to tell us to work. There are like fifty other people in this office.
She could have sent an email. She could have announced it from her desk.
But no. She came HERE. To YOUR cubicle. To tell YOU to work."
"She told both of us."
"She looked at YOU when she said it."
El finally looked up.
"You're impossible."
"I'm observant. There's a difference." Demi leaned back in his chair, looking entirely too pleased with himself.
"Mark my words, El. Mira Castillo is going to confess her love to you via a strongly worded memo about quarterly reports, and I'm going to laugh forever."
El simply ignored Demi's nonsense talk.
He wasn't interested in entertaining another one of his best friend's conspiracy theories about Mira's supposed crush.
Besides, it was time to work.
Real work.
The kind that paid his rent and kept Oreo in the premium cat food she demanded.
So he turned back to his computer, fingers finding the keyboard with practiced ease, and let the world of spreadsheets swallow him whole.
Seeing that El was no longer paying attention, Demi finally gave up.
He let out a dramatic sigh—the kind designed to communicate maximum disappointment—and retreated to his own cubicle.
Within seconds, El could hear the telltale sounds of Demi "working": the rustling of snack wrappers, the aggressive typing that sounded more like frustration than productivity, and the occasional muttered "why does this exist" aimed at his computer screen.
Peace.
Finally.
El dove into his task.
The Tate Association was launching a new project—something involving their latest line of premium paper products (which still sounded like an oxymoron to El, but people apparently got excited about these things).
His job was to compile the preliminary marketing data, organize it into something coherent, and prepare it for the team meeting on Friday.
Simple.
Straightforward.
Pattern-based.
He was halfway through formatting a particularly stubborn dataset when a sound pierced his concentration.
"Arghh, dang it!"
The voice came from his left.
The cubicle beside his—the one separated by exactly six feet of beige fabric and shared wall—was currently hosting someone in obvious distress.
"How the hell am I supposed to find those lost data accounts?!"
El's fingers paused over the keyboard.
He recognized the voice.
It was Mark—the Marketing Coordinator who'd been transferred to their floor a few months ago.
Nice guy.
Overworked.
Currently sounding like he was about to commit violence against his computer.
"I'm not even a Marketing Assistant!"
Mark continued, his voice rising with each word.
"I'm a Marketing COORDINATOR! That's a whole different job! That's—that's—"
A frustrated pause.
"That's literally a different job description!"
El listened as Mark's rant continued, muffled but still perfectly audible through the thin cubicle walls.
Something about missing data, an impossible deadline, and a Head Manager who clearly didn't understand the difference between job roles.
Poor soul, El thought, allowing himself a small moment of sympathy.
Which Head Manager gave him that task?
He had a guess.
There was only one person in management who regularly confused job descriptions and assigned coordinator-level work to assistants and assistant-level work to coordinators.
Mr. Hendricks.
The bane of the marketing department.
El shook his head slightly and returned to his work.
Not his problem.
Not his circus.
Not his monkeys.
The new project required his full attention anyway.
Tate Association's latest launch was code-named "Project Horizon" internally—a name that Demi had loudly declared "sounds like a cult, but make it corporate."
It involved a new line of sustainable paper products aimed at eco-conscious businesses.
El's role was to compile competitor data, analyze market trends, and present his findings in a way that made the executives feel smart for approving the project.
He was good at this.
The data told stories, and El knew how to read them.
Lost in the rhythm of spreadsheets and formulas, he let the office fade away.
Mark's complaints became background noise.
Demi's snack rustling became white noise.
Even the ever-present hum of fluorescent lights seemed to quiet.
For a blissful, uninterrupted stretch of time, there was only the work.
The data.
The patterns.
The comforting certainty of numbers that always added up.