by PN Books
Travis looked up from his computer and immediately wished he hadn’t. But it was too late. She had already caught his eye.
“What are you looking at?” Jasmine Vargas barked, giving him a look so cold that Travis felt a hard shiver down his spine.
“N-n…” He couldn’t get the words out so he just stuttered out sounds.
“Cat got your tongue?” Jasmine arched one of her eyebrows. They were a perfectly styled—or drawn—or whatever women did to their face to make that perfect thin arch over each eye lid. She also had a small eyebrow piercing there and a stud in her nose. Today, her hair was braided and twisted up into a high faux-hawk, as spiky and confrontational as her voice was.
“I catch you staring again,” Jasmine said. She made a snipping motion with her fingers and then pointed down towards his crotch. Travis felt his cheeks heating up immediately. Jasmine left, the echo of her heels spreading through the entire fifth floor. Cyrus started laughing as soon as she was out of sight.
“Dude.” Cyrus couldn’t get his words together. “You got… schooled. She played you so bad.”
Travis rolled his eyes, turning back to his computer. He didn’t need this. He had so much coding to do it was ridiculous. He shouldn’t listen to Cyrus. He knew that.
But when he heard Jasmine walking through their section of the office, it was hard to look away.
People thought he and Jasmine should be best friends because they were two of the few black people at the company. But the truth was, Travis was nothing like Jasmine.
He was just as intimidated as they were.
Travis ran a hand over his face. He had to get a hold of himself.
Vitality Pharmaceuticals was a big company. The building had 20 floors and there were VP employees working on all of them. It was easy to get caught up in your own unit. Travis himself rarely wandered out of the IT hub on the sixth floor. Why would he need to? All his co-workers were there. They had a really sweet kitchen with unlimited snacks and a Starbucks barista who made free drinks from 8 to 9 am for people who actually showed up to work early.
In IT, Travis had been in contact with nearly everyone in the company over email. Their conversations usually revolved a lost password. That was good enough for him.
Until Jasmine started showing up on their floor.
The theory was that she was lured by the free Starbucks. It was a 6th floor IT hub perk. Every floor had something different. The animal lab technicians in the basement got weekly puppy therapy. It was rumored that the suits on the top floor got strippers. But IT guys (and the few women who worked in the department) got Starbucks.
The IT guys and Jasmine.
There wasn’t an official rule that the perks were exclusive to the people who worked on the floor, but everyone pretty much knew that. Except for Jasmine. Travis remembered as he and the guys watched Jasmine on the first day. She ordered an iced venti triple espresso vanilla white mocha and then stood right there and drank the whole thing on the spot without pausing, whipped cream and all. The she ordered another one.
Travis couldn’t help noticing that she had a fantastic ass.
“Where did she come from?” Cyrus whispered back then. Since they were IT, it didn’t take them long to do some research.
She was new in pharmaceutical sales. They called them the Pharm Bots. Most of the employees in sales were very good looking, smooth talkers. They were the popular kids in high school come to life in a work environment. They weren’t loud and flashy but everyone knew when they were around. Pharm bots expected respect but they didn’t demand it.
Jasmine didn’t get that memo either.
Now things were very interesting on the sixth floor.
“Why does she use our bathroom?” Cyrus said to him, shaking Travis out of his thoughts. “You think it’s because like way less women use the restroom here than Pharmland? That’s smart.”
Travis didn’t have much comment. Thinking about Jasmine in the bathroom led him to imagine her naked and that wasn’t a very good situation at all.
Well, at least not for work.
“Guys,” Eddie Larson said, popping over the cubicle wall. “Check your email. We just got a crazy message.”
“Phishing again?” Cyrus sighed. Travis clicked on his latest message.
He stared for a moment. It was crazy.
“A mixer?”
“Who do you think came up with that idea!” Eddie barked with a laugh.
“They’re going to force us to socialize?” Cyrus said from the other cube wall. “This is a first.”
Travis shook his head. This was Vitality Pharmaceuticals. They were sectioned off like a pill organizer. There were no mixers. Everyone had their own thing. They didn’t socialize with outsiders.
“Did you notice who organized it?” Eddie asked.
Travis turned back to the invitation and read it again.
Hey, everybody. It’s time to stop being boring and time to start acting like human beings who know how to have a good time. So if you dare, join me for the first all-company after-work mixer, this Thursday at 6 pm at Richen Bar. Be there or be a square. Which means a loser bitch. XoXo - Jasmine Vargas
“A loser bitch!” Cyrus read out loud with a laugh. “I guess that’s me.”
“Wait a moment,” Eddie said. “You’re missing this.”
“No way people are going,” Cyrus said. “Right?”
Travis felt their eyes on him. He looked up at them and shrugged.
“I’ve got an idea to make it interesting,” Eddie said, giving them a slow smile. “What do you think about that?”
“What did you have in mind?” Travis asked. He thought he should contribute something to the conversation.
“You know Mrs. Teasely’s computer virus?”
Cyrus made a face and gave a hard shudder. Travis felt the same way. Mrs. Teasley was about two months from retirement in HR and it couldn’t come sooner. Everyone knew she spent her days watching cat videos anyway. That’s why she always got those stupid viruses on her work computer because she refused to install ad-block.
“Let’s have a bet,” Eddie said. “She has three tickets in the system now. Whoever fixes their ticket last loses. I’ll assign them by random.”
“And what happens when you losers lose this bet?” Cyrus asked with a cocky grin on his face.
Eddie looked between the both of them, nodding slowly. He looked very pleased with himself as well.
“Whoever loses the bet will have to ask Jasmine Vargas out at the mixer,” Eddie said. Travis’s mouth dropped open. “In front of everyone.”
They shook on it.
*****
Jasmine stole a stapler on her first day.
It was simple. She didn’t have a stapler at her desk. She saw a stapler at someone else’s desk. She took it. Everything was fine.
Until HR came over.
“Excuse me,” a squat, overweight old lady said after she waddled over. “Jasmine, isn’t it?”
Jasmine stared at her. First of all, the fat old lady had given her orientation paperwork only a few hours ago. Jasmine was sure she remembered her. Jasmine remembered that lady and there were plenty of old white people around here. There weren’t many black women. In fact, so far, Jasmine was the only one at the company, as far as she knew.
“What?” Jasmine said.
“Well, yes,” the HR lady continued. “I wanted to give you a reminder. It’s a simple thing but we take personal boundaries very seriously around here. It’s considered poor form to take property from another person’s desk.”
“Who told you that?” Jasmine asked, staring the old lady down.
“Well, I’m not at liberty—”
“So you don’t know who said it,” Jasmine said. “Does that mean it was even said?”
“Yes it was said but I cannot—”
“If you do not have evidence or a person who has reported this alleged theft, then I believe you are accusing me without due cause,” Jasmine said, ev
enly. “And then I will be forced to believe you are targeting me because of some external reason. Perhaps this is workplace discrimination. Perhaps I should be speaking to someone about how minorities are treated at this establishment, especially since I did not have a stapler on my desk in the first place.”
Jasmine stared the HR lady down. Eventually, she just left.
Then Jasmine emptied out the used the staples on the bitch’s desk who snitched on her. But she still kept the stapler.
Other than that, the most exciting thing that happened was discovering Starbucks on the 6th floor.
Jasmine wasn’t one to listen to the rules. That didn’t mean she didn’t know them. It became clear very quickly that everyone in this company liked to stick with their own. They had Friday “mocktail” parties on the 8th floor. Jasmine thought they were ridiculous. During lunch, some acclaimed mixologist would come and everyone would ooooo and ahhhh as they made some non-alcoholic junk fake fizz with dry ice. It always tasted like a mix between sprite and cough syrup. Very gross and also, very eighth grade. Jasmine though the pharma reps were supposed to be sophisticated. Maybe they wore the right jewelry and heels, but they had no class or sophistication at all.
Maybe Starbucks wasn’t class and sophistication but the most important thing was that it was free. Jasmine went to the sixth floor for a deliberate reason. Tech guys were nerds and nerds made apps and apps made money. She decided to scope out who might be on the cutting edge of a quick billion dollars. She didn’t see anyone who met her standards but she did discover Starbucks.
Close enough.
Now going to the sixth floor added just a little bit of pathetic excitement to her day.
She couldn’t deny it. She loved the way the geeks would stare at her. Jasmine had a certain way of dressing for work. High heels, tight dresses, un-boring hair, and bold lipstick. She was pretty sure that’s why they hired her. Well, along with her connection, an old boyfriend who worked on the 14th floor in research, but she got bored with him. The look was what really got her the job. They had to be bored with the same-old, same-old.
The IT guys stared at her like she was an alien from another planet. She loved the attention, even if they were too scared to say anything to her. Plus, their bathroom was fabulous. It was spotless, never used, and all the small vanity lotions and soaps were always there for the taking, sticking them all in her purse.
Well, there was one cute guy in the IT department. He was also the only black guy. He had light skin and curly hair that he probably should have cut shorter, but it looked good on him. She’d looked at him enough to notice that he had brownish-green eyes behind his nerd glasses from staring at a computer screen too much. She wanted to stick her tongue out at him when she passed but he blushed so much anyway, he might actually have a heart attack.
One morning, after consuming her third iced white mocha, it came to her. This company was boring and they needed something to shake everyone up. They needed to get out of their self-imposed bubbles and learn how to live a little.
That’s when Jasmine came up with the idea to throw a mixer. It would be simple. Happy hour after work at one of the hottest bars in the city that her brother-in-law happened to own.
Of course, he agreed. It meant free publicity for him, being patronized by one of the largest employers in town. He would even throw in drink specials for them.
Jasmine didn’t run it by management. She just let everyone know through a company-wide email.
Of course, management wasn’t very happy about that. But what could they do? The email was out there.
The party was on.
On Thursday, the day of the party, Jasmine made her usual Starbucks run on the sixth floor. Her hair was straight and down to her waist. She saw that one IT guy staring as she walked by him. Instead of continuing, like she usually did, she stopped and shook her head for him, just so she could see hischeeks turn red against his light brown skin..
“Are you coming to my party?” she asked. Her voice traveled. She knew he could hear her, even if he just stared.
“Oh yeah, he’ll be there,” said another IT guy. He was less cute. He had a wide face and ugly glasses but he was always watching her, so she threw him a bone.
“Tell him I’ll be waiting,” Jasmine said. She threw the cute IT guy another look. She knew that he was hanging onto her every word.
This was Jasmine’s definition of fun.
*****
Travis didn’t mean to lose.
He really didn’t, even if Eddie insisted he did. It was just that old Mrs. Teasley really knew how to mess up a computer.
“How did this happen?” Travis asked, standing behind her as she was seated at her desk. He had randomly been assigned ticket #41278.
Her browser was overloading with pop-ups of donuts.
Every time she opened Internet Explorer (the browser of choice for the pharma company, much to every IT guy’s chagrin) small windows would start popping up. They were like pop-up ads, overwhelming and never-ending. But instead of ads, there were pictures of donuts.
Glazed donuts. Cake donuts. Chocolate donuts. Sprinkle donuts. So many donuts. Different kinds of donuts. They would be in singles, pairs, and a baker’s dozen of donuts in a box. Each picture popping up, faster and faster, all over the screen until the whole browser was overwhelmed, the whole screen full of donuts and then the computer would freeze, robbed of its memory, and then it would shut down.
And then everything would be silent.
It was really bizarre.
“When did this start happening?” Travis asked as he tried to assess the situation.
“I don’t know,” Mr. Teasely told him. “It started when I was eating a donut.”
Needless to say, Travis lost.
“Dude, you better look so smoking hot tonight,” Cyrus said. “Did you see the way she was looking at you?”
Travis couldn’t help but notice. Jasmine was on her way to the bathroom, as usual, but that day she stopped. She turned, looked at him, and shook her hair like a prize. Travis’s heart thudded in his chest. He’d never felt it race so hard before. It felt like it was running a marathon he wasn’t invited to.
This wasn’t good.
He couldn’t do this.
“This is going to be so hilarious,” Eddie said. “I bet if I tape this tonight, it’ll go viral. No matter what happens.”
“Shut up,” Travis said, through gritted teeth. He was trying to stay calm at work but it wasn’t easy.
What would happen if he didn’t show up to this party?
Travis took a long swallow of his water. He hadn’t even asked her out yet and Jasmine was going to be the death of him.
“Wow, you look so freaked out right now,” Cyrus said. “You’re not even talking to the chick.”
“I have a lot of work to do,” Travis said.
“Nope, no excuses,” Cyrus said. “We should plan your plan of attack. When is the most humiliating, most public time to ask her?”
“We don’t know,” Eddie said, logically. “We’ve never done this before. Like a company happy hour is unprecedented.”
“Well, if she gets up to give a toast or something. Or make a speech.” Cyrus snapped his fingers, looking Travis in the eye. “Then boom. Bingo. It’s go time, baby.”
Travis gulped.
Cyrus told Travis he was going to pick him up. Travis was certain it was so Cyrus could ensure that he wouldn’t escape, but the joke was on Cyrus. After Travis humiliated himself in front of everyone, he planned to get dead drunk. Cyrus would have to take care of him and carry him home. Ha ha.
It was a win-win situation.
Travis didn’t know what to wear. He was home earlier than usual that Thursday. Usually, he would stay late most nights but today everyone was buzzing and Cyrus insisted he get ready.
Did he have to change?
Travis usually wore jeans and a hoodie every day. If it was hot, he wore jeans and a t-shirt. If it was cold, he wore jeans
and two hoodies. So he wasn’t sure if he had anything else to wear.
At least, he could change his jeans. He looked through his drawer and found an old pair that he hadn’t thought about in a while. They were tighter jeans that his sister gave him for Christmas. She said they were stylish. Travis put them on and looked at himself in the mirror. He looked ridiculous. He looked like a douchebag.
He kept the jeans on.
There was a button down shirt hanging in his closet. Travis didn’t know where it came from. It was light blue, a color he’d never pick out for himself. He remembered his sister said that baby blue looked god against his skin. But somehow it looked good with his dark gray washed jeans.
At least he hoped so.
He was putting way too much time and effort into this. What was going on?
Cyrus texted him at exactly 6:30.
Let’s go, dude!
The happy hour started at 7. Travis was pretty sure it would be in poor form to show up right on time. Didn’t parties have a rule where you had to be fashionably late? But Cyrus did not have that in him. He was a punctual person. There was nothing Travis could do.
He felt like he was marching to his own death.
“Wow,” Cyrus said as Travis got in the car. “You are taking this seriously.”
“What do you mean?” Travis looked over as he buckled his seat belt.
“I mean, you changed and everything. I bet you even took a shower, didn’t you? You did. Didn’t you!” Travis winced as Cyrus leaned over and took a big whiff of his hair.
“Cut it out,” Travis said.
“You’re serious about this,” Cyrus said. He started driving. His voice was full of awe. “Like you’re asking her out on an actual date.”
Travis clenched his jaw and didn’t say anything.
“You like her. You like this girl!”
Travis still didn’t say anything. He wasn’t going to admit to anything. Especially not the way his heart squeezed at just the mention of her name.
It didn’t mean anything.
The bar was huge and swanky. It definitely wasn’t a place that Travis would go to on his own. In fact, he didn’t think it was a place he would be allowed into if it weren’t for this work event.