The deep voice broke through Octavia’s stupor, causing her to look up at the face that towered over her splayed form.
To any casual observer, the man standing before Octavia would have made them do a double take. His broad form stood well over six feet from the ground Octavia lay sprawled on. A long, charcoal coat covered his body, but the bulges of muscle filling out the space within it were clearly evident. Like the building behind them, his figure was imposing and breathtaking in how it towered over everyone else.
But his form was nothing compared to his face. His was a face you could only react to in awed silence. A chiseled jawline held a firm, grim mouth set in a hard line. The sharp outline of dark facial hair formed a thin layer around his angular jaw and over his upper lip. His lightly bronzed skin was taut, a smooth surface. Dark furrowed brows sat on top of even darker, penetrating eyes. His eyes seemed capable of spilling fire, though for the moment they were caverns of smoldering flames, waiting to be released. He demanded submission with the tone of his voice. He commanded respect with a mere glance of his eyes. A man like him could only be regarded with complete adoration.
None of that mattered to Octavia, however. At the sound of his voice, she came to her senses and picked herself up off the ground.
“Neither can you, apparently,” she said in a huff, dusting herself off.
He narrowed his eyes at her.
“That doesn’t sound like an apology,” he said.
Octavia was searching the ground for her phone as she replied, “Because it wasn’t.”
The look in his eyes intensified.
He responded, his voice hard, “I’ll give you the next ten seconds to rectify your foolish actions—and apologize for your words.”
Octavia scoffed. “Ok, whatever,” she replied, picking her phone off the ground.
He did not respond to this. The only movement he made was a muscle twitching by his jawline.
“Do you know who I am?” he said in a tone that was somehow both soft and dangerous.
“Should I?” Octavia asked innocently.
His only response was a cold, empty silence.
Octavia frowned. “Look, I think we were both in the wrong here. So let’s just forget about it all and go our separate ways.”
He did not respond to this. He continued to look down at her upturned face with eyes full of contempt.
“Do you really not know who I am?” he repeated.
The coldness never left his eyes, but he seemed to change his mind. He shook his head and stepped away, moving back toward the steps.
“You’re not even worth my time,” he said dismissively. “I better not see you around here again.”
“I can’t promise that,” Octavia responded. “You never know where you might end up.”
He stopped and turned back to face her.
She shrugged, “If we do meet in the future for whatever reason, I promise I’ll pretend I don’t know who you are,” Octavia offered.
His scowl deepened. “There will be no future meetings. You will never show your face in this vicinity.” he narrowed his eyes, as if to stare straight into Octavia’s soul, “Ever again.”
Octavia almost laughed. “Fine by me.” She adjusted the straps of her book bag, turned on her heel, and started walking away.
As she started towards her home, she instantly forgot about her incident with the stranger. His words, his face, his magnificent form—all of it faded from her mind. After all, whoever he was, it was unlikely that they’d ever meet again.
But unlike Octavia, the stranger’s eyes did not leave her. His gaze followed her as she walked away, until she slipped out of view.
Octavia could hear the loud music playing before she got to the door of her apartment an hour later. It took a while to get from the busy city center of glistening skyscrapers to Octavia’s apartment building. Her neighborhood was filled with dusty pawn shops and laundromats sandwiched between old apartment buildings with cheap rent. Fortunately it was mostly safe. Mostly.
She opened the door to the cramped two-bedroom apartment and was bombarded by music blaring from the speaker system in the little living room, flooding the entire house with catchy pop beats. Octavia closed the door behind her and took a few steps across the tiny living room and adjoining dining area before making a sharp left to the kitchen.
There, her roommate Sierra was standing in front of the stove where a pan of something was bubbling. She swayed her hips to the music while absentmindedly stirring the pot on the stove.
“Sierra,” Octavia said.
Octavia could barely hear her own voice over the noise. Sierra certainly couldn’t; she kept swaying on beat to the music, singing along with the words and pumping her cooking spoon in the air.
Octavia sighed and shrugged her book bag off her shoulders.
“SIERRA!” she yelled.
Sierra swiveled around, gave a surprised look at Octavia, then reached for her phone on the nearby counter and tapped a button. The music stopped.
“Damn, girl,” Sierra said, “I didn’t know you were here.”
“A burglar could have entered the apartment and you wouldn’t know it either.”
Sierra blinked at Octavia, then turned her attention to her phone. “Whatever. Fine, I’ll turn it down, okay? Jesus.” Sierra sighed in exasperation.
“You're so considerate,” Octavia said sweetly. She turned to the fridge that was only a few feet away from the stove.
“Shouldn’t you still be out?” Sierra said. “Usually you don’t get back till like 1 a.m. or something.”
Octavia pulled a box of cold pizza out of the fridge. “No more late nights for me. I’m finished with my project.”
Sierra looked up and frowned. “You mean…you’re going to be here all day?”
“Yes,” Octavia answered, taking a bite from one of the cold slices in her hand. “Will that be a terrible inconvenience to you? Me being in the house I pay half the rent for?”
“That’s different. I work from home.”
“Oh, that’s right. Your online nutritional supplement store,” Octavia said.
Sierra shook her head. “No, that was ages ago. Now I sell bath salts.”
“Sounds lucrative,” Octavia said.
Sierra’s phone camera clicked and her face relaxed. “I’m testing out my newest product tomorrow so you better not be in the bathroom.”
“I’d hate to affect the quality control of your manufacturing processes,” Octavia remarked dryly.
Sierra took a second to throw Octavia a disdainful glance. “Whatever. Just don’t get in the way. You’re so fucking weird.”
“Sierra, you’re an inspiration,” Octavia said with a smile.
“Of course I am. I have two thousand followers,” Sierra responded, putting on another pouty face for her phone screen.
Octavia stifled her next comment and left to go to her room.
Octavia’s many possessions littered the space. What wasn’t crammed onto the two shelves lining the walls was littered on the floor or piled into every corner. Everything from clothes, shoes, tech gadgets, and collectible action figures was sandwiched in whatever available space could be found.
Somehow, a skinny, long-limbed girl had navigated through all of Octavia’s crap and wedged herself in the chair at the desk. She was lazily thumbing through a comic book and didn’t even glance up when Octavia entered.
Gracie had her long raven-black hair restrained under a baseball cap, showing off the high cheekbones of her olive-skinned face. She wore an old T-shirt and faded jeans, which she paired with her signature, weathered Doc Martens.
After Octavia tossed her book bag onto her bed, Gracie tossed a banged-up laptop she was carrying to Octavia, who barely caught it.
“Here you are,” she said.
Octavia whooped and opened the laptop quickly. She had been separated from the device for the past thirty-seven hours. Gracie had been installing the hardware Octavia needed for a new program she was working on. She had to use Gracie’s laptop in the meantime. Gracie’s had all the best hardware, but Octavia missed her familiar tools.
Years ago Octavia had wandered into Shalhoub & Sons Electronic repair shop in search of a miracle worker to repair a laptop that she’d accidentally dropped in the bathtub. She had been met with the impassive stare of a twenty-something girl lounging behind the store counter. It was technically owned by Gracie’s father, a kind, entrepreneurial man who had immigrated from Syria. It was supposed to have been operated by Gracie’s older brothers while her father oversaw his other businesses around the city. But Gracie was the only one of her father’s children who seemed to have inherited the gift of technical knowledge, which made up for her lack of customer service skills. There wasn’t an electronic gadget or appliance she couldn’t fix, upgrade, or source spare parts for. Unfortunately, she was often left to work the counter alone, while her brothers sat in the back playing cards or watching soccer matches on TV.
When Octavia and Gracie met, they became fast friends. Gracie was Octavia’s go-to person for all things hardware related, and when Gracie needed an escape from her crowded family home, she came to Octavia’s.
“Thank you!” Octavia breathed, flipping open her laptop screen. “What do I owe you, by the way?”
Gracie waved it away. “Nothing. It’s on the house.”
Octavia looked up. “What? Why?”
“It’s my good deed for the year. You’re welcome.”
“Gracie, you know I can afford to pay for this, right?”
“I’ll bet you can.”
“I’m not broke,” Octavia said adamantly, “Well…yet,” she added.
“I didn’t think you were. Congratulations, by the way.”
“I really can’t let you—” Octavia stopped. “Wait, what? What am I being congratulated for?”
“You’ve got an interview at Icarus Tech. Sounded like a pretty big deal.”
“How would you—?”
“I saw it in your email while I was installing the parts.”
“You read my emails?”
“Not all of them. Just that one. It looked important, so I figured you might need to know immediately.”
Octavia sighed. “You’re a true friend, Gracie.”
“I try, you know?” Gracie said.
Octavia sat on her messy bed, opened her email and clicked on the one message from the email address onboarding@icarustechnologies email. She spent the next few seconds reading it over.
“Well,” she remarked when she was done.
“What?” Gracie asked.
“It says they want to discuss a potential position. I mean, ‘she says.’ It’s from some person named…Adelaide Weston.”
“Do you know an Adelaide?”
“I don’t think so…but…the name kinda sounds familiar.”
“So, are you going to go?” Gracie asked.
“...Eh, I don’t know.” Octavia shrugged.
“Hmm,” Gracie said impassively.
Octavia narrowed her eyes at her. “What do you mean, ‘hmm’?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s not ‘nothing.’”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“You only say ‘hmm’ like that when you think something’s obviously wrong but you can’t be bothered to point it out.”
“I think you should get a job, sure. And this looks like a perfect opportunity.”
Octavia’s shoulders slumped. “I hate the 9-to-5,” she said.
“Everyone does. But you know what’s worse? Being broke.”
“And my program…”
“All you have left to do is test it. And Icarus Tech is huge. Being there could open up a lot of networking opportunities. You want capital, right? Where better a place to scout out potential investors?”
Octavia gave Gracie a dirty look, “Damn. I hate it when you’re right.”
Gracie shrugged nonchalantly. “Which is most of the time, unfortunately.”
“Fine...I guess I’ll go.”
“Smart idea.”
“But I’m not promising anything. If I don’t like whatever they have to offer, I’m out of there.”
“It’s really up to you.”
A thought occurred to Octavia, “But if I do end up getting a job...you’ll let me pay you for this right?”
Gracie was momentarily silent, “...Fine.”
Octavia smiled, “Ha. I get to win at something.”
“Yeah, losing your own money.”
“It’s the principle of the thing,” Octavia answered with a sense of superiority. She glanced at her laptop screen again and exhaled in frustration. “Alright, let’s see what this Icarus Tech has to offer.”
