“The new guy is totally into you,” Amanda smirks beneath her turned up coffee cup.

“He is not,” Lisa rolls her eyes, pushing the button labeled 6. She wipes the sleep from an eye, watching the elevator ding and light pass every floor as they ride up.

“So he just asked what you were doing over the weekend for nothing?”

“It’s polite conversation!” Lisa insists, shrugging her shoulders.

“He never talks polite like that to me. Does he to you, Sue?”

Lisa looks to her right at Sue, not sure what answer she’ll give.

Sue pulls back from the reflective wall, smacking her lips once more to ensure perfect lipstick coverage has been set.

“Nope. He doesn’t ask what I’m doing over the weekend like he wants to be penned in.”

“I think he wants to be the one penning in…” Amanda sips and nearly chokes on her fresh brew when Lisa pushes her in instinctive shock.

“Amanda!” she hisses. “Grow up!”

“Great advice, I’ll pass it off to Jaehyun,” Amanda steps outside the elevator first, leaving Lisa exasperated.

Jaehyun has only been at the office for a couple of weeks and already it’s becoming too much for the women.

He’s pure catnip for cougars. Smooth, clear, skin. Large dark eyes. Permanently puckered lips.

Not that Lisa thinks anything of it. These are just factual observations.

Also quickly known and spread fact: He’s 21.

Graduating a year early with a marketing major and showing up at her general retail company with the easy demeanor of a senior that’s been here ages.

He sat across from her. They’d talked from time to time. Sometimes they talked on Friday which lead into discussions of weekend plans.

It was absolutely ordinary.

“Good morning, Lisa,” she hears a deep voice say, the smile just as vocalized.

She looks over, midway through shaking off her tan trenchcoat.

It’s hard not to notice the width of his shoulders in a sweater like that. Dark green and textured, the sleeves rolled up just a bit. She catches the glint of a watch, briefly wondering if other kids his age wore watches too.

“Morning,” she smiles, placing the coat behind her desk chair and sitting down, opening her laptop in one go.

“Did you end up seeing the movie?” Jaehyun asks, scribbling something down in a legal pad.

“Uh, no…,” Lisa nervously laughs. “The person I wanted to see it with got too busy so I think I’ll try next week.”

Jaehyun’s eyebrows raised and he placed his pen down.

“Didn’t that happen the weekend before? I think the last showing in theaters is tonight.”

It was some dumb superhero film that Lisa hadn’t even really wanted to watch. But Daniel had. Or at least at one point did. He’d insisted that they saw it together, like old times. Like when they always did things together, before the kiss, before his life was several other women and Lisa in the mix, the good friend that was always the Almost girlfriend. The one everyone had joked about since they were high school classmates, “those two are going to end up together”.

And Lisa, a quiet romantic, had been convinced. Maybe they were right. Maybe because it had been years and she’d only had one relationship (a quick sweet to sour year that she constantly has to remind herself existed. That at one point, she did kiss someone, she did have , she did love even a little.) But they’d broken it off and Daniel was single. Until he wasn’t. And then he was. And then he wasn’t again. And the seasons went and slowly waiting for him just turned into waiting for nothing.

She’s fine. She’s not looking. She’s too busy living her life. If something’s right, it’ll come to her, she thinks.

“,” she doesn’t mean to say it out loud so loud, clearly surprising Jaehyun who laughs.

“I mean…” she attempts to play it off.

“I guess you really wanted to see it, huh?”

Lisa sighs.

“No, it’s just… Whatever.”

“I don’t have any plans,” Jaehyun offers slyly. “Tonight. I mean.” A hand going up to massage his neck.

“If you don’t want to go alone.”

Lisa is so taken back and flustered at the offer and her swearing, that she just blinks and let’s “okay” fall out .

“Cool,” Jaehyun smiles, nodding and turning back to his laptop.

'Cool.' Lisa thinks, flashing back to the elevator this morning and wondering how hard Amanda will choke on coffee if she hears this progression.