A Beautiful Struggle (4 page)

 I’m not stupid and I knew Bianca was
interested in David, but I’m not his pimp. I don’t do set ups – he’s perfectly
capable of finding girls on his own.

I let out an exasperated sigh as I plonked
down onto my chair. Happy to move on from the elevator interrogation, I checked
my emails and started sorting through my 'in' tray again.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful,
but I was happy to go home even if that meant enduring the million and one
questions my mother was going to ask me about my first day.

“How was it?” she asked the moment I
stepped through the front door. I swear she must have been staking it out.

“It was alright, busy and a little
overwhelming but ok.”

“Did you meet any new people?” she asked.

“Of course she did mum! It was her first
day and there would have been an office full of people she hadn’t met before!”
my older brother chimed in.

I smiled at my mum. I knew she was just
excited for me. She had never worked before and found the idea of me working in
an office very glamorous.

 “I met everyone briefly but clicked fairly
well with a small group; they were nice,” I said squeezing her arm. “I’m just
going to get changed ok?”

“Did you meet any nice boys?” she asked
hopefully.

“Mum,” I replied in warning.

“I just think you should try moving on. Was
there anyone there you might like?”

“Get off her back Mum!” my brother called
out. “She’s not ready alright.”

“Thank you Tom,” I called out gratefully.
My brother was annoying, but at least he stuck up for me.

“You’re welcome. You'll owe me later.”

I rolled my eyes at him and looked at my
mother, giving her a tight smile, “Can you leave the ‘boy thing’ alone please.
I don’t want to date right now.”

“Yes but if you’d just move on, have a bit
of fun, you might forget,” she pleaded.

“I’ve already forgotten, see!” I gave her
the biggest happiest smile I could muster.

She smiled back at me, a sadness in her
eyes. “Are you going training?”

“Yes, I will just get changed and head
out.”

“Oh… ok.”

“What does that mean?”

“I just thought we could talk more about
your first day.”

“There’s nothing much more to say mum, it
really wasn’t that exciting.”

“Get off her back!” my brother yelled
again.

“Sorry,” my mum said quietly.

“It’s fine. I just want to get a ride in
before I call it a day.”

The front door opened and my dad walked in.
“Hello family!” he called out as he did every time he came home.

We all called out ‘hi’ in unison with
varying degrees of excitement, “How was your first-day  kiddo?” he asked as he
walked past me into the kitchen to search the fridge for a cold beer.

“Pretty good – I was just going to get
changed to go for a ride.”

“Ok, see you when you get back.”

I went into my room and got changed into my
riding gear. I could hear mum telling my dad that she couldn’t understand why
he didn’t ask me more questions; 'pretty good’ could mean anything she told
him. I couldn’t quite hear what his answer was, but I managed to get out of the
house without any further questioning so I could go on my ride.

I loved the peace that training gave me,
whether it was going for a run, a cycle, a swim or doing weights, I felt calm
when I was working hard. It’s like my brain stopped, and I didn’t have any
worries left. It was tranquillity at its best for me.

After a couple of hours I went home, ate,
showered, dodged more questions and flopped into bed. I had uni the next day
and caught up on some of my readings before I drifted off. I was working
Monday, Wednesday, Friday and at university on Tuesday and Thursday as well as
training most days. I was really going to have to work hard to keep on top of
everything.

It was Wednesday, and I was back at work.
The office was very quiet all around, I had said a quick hello to Kayley on my
way to my desk, but other than that, I hadn’t seen anyone. At  morning tea I
sat with the same people I did on Monday and once again refused lunch, saying
that I wanted to run.

“You’re very dedicated,” said Albina
looking me up and down; I'm not a particularly curvaceous woman. I’m primarily
muscle and sinew, but that comes with the amount of training that I do and a
careful diet. I felt a little self-conscious under her scrutiny as I regularly
wished I was more busty and had a bit more of a curve to my hips, so I just
shrugged my response and excused myself from the table in the break room.

“But we still have ten minutes!" said
Kayley. “Sit and talk to us.”

“I can't. I really want to do a bit of uni
reading before the break is over.”

“Oh, ok, I
guess
that’s a good
enough reason to go,” she smiled cheekily.

As I approached the library, I could see
that someone was in there through the internal window. Walking closer, I
realised that ‘someone’ was Elliot. My stupid stomach got all jittery despite
me wishing I didn’t react to him. I just couldn’t help it - he was a beautiful
figure to behold – especially from behind. All lean muscle showing through the
tailoring of his pants and shirt, it was enough to make a girl sigh out loud –
which I nearly did!

He was intently looking through one of the
law volumes; he had it sitting on top of the low book cases that lined the
middle of the room while he stood with his left leg crossed behind his right,
and his shirt sleeves rolled up exposing his muscled forearms while he leaned
over the book in concentration.

He turned around when I entered the room. I
smiled and said, “Hi, you look busy,” to him feeling a little more comfortable
around him after chatting in the lift the other day.  In return, he gave me a
blank impassive face before turning back to his reading.

Wow, talk about the cold shoulder
, I thought to myself as I took my seat. I put on my glasses and
took out my uni reader. I could still see Elliot where he was standing and
snuck a glance at him from the side of the partition. He was continuing to lean
over the book ignoring me.
Did I imagine talking to him Monday?
I didn’t
think I did, and David saw him as well so it couldn’t have been my imagination.
I frowned a little while I was looking at him and unluckily for me, he caught
me. I quickly flitted my eyes back down to my reading but my cheeks betrayed me
as I felt the heat rise in my face, I must have looked like a complete idiot
sitting there frowning at him!

I picked up my yellow highlighter so I
looked busy and started marking random sections of text in my book, I figured
if I looked interested enough in what I was doing, he might just think I was
frowning about my work and not at him.

Every sound in the room seemed amplified,
especially my own – I could hear my heart beating in my ears, and I seemed to
be breathing so loudly that it filled the room.

Above my noises, I could hear the fabric of
Elliot’s shirt as he moved to turn the very loud page. I tried to still my
breathing to calm myself when I heard him close the book and slide it back onto
the shelf.

I kept my head down turning pages and
pretending to read, highlighting here and there but still focused on him. In my
peripheral, I could see him start to walk towards me. I tried really hard to
look too busy to notice him; highlight, highlight, thoughtful expression, page
turn.

“Katrina?” he said briskly to get my
attention when he was near my desk.

I looked up with feigned surprise and said,
“Oh hi! Um, Evan is it? What can I do for you?”

He looked a little taken aback when I got
his name wrong and started to fumble his words, “Uh, it’s um… Elliot actually,
I, uh, just wanted to ask you if you had any microfiche for me,” he pointed to
the sorted pile on my desk. “I figured since I was here I would grab them to
save you walking them over to um… my office,” his hand flew up, and he rubbed
the back of his stylishly messy hair uneasily and gave me a slightly sheepish
grin.

“Oh of course, thanks,” I replied handing
him the pile I had finished with earlier.

“Thank you,” he said taking them, he turned
slowly, then hesitated. “Uh, bye Katrina, and thanks again for these.” He held
up the pile of microfiche and started for the door.

I sat there watching him leave, feeling
very impressed with myself. I pulled off the ‘deep in thought act’ and actually
made Mr Hotstuff himself get a little tongue-tied  – I guess he wasn’t used to
women ‘forgetting’ his name.

Kayley walked in with a conspiratorial grin
on her face. “What was that about?” she asked in a low voice.

“What was what about?” I said
indifferently.

“Don’t play all coy, Elliot just walked out
of here with a very confused look on his face. What did you say to him?” she
asked with her hands on her hips.

“Nothing, he was looking at a book and then
asked me for the microfiche, so I gave them to him.”

“Yes, but what did you say?”

“I said ‘Thanks’.”

“You said ‘Thanks’? That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

“Hmmm, if you say so,” she said looking at
me suspiciously. “I just haven’t seen the cool, calm and collected Elliot look
confused like that before.”

“I don’t know what to tell you Kayley,
maybe he read something confusing.”

“Hmm maybe… alright, I have to get back to
work. I’ll see you later,” she said as she left the library and went back to
her desk.

I closed my uni reader and put it back in
my bag to start on some more law book updates, smiling to myself about the look
on Elliot’s face when I called him Evan.
That’ll teach him to be rude when
someone says ‘hi’,
I thought to myself.

At lunch time, I wanted to run in the
Botanic Gardens. It was the beginning of August; spring had come to the city,
and the gardens would be beautiful to run through.

It was a five-minute walk from work to the
gardens closest entrance, so I decided to jog and use it as my warm up.  I
stopped just after I arrived to stretch in front of one of those signs that
give you a bit of information on the plants nearby.

Looking around, I could see quite a few
people in the park. Some were just sitting on the grass eating their lunch and
enjoying the sun, others were in the distance, doing tai chi and I could see a
couple of women with a personal trainer doing burpees and not looking very
happy about it.

The running track was dotted with people
who all had the same idea as I did. I shook out my legs a little as I checked
my watch for time – I figured I could run for 15 minutes in one direction and
then turn around so I had enough time to get back to the office, shower and
return to my desk before the hour was up.

 “Katrina?” a newly familiar male voice
said behind me. I turned around and came face to face with Elliot.

I couldn’t help myself and asked, “Are you
following me Evan?” with a cheeky lopsided smile on my face.

Elliot laughed, “No. I'm not following you.
I work out most days; I go a bit stir crazy sitting behind a desk all day … and
you know it’s Elliot right?”

“I don’t know about that,” I laughed
sarcastically. “You see, there’s this guy who works in my office called Elliot.
He’s a bit of an arsehat, grunts at people when they say hi - he looks a lot
like you, and I was confused because I thought he was the same friendly guy I
was talking to in the lift on Monday; but alas, he was not – it was some guy
who I’m assuming is your evil twin.” I said all of this with a straight face
and my hands on my hips.

He laughed at this half amused and a little
uneasy, “Sorry about that, I just try to keep things pretty strict at work; I
don’t like being the subject of office gossip. So don’t take offence if I don’t
stop to chat, I’ve been working there a while, and it’s best to keep to
yourself around those people.”

“Ok… how do you know I’m not ‘those
people’?”

“I don’t, just a hunch. You running?” he
asked as he started to jog backwards along the path. I took a deep breath as I
eyed him up and down, he was wearing running shorts and a quick-dry singlet,
giving me a perfect view of how well sculpted his arms, and legs were. My head
spun a little as those dirty images flashed through my mind again,
Get a
grip!
I told myself, turning my focus onto the matter at hand.

“Yeah I’m running, are you sure you can be
seen with me?” I questioned, pressing
start
for the timer on my watch
before I ran to catch up.

 “This isn’t the office, and I don’t
normally see any of the gossip mongers out here anyway.”

“I guess they’re all too busy gossiping,” I
supposed.

“I guess so,” he agreed, and we fell into
an easy pace side by side, occasionally brushing against each other - I had to
force myself to focus so my knees didn’t buckle from the bolt of lust that shot
through my body every time we made contact – was he doing this on purpose?