Okay, I am way overdue for an update on everything, I know! I'm sorry!
"Excuse me! Coming through! Excuse me! Move already!" Caitlyn Gellar groaned as she turned into her office ten minutes late.
"Time Gellar," Observed a dry voice from behind a computer screen across the room. "How hard is it for you to make it to work at nine?" Caitlyn resisted the urge to snap at her blonde colleague and simply sat at her own desk, placing down the coffee she had carefully carried and reaching up to pat down the brown curls that adorned her head.
"Gellar," Greeted a third voice. Caitlyn glanced up and grinned at the familiar girl. Tess failed to notice that Mitchie mocked her tone each morning but it never failed to put a smile on Caitlyn's face.
The three twenty four year old women had worked together for almost two years now. Straight out of college they had been assigned to the same office; Caitlyn and Mitchie through hard work and determination, Tess through bribing and fluttering her eyelashes. It was always the two brunettes that completed the majority of the work, slaving away from nine through to five as Tess filed her nails and checked her reflection.
Like any other morning, Mitchie had arrived early, set everything up and begun working by the time Tess marched in dead on the dot of nine. Caitlyn had arrived at the building on time but had taken ten minutes to wind her way around the other inhabitants. The three girls were secretaries for Ocean Records, the three jobs that essentially kept the job running. They read documents, typed notes, sent and received emails and phone calls, directed lost customers and, most importantly, had a good time working around so many celebrities.
Today hadn't seemed any different. Mitchie had spent the morning typing up documents and forced Caitlyn to work on her latest project, a short backing track to one of Mitchie's original songs. The two girls often spent much of their time recording and producing songs, hoping that one day they would have the courage to show their work to one of the bosses.
It was only when the clock reached twelve and Caitlyn had stood up, announced she was going for lunch and offered to buy Mitchie something that the atmosphere changed. Caitlyn didn't notice it until she walked passed a window and caught a glimpse of the limo parked outside. It wasn't unusual to see a limo parked outside Ocean Records but it was unusual for the limo's personalised number plate to show exactly who the owners were.
Connect 3 never visited the studios. The producing team went to them, everybody knew that.
Shrugging the unusual event off, Caitlyn stepped into the waiting elevator, greeting the man in the corner with a nod of her head. She barely paid him any attention as the doors slid shut, humming to herself from where she stood.
The lift stopped and Caitlyn prepared herself to step out. The doors jerked slightly but seemed to jam and slid shut again almost immediately.
"Well that can't be good…" She muttered angrily to herself. She felt the tiny room begin to move again and glanced nervously at her only companion. He was staring at the door with narrowed eyes, his face in shadow under the hood he had pulled tightly over the baseball cap. Neither one of them spoke for a few seconds, both silently hoping that everything would sort itself out.
The next sign of danger was the lights flickering out. Caitlyn screamed and then stumbled when the sudden lack of movement forced her backwards. She felt herself collide with the stranger's body and blushed deeply, glad that he couldn't see.
"Now what?" Asked the man's voice from a spot just by her left ear. Caitlyn stood firmly back on her feet and tilted her head slightly as she turned around to thank him.
In the dark, Caitlyn was more than a little shocked to feel another pair of lips graze her own. She pulled her body backwards just as the light's flickered back on and the lift jerked into movement.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we are sorry for any inconvenience caused by our momentary loss of power." Drawled the robotic voice. "You are now back in movement. Have a nice day." Caitlyn waited impatiently for it to finish before speaking.
"I'm sorry!"
"It wasn't your fault!" The stranger promised. "You couldn't have seen a thing in the dark. It was just an accident." The doors slid open in reception and Caitlyn grinned.
"Well this is my stop. I'll see you around." With a quick wave, Caitlyn leapt through the door, swinging her black bag over her shoulder and smiling broadly as she crossed the glossy floor and left the building.
As she queued to buy her coffee, Caitlyn found her mind drifting back to the accidental kiss. She kept on telling herself that it was just a kiss, a simple kiss could do no harm, especially when it was with a man who she had never seen before and would probably never see again. It just didn't work. She could still feel his soft lips on hers whenever she closed her eyes, she could still feel the way that as soon as she had fallen onto him, her terror of being shut in a broken elevator had ebbed away.
Who was he, to cause her this much confusion? He was probably nothing more than a teenager who had managed to sneak into the building and was trying to find his way up to somewhere important. Something told her this was unlikely and she frowned as she paid for the coffee, not even taking the liberty of smiling at the cute boy behind the counter as she usually did.
Caitlyn returned to the office in a dream like state, complete with empty coffee cup and glazed eyes. Mitchie shot her a confused look.
"Cait, where's the food?"
"Huh? Oh… I forgot…"
Mitchie frowned. Caitlyn never forgot food, ever. She was always eating. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing… just thinking…" Caitlyn answered her absently, sitting down at her desk. She opened up the background track she had been working on before lunch and failed to notice the smirk Tess was sending her way.
Mitchie had turned back to her own computer, assuming that Caitlyn would tell her in time. For a second the office was silent apart from the sound of clicking keyboards and the scratching of Tess' nails against the file. The silence ended abruptly when Caitlyn pressed play on her mix and the sound burst out. Across the whole building.
Mitchie and Caitlyn both gave small shrieks, looking around with wide eyes as they heard Mitchie's voice projected to what felt like the whole world.
"What the hell?" Caitlyn yelled over the music, clicking the pause button. The music continued to play at full volume and they could hear people in all directions shouting and imagine them holding their ears in confusion.
"Wow Caitlyn." Tess observed dryly. "You really screwed that up. Now you've just proven to everyone that you don't do any work and you're showing everybody Mitchie's… beautiful voice. Nice work."
"Tess what did you do?" Mitchie yelled.
"Me? Nothing. I might possibly have hired a guy to switch the speaker output on Caitlyn's computer when you were both out of the room but personally, I did nothing."
Blushing a furious red, Mitchie and Caitlyn both dropped to the floor and began scrambling around, chasing after various wires and cables in the hope of finding the right one. By the time Caitlyn managed to track the discreet grey wire it was too late. The technicians had tracked the source of the music and five very familiar people were standing in the doorway.
First of all was Bill Peterson, the most important producer in the entire company. No song was sent off without Bill's permission, he had to listen to every track forwards, backwards and upside down before he was happy with it. Secondly was Mike Ocean, the founder of Ocean Records. Mike looked furious, her arms folded across his chest in a stance of anger.
But standing behind the two older men were three boys who were very familiar to the women in the office. Shane, Nate and Jason Grey, the three brothers that made up Connect 3. They were all three chuckling softly as Caitlyn jumped to her feet, the end of the offending wire held tightly in her hand. Her eyes sought the middle brother, the boy who seemed oddly familiar.
"Would you care to explain what is going on here?" Mike asked sharply, obviously not expecting an answer straight away. "I was upstairs in a very important meeting and this racket bursts out across the speaker system. What were you thinking?"
"I'm ever so sorry sir!" Caitlyn flushed bright red. "It was an accident. Somebody must have plugged my computer into the wrong speaker system."
"Name?"
"Caitlyn Gellar, sir."
"Well Caitlyn, it is my obligation to inform you that you no longer have a job here at Ocean Rec-."
"Wait." Bill spoke up, stepping further into the room. "Miss Gellar, would you care to play that same track for me again, perhaps on your own speakers this time?" Caitlyn frowned slightly but nodded, plugging the cable into the office speakers and then restarting the song.
Bill listened to the whole track before speaking again and nobody else attempted to interrupt him. Caitlyn was confused but tried not to act it, appearing unprofessional would not help her already dubious position.
"Who was the girl singing on that song?" He finally asked.
Mitchie raised her arm half into the air. "That was me, sir."
"So you mean to say that we have a secretary hiding away down here with more talent than most of our signed singers?" Mitchie blushed bright red but Bill continued. "And as for Miss Gellar… That mix was astounding! If you can create tracks like that on the free software you've been using, I would love to see what you can do on the real thing."
Both girls stared at each other for a long moment, absorbing this information.
"So you mean…?" Mitchie couldn't say it but Bill understood.
"That's right. Mike can fire you but I'm hiring you as my newest music project."
"Nice choice Bill," Nate Grey said with a laugh, entering the room with his brothers. "These two seem to have real talent. Although, I wouldn't let Miss Gellar work anywhere with any elevators if I was you." Nate winked at Caitlyn who tensed up.
"That was…? Oh My God…" Her whole face turned a deep red and Nate laughed softly. Nobody else understood his reference.
"If you two will just come upstairs, we can sort out the details of your contracts." Bill turned to leave the room but stopped to look at Tess. "And Miss Tyler, I suggest that next time you want to embarrass your colleagues, you choose to embarrass some with a little less talent than these two. Maybe even yourself, we might get a laugh out of that one."
Tess looked hurt and mortally embarrassed, staring at her feet until the seven others had left the room. Caitlyn ducked back in a second later to take her coat and bag from her chair.
"Have fun in here on your own Tess. You might have to actually do some work from now on."
Outside in the hallway, Caitlyn found herself face to face with Nate and laughed nervously as she ran a hand through her hair.
"So I kissed Nate Grey, who would've thought it?"
"Probably not me, but I'm glad you did because it give me an excuse to ask you out for dinner."
"What?"
"Do you want to go on a date with me Caitlyn?"
"Seriously?" Caitlyn could feel her heartbeat picking up.
"Yeah, you seem like an amazing girl, I would love to get to know you better. Are you busy tonight?"
"Well I had made plans with this amazingly cute pop star but I guess I could cancel them."
Nate pulled a face and gently nudged her. "It's on then. I'll take you out as soon as we're done here."
"Just promise me one thing?"
"What?"
"No elevators, none at all."
"I promise. No elevators will ruin our night."
Okay, so it's completely pointless but I love Naitlyn and I realise I've been reading all your stuff so much lately that I haven't really written much… I have a query now:
I read a story a few months ago that I'm having trouble tracking down. I can remember a few things about it; Nate and Mitchie had told Shane they were engaged when, in reality, Nate and Caitlyn were engaged. Shane believed the lie until he caught Nate and Caitlyn making out…
That's all I can remember… Let me know if you have any idea what I'm on about, please!