Hello wonderful people!
I loved Cristela and began writing this while the show was airing. Now that's over, the show was amazing and deserved at least two seasons but I digress, now that it's over I felt it was write to finish this and post it. It's kind of set somewhere after episode 9.
I really hope you guys like it :D
Alright. Breathe. You can do this.
Josh closed his eyes momentarily. Envisioning his goal, he took the first step. Then another. Then another. He slowly quickened his pace, moving from a healthy rhythm to a sprint, moving from one step to another. He smiled as he attempted to move faster, even skipping a step or two. However, just after reaching the perfect stride, he sensed something was off. He was slowing down, losing momentum. Declining from a sprint, to a trot, to a pace, to a trudge, Josh wanted to give up but took a deep breath and glanced around the stair well. He was only one floor away from the office.
Can't give up now.
Slowly but surely, like the mighty tortoise, Josh made it up those last couple of steps and flung himself through the door into the office. The elevator had broken down yesterday during work so everyone had to take the stairs down and the repairman wouldn't be arriving to later that day. That's why Josh made sure to get their early. Working on such a high floor, was bound to increase the stair traffic and beating the rush allowed him to get a head start on his work and maybe impress his boss. He was pleasantly surprised to see no one else had yet arrived and set down his briefcase at his desk. Josh leaned back in his chair and warmed up his laptop.
I need coffee.
He got up and headed for the kitchen. No one was there but curiously the coffee pot was already turned on.
How did—
"Oh hey Josh," a voice sang from behind him, causing him to jump slightly. He turned around swiftly to see Cristela walking in with a mug in one hand and a thick memorandum in the other. She sat down at the shared conference table without looking up from her notes. Josh eased up when he saw her, even smiling slightly.
"Hey Cristela," he began. "How long have you been here?" Josh pulled out a mug from the cabinet and poured himself some coffee.
So much for being number one. I'll have to get up even earlier tomorrow and call a repairman for the elevator.
"Oh, I've been here for hours," she replied, still not looking at him. "I had to read this memorandum and I decided to just go ahead and get an early start. When I got here we were out of coffee so I ran out to get some for the machine and also called a repairman for the elevator."
Of course she did.
"Wow, you're really on top of things," he complimented, with a twinge of annoyance at how "on the ball" she was, like always. "I'm kind of surprised that you didn't finish the memorandum yesterday. Did you have a busy night?"
"Well, I only got it this morning," she explained, taking a sip of her coffee and looking up at him calmly.
"Wait, what?" Josh asked, looking a bit concerned. "Mr. Culpepper sent it to me yesterday night."
"Right," she nodded, with a knowing smile. "But then he sent us the edited version this morning around 3 AM. That's the one I'm reading now."
"Oh," Josh breathed, freezing up. That document was over thirty pages long and they had about an hour until work started.
"Oh?" chuckled Cristela. "Why are you acting like you didn't read it? We both know you got up at like 3:01 and sped read through the whole thing. Unfortunately, we can't all be geniuses," she continued to laugh kindly before returning back to her reading.
"Right," Josh grinned awkwardly. "I already read it," he cringed. "I'm going back to my desk now."
"Oh, I'll join you," Cristela claimed, standing up. "I have a question about section five that maybe you can answer. It has to do with the revision to the Masterson clause."
"Yea," he said quickly. "Sure, let me just get my stuff in order." Josh fast walked back to his desk and rapidly logged into his email. Sure enough, there was an email from Mr. Culpeper at 2:56 AM that had gone unopened right under the daily inspirational quote email he got from his mother.
~All things happen for a reason, so instead of hanging tightly on to the past, embrace the changes of tomorrow with open arms and create even better moments worth remembering~
Josh smiled at the quote for a moment before remembering his dilemma. He had about fifty five minutes to read through thirty five pages of annotated legalese.
Alright, so that gives me about a minute and half per page, which wouldn't be that hard if I were a machine. Or I could focus on the pages that are the most annotated, and simply direct the conversation to those areas if Mr. Culpepper asks about anything else. Or I could just read as much as possible until the time comes, chances are Mr. Culpepper will come late or simply forget about the memorandum especially because we aren't even meeting the client for a few days. Or maybe I could—
"Earth to Josh!" yelled Cristela.
"What!?" he jump-screamed, causing him to tilt dangerously close to the floor in his rolling desk chair. The intern had been so wrapped up in his own thoughts, he hadn't heard his colleague calling his name.
"Whoa!" she screamed even louder. "Calm down there. I just wanted to ask you about the Masterson clause."
"Right," he nodded slowly. "W-w-w-well, what do you want to know about it?" He caught that he had started to stutter. His tell when he became nervous. Cristela appeared to pick up on it to but didn't say anything.
"Okay," she began. "I don't understand why it's in there, especially since it's worded so vaguely. I think it could lead to a lot of unforeseen lawsuits if the wrong people can convince the judge that it means something other than what we intended."
"Uh huh," Josh agreed nervously and tried to answer her. "Well, I'm sure Mr. Culpepper had a good reason to put it in there."
"Of course, he did," she shrugged. "But what do you think about it?" Josh stared at her as she held onto the memorandum and looked up at him. He couldn't help but admire how focused her dark brown eyes were. She probably already had a firm opinion on what she be done with the clause – whatever it was – but she still cared what he thought. He never understood how she did that. He tended to alienate people who didn't have similar ideas to himself, not on purpose though. He liked to think that he is very welcoming to people of different ideologies but his friends at law school pointed out he could be glib or flippant with people who didn't agree with him. So the fact, that Cristela could have such strong opinions but still want to hear what everyone else had to say fascinated him. It did help that they usually agreed on most matters but when they didn't – those days were interesting.
"Well, I think…" he began trying to come up with an answer. "That…we…should just trust Mr. Culpepper's view on it." Immediately, Cristela squinted her eyes at him.
"So what you're suggesting…"she said slowly. Josh hoped she didn't realize what he was doing. "Is that I simply agree with our boss and accept that he knows what he's doing?"
"Yes?" he replied, hesitantly. She stared at him for a little longer before bursting out laughing.
"Well, I simply can't do that," she shrugged before returning to her desk and taking a seat. "I'll just ask Mr. Culpepper about it when he gets here." Josh watched as she pushed the memorandum aside and started to rapidly type on her computer. What is she working on now? Is there something else I forgot?
The need to know was eating at him, so he decided to slowly roll his chair closer to her desk to catch a glimpse of her screen. Cristela was so occupied that she didn't notice his movement and he got even closer. What is she doing? From what he could tell she wasn't working on any document, she was in some sort of chat environment but it wasn't a social media page that he recognized. Wait…
"Are you bidding on sports tickets?" he asked, noticing the word Cowboys being thrown around and being 74% sure that was a Dallas team of some sort.
"Yep," she said, without turning her head from the screen. Josh didn't really get other people's obsession with sports, he was more of a musical theatre kind of guy. There was a lot more singing and a lot less pain. Cristela liked sports though, a lot. It seemed like every week she was hyped up for a new game that she was going to see, especially if it was basketball or football. In fact, Josh remembered her mentioning a football game she was going to see this weekend in Dallas. The Cowboys…
"Wait," he realized. "Don't you already have tickets to see the Cowboys?"
"Yep," she nodded, still facing forward. "I'm bidding on it right now."
"Oh," Josh sighed. "You hadn't bought it yet. It's just that last week, you said that you were going to see them and I had assumed-"
"You assumed right," she said, a little bit hysterical. "This is my ticket."
"Yes," he said slowly. "When you win it, it'll be your ticket."
"No," she replied curtly. "This is actually my ticket, like it belongs to me."
"Well then, why are you bidding on it?" Now, he was really confused.
"Because," she began before rapidly typing a value and pressing Enter. "I thought, I was going to have to miss this game to take my mother to see my aunt so I put it up for sale."
"Oh, so your sister is taking your mother?"
"No, she died," she replied nonchalantly.
"Wait, your mother?" Josh asked, extremely concerned.
"Ha, no," Cristela laughed. "My aunt, but the funeral is on Sunday so I can still see the game."
"Oh, but then why can't you just take the ticket off the market?"
"I could have if no one had bid on it already," she replied, a little angrily. "But these sports fans are vultures."
"Right," Josh smiled, noticing the irony. "Well, I hope you're able to buy your ticket from you."
"Thank you," she chuckled. "The bids about to close and right now I have the highest offer, so I think I'm safe."
Josh watched as his coworker glared at her computer, as if to dare it to take her ticket away from her. He rolled back over to his desk and tried to get started on the memorandum. After a couple of minutes, people started to file into the office and Josh realized that he was running out of time. He would probably be fine since he took such care in reading the first draft but decided he should pick up the pace. He was about a third of the way through the document when a loud scream echoed throughout the office. Josh jumped out of his chair and centered his attention on Cristela who had slid out of her own chair onto the ground.
"What happened?" he questioned.
"Someone bought the ticket at the last minute," she groaned. Cristela got up back into her seat and rested her head on the desk in her arms. "I guess I'm watching this one from home." Josh frowned a bit, walked over to her and placed his hand on her shoulder.
"At least you made some money off the ticket," he said, trying to cheer her up.
"I guess," she mumbled into her desk. As he tried to console her, Mr. Culpepper entered the office through the elevator. The older man was grinning while his daughter, Maddie, trailed behind him looking like she walked off the cover of Vogue. The young intern placed her purse at her desk and pulled out a nail file. Her nails were already perfectly manicured but she needed something to show people that she wasn't going to do any work today.
"Good morning, Mr. Culpepper," Josh smiled. "You look cheery today."
"I am," the boss agreed. "You ever wake up one morning and just remember how rich you are?"
"Um," Josh didn't really know what to say. His family was okay financially but rich wouldn't be the word to describe it. "Not really."
"Well, you should try it sometime," the older man suggested, heading into his office. "It's great. Oh and Josh," he remembered, standing outside his office door. "I'm going to need you to present the memorandum to my client in about thirty minutes so be ready to go soon."
Oh, wonderful. The man sat down at his desk and tried to get through more of the work but it was just too much. At least Cristela's feeling better, he noticed as his coworker raised her head and began typing on her computer again. It was much slower and she was still frowning but it was better. She was still moping though. He didn't understand why she wanted to go to the game so badly but he didn't like seeing her unhappy.
It isn't fair, he thought. She already had the ticket and basically had to buy it back, while I bet Mr. Culpepper has a box seat to every game that he doesn't use. Wait…
Josh had an idea that he was pretty sure wasn't going to work but was at least worth a try. He made his way to Mr. Culpepper's office and knocked on the already open door.
"Do you know why I keep the door open?" his boss asked, looking a bit annoyed.
"Because the air conditioner's broken, sir?" Josh replied.
"Yes," the man had to agree. "But also so people don't waste time knocking, now come in. What do you want?" Josh walked into the room and stood in front of Mr. Culpepper's desk. The older gentlemen had on his reading glasses while he scanned a stack of papers. From a quick glance, Josh could tell it was the memorandum.
"It's about Cristela, sir."
"Yea," the man sighed, still glancing through the document. "What about her?"
"Well, she's upset, sir." His boss looked up from his memorandum and lowered his glasses.
"She's upset," he repeated. "And that is my problem because?"
"Because…" Josh hesitated. "I haven't read the updated memorandum, so she's the only one who can brief the client and we both know Cristela would do a great job."
"Yes," Mr. Culpepper agreed. "If she wasn't moping around," he claimed nodding to the office outside. Josh turned around to see what he was talking about and saw Cristela slowly spinning around in her chair at her desk.
"Right, but you can fix it," Josh claimed, facing his boss again.
"How?"
"Well, you rich people always have box seats to football games right?"
"You rich people?" Mr. Culpepper repeated, indignantly.
"Uh, I mean," Josh sighed. "I didn't mean it as an insult. Although I really can't see how anyone would take it that way."
"True," his boss agreed, smiling. "And yes, I have box seats to the Cowboys."
"Well, you should invite Cristela to this Saturday's game," he suggested. "That'll cheer her up, I know it."
"Alright," Mr. Culpepper shrugged. "Good idea but I'm still disappointed in you for not reading the memorandum. A big part of being a lawyer is being on top of all the paper work, Josh."
"Yes sir," he nodded. "I promise it won't happen again." He headed out of the office and sat his desk. He noticed Cristela was talking to Maddie. That's a lot better than the spinning. Well, it more was like Cristela was talking at Maddie, who was just sitting at her desk, on her phone and saying random sounds when her coworker took a pause.
"They were really good seats too," the Latina explained.
"Uh huh," the blonde agreed, absent-mindedly. Realizing Maddie was in her own little world, Cristela turned her attention Josh.
"Hey, thanks for trying to cheer me up," she smiled. "I'll be fine."
"Yea, you would have done the same thing," he replied.
"You're right," she answered. "I would but it was still really nice. So what are your plans for the weekend?"
"Nothing much," he shrugged. "I'm going to see Wicked on Saturday."
"Really?" Cristela asked, her eyes lighting up. "I've always wanted to see that play. I hear it's amazing."
Oh, that's right. She likes musicals too. Maybe she'd want to go with—
"Cristela!" Mr. Culpepper shouted from his office. "I need you in here now." She glanced at Josh in a bit of confusion before getting up and heading over to see what the boss needed. After a couple of moments another scream was heard throughout the work space but this was a lot more cheerful.
Maybe another time.
Josh went back to work but soon he was grabbed by his arm out of his chair. Standing up quickly to counter the force, he realized Cristela was pulling him into a hug.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you," she said rapidly into his chest. Still a bit confused, Josh slowly put his arms around her and accepted the embrace. Since she was a bit shorter than he was, his head rested near the top of hers. Her hair smelled like mangoes which hadn't been a huge fan of but he was definitely changing his mind about that. When she pulled away, she looked a little embarrassed but was still grinning. "You know, you didn't have to do that."
"Yea," he shrugged. "But here we are." She laughed lightly at his comment and went to her desk to grab some notes before heading back to Culpepper's office.
"You're kind of amazing, Josh," she smiled while passing his desk.
"I know," he grinned. "But thanks for saying it." He watched her disappear into the boss' office and returned to his work. The rest of the day was pretty normal. He got through the rest of the memorandum and wrote down a couple of notes to chair with Mr. Culpepper later. After returning from the meeting with the clients, he and Cristela went to lunch at nearby substation. She told him about why the Cowboys were actually the best football team in the country. He managed to follow along for a little while but when she got into player statistics he gave up. So, he decided to tell her about Wicked and the story behind it.
"You are like the biggest nerd, I've ever met," she laughed, when he tried to explain why Steven Sonnehiem's brilliance. "And I write Lord of the Rings fanfiction, so that's saying something."
"Ha ha," he smirked. "King of the Nerds," Josh boasted. "I'll take that title any day."
"Well then," she began, taking the paper menu and folding it a couple of times. When she was down, she placed the object on his head. "Consider yourself crowned."
"Why thank you," he replied earnestly. He took a quick picture of himself and the crown before excusing himself to the restroom. On his way, he posted the picture to Instagram with the caption King of the Nerds. When he finished washing his hands, his phone buzzed from a notification. Cristela had liked his picture and commented All hail! He laughed to himself. He didn't care if anyone else noticed the photo, for some reason the fact that she liked it was enough. As he walked back to the table, Josh thought about this. How talking to Cristela about anything even football could make him smile. Why he wanted to talk to her all the time. Why he always jumped at the chance to hang out with her. Why he was glad when even the prospect of going to Wicked together excited him.
I like her.
He was a couple feet from the table now and he could see her scrolling through something on her phone. She noticed something funny and began to laugh so hard that she put her phone down. It caused him to smile too. He felt the urge to sit by her and share in the moment.
I like her a lot.
He had played with the idea of asking her out. Maybe they'd see a movie or try out a new restaurant. Whatever it was, no matter how awkward it got, he was sure it would be something to remember. Something worth remembering. He glanced at his watch, they were going to have to go back to work soon. He glanced back at Cristela, who was still giggling to herself, decided there was no time like the present and took a step forward.
Alright. Breathe. You can do this.
A/N: Please review and thanks for reading!