Piper blew a tuft of her blonde bangs out of her eyes and looked up at the tall glass building towering over her, taking a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself down. Silently praying to a god she didn't entirely believe in not to make an ass out of herself, she made her way to the revolving door. She was 45 minutes early, and without a keycard (which she would receive today), the 17th floor wouldn't work until 8AM. It was the first day of her internship at the Hermann Engineering company today, and she was terrified that she would ruin it on the first day. The office was in Bellevue and she lived in Seattle, so it was about a 30 minute bus ride from her apartment across the I-90 bridge. She didn't have a car, which wasn't to say she couldn't afford one, but she enjoyed walking and the city infinite means of transportation so she felt it unnecessary.
As she sat and sipped on her Starbucks, Piper watched busy men and women waiting for the elevators while they checked their watches and smartphones, as if that would make them arrive more quickly. Old men chatting with their coworkers that they had probably known for years, hungover young aduklts playing Candy Crush on their iPhones, and middle aged businessmen that wore expensive suits passed her while she sat in the firm chair in the elevator lobby. She stood up when the clock on her phone read 7:59, awkwardly pacing for a full 60 seconds before calling the elevator.
Piper was studying Mechanical Engineering at Seattle University, one of the lucky few to get an internship in the summer following her sophomore year while her classmates worked at coffee shops and gift shops around the city. Maybe lucky wasn't the right word to explain her situation. Her father, Bill, had been working at Hermann for 18 years now, since she was 1 year old, and he had gotten her the internship. Nevertheless, she was here and ready to follow in her father's large footsteps, or at least find out if she had declared the right major. It certainly didn't hurt that she would be making 20 dollars an hour, either. Her parents had always helped her out financially, but they wanted her to have the real college experience. We want you to struggle, not suffer, they reminded her as they gave her a monthly allowance for food and bus passes. It would be a nice change to be able to go out to dinner or go shopping downtown on weekends.
Bill worked at Hermann as an electrical engineer, who typically made more money than mechanicals, but Piper had trouble wrapping her head around circuits and went with mechanical when she enrolled at Seattle U. Bill rarely came into the office, taking travel jobs whenever they were offered, maybe to get the free air miles but probably to get away from Carol, Piper's mother. He was currently flying alternating weeks to Indianapolis and New York City with his boss (who was also Piper's boss now) for two separate jobs, so he wouldn't be around while she was interning this summer.
The doors opening tore her from her thoughts and she exited the elevator, taking quick steps and almost tripping in the heels she had so thoughtfully decided to wear when planning her outfit. She figured they were the most fitting shoes to go with the black slacks and white button up blouse she wore. She had been to the office a few times to see her father and knew this was an appropriate outfit, so at least this was one less thing that could go horribly wrong.
The elevator let her out directly in front of the receptionist, who did a good job pretending she didn't see the blonde stumble her way out of the elevator like a drunk person stepping out of a cab.
"Piper?" The older blonde woman asked. Her tone was friendly and familiar and made the girl a little less nervous.
"Hi... Yes." Piper cringed at how awkward she sounded. "Are you Linda? I'm supposed to find Linda."
"Yep, that's me," the woman responded, "we're going to go through the orientation in the conference room." She nodded her head in the direction of a set of double doors to Piper's left.
"There's one more new fire so we'll wait for him to get started."
Piper smiled at the woman and made her way into the room, taking a seat in front of a flatscreen that must have been at least 80 inches. She fiddled with the hem of her shirt for a while before Linda walked in followed by who she assumed was the other new hire. He was probably in his early 30s, wearing a checkered dress shirt tucked into a pair of khaki slacks. He seemed as nervous as her, if not more, which made her feel a little better. She figured all of her temporary coworkers would be middle aged men with lacking social skills, because honestly, people like that made up a large part of the engineering community. They watched a couple videos that were probably made in the early '90s and filled out some paperwork before Linda informed Piper that she was finished and handed her a keycard with her name on it. As an intern, there wasn't much paperwork she needed to do.
Her father told her to find Nicole when she arrived, one of his fellow electrical engineers. He described her as a little much sometimes, but she means well. Piper slowly walked toward the main area of the office, packed with cubicles and whiteboards, bookshelves full of thick dusty books containing ASME codes and outdated methods. She started to feel her heart rate go up.
What am I supposed to do, just walk around until I find someone named Nicole? Does she even know I'm going to be here today? Nobody prepared me for this shit.
Before she could freak herself out too much, she hear a loud voice coming from the hall to her left.
"Chapman!" She whipped her hear around to see a wild head of hair on a woman shorter than her. "Walk with me."
The woman continued down the hallway, cubicles lining the left side and more bookshelves on the right. Piper had to almost run despite her legs being probably at least 6 inches longer than the other woman's.
"Are you Nicole?" She asked timidly from behind the woman. Piper almost walked right into her as the woman came to an abrupt stop. The blonde immediately regretted asking, wondering to herself if she should know this woman, praying she didn't just completely insult someone important.
"Your dad is an asshole. Call me Nicky, or Nichols, or anything except Nicole."
"Oh... I'm sorry - I didn't know..." Piper started apologizing for something she wasn't even sure she owed the woman an apology for. It wasn't like she knew what name she preferred. Before she could get her thoughts together the woman started walking again and brought them to a large kitchen area littered with tabled topped with magazines, newspapers, and decks of cards. To her left was a tray of snack foods with prices listed on a large jar, some sort of honor bar like she had in her shared dorm kitchen during her first year of college.
Nicky went straight to the fridge, browsing as if she were at a grocery store.
"Bingo!" She exclaimed loudly, causing Piper to jump a little, as she grabbed a cup of yogurt from the fridge. "Always label your food, Chapman. Or don't, but then I'll just eat it."
As Nicky pulled the lid off the yogurt and licked it, Piper clearly saw that someone actually had scrawled their initials on the yogurt lid with a thick Sharpie. AV, the tinfoil read, clearly not Nicky's initials.
"But that has-" She was cut off by Nicky who had just crumpled up the lid and threw it like a basketball toward the trashcan, missing by at least a foot.
"So your dad asked me to show you around before Vause shoes up. She's in your department, so she's going to be giving work and helping you out. If you were smart, you would have chosen electrical and I would be giving you work," she shook her head, feigning disappointment. "Alright, let's get this show on the road. Vause will show you your desk later." She grabbed a spoon and AV's yogurt and walked out of the kitchen ahead of Piper.
They walked around the maze of cubicles, Nicky repeatedly introducing Piper as Bill's daughter or Chapman's spawn causing most of them to make a lame joke, either apologizing that she had to deal with him or joking that she was the reason he signed up for all of the out of state jobs for the summer. It seemed like Nicky was the joker of the office, Piper concluded, as she watched the woman pitching shit at nearly everyone she spoke to. They finally reached Vause's cubicle. It looked like she had already been here today, but she wasn't present. It was neat but cluttered at the same time. She had two Hermann coffee cups, one packed with green, blue, red, and black pens similar to what she had seen on her father's desk when she was younger, and another fill of pencils and highlighters. Her two large monitors were full of programs; AutoCAD on the larger screen with complicated line work littering the window, and the other screen was packed with emails that Piper didn't read out of respect for the woman. The walls, made out of some sort of corkboard covered on fabric, had a couple images of two black haired woman, but were mostly covered in certificates and awards. A plaque on the shelf above the monitors read "2014 Hermann Fantasy Super Bowl Winner", collecting dust along with a football crammed full of signatures. Her desk wrapped around the corner of the large cubicle. with an opening that perfectly fit a smaller chair for when she was working with other people.
She heard the woman's husky voice before she saw her.
"Nichols, can you at least try to be sneaky when you steal my food?" Piper looked up to see a tall, black haired woman throwing her hands up at Nicky. She wore a simple pair of black framed glasses, a pencil skirt, tall heels, and a white shirt similar to Piper's. She had an irritated look on her face before looking at the blonde and shaking her head with a smile. Nicky shrugged and walked away without introducing the two or saying a word to the black haired woman.
Piper looked at the woman again, watching her stare down the woman who had given her the tour.
"You're Bill's daughter?" The woman confirmed, looking at the blonde with bright green eyes. She nodded her response quickly, averting her eyes to the floor. This woman made her nervous, she didn't expect hot tall women with sexy glasses and jet black hair, she expected middle aged balding men that only respected her because her father was their superior.
"Alex." The woman said her name confidently. "Did the troll doll give you a tour?" She asked with a small smile, clearly picking up on how shy Piper was being. It worked, as a small giggle left Piper's lips before she answered.
"Kind of... She said you would show me my cubicle?" Piper wasn't sure why she made it sound like a question, Nicky had most definitely told her the woman would show her to her cubicle.
She hear Alex mutter something about Nichols being lazy before walking out of the cubicle.
"You're right here." She was standing in the cubicle directly connected to hers, a short wall separating the two of them. Piper couldn't help but be excited, this woman was just plain sexy and she would be sitting next to her all summer, working alongside her.
She looked around the cubicle; it was like a smaller version of Alex's, with two monitors, her keyboard and mouse ,and a phone being the only things on her desk. The woman went back to her cubicle and grabbed the spare chair, bringing it over to Piper's new desk.
"I'm gonna have to help you set everything up. Usually IT does this but I'll just take care of it." She pulled out the blonde's office chair and motioned for her to take a seat in front of the computer before plopping herself in the chair she brought over, and Piper couldn't help but notice she smelled delicious, like vanilla and something else she couldn't place. The brunette had a sticky note on her finger and stick it to the bottom of the monitor.
"This is your login into, it'll make you change your password in a couple hours."
Piper carefully typed her username (pchapman) and her password, which was a string of numbers and letters.
"Okay, so open up your email. It's linked to the phones and this messaging program," She leaned in and pointed to an icon on the screen, "So you can see if someone is online, or if they're in a meeting or on a call."
She helped Piper set up her voicemail, scooting closer so she could reach the buttons on the phone, and the girl couldn't help but lean closer to her, pretending she was trying to see what the woman was doing. Alex patiently showed the blonde how to map all of the network drives and created shortcuts to the most useful folders. Alex explained that while IT installed programs she couldn't be logged into her computer, so she would get her stocked up on office supplies.
They leisurely walked to the copy room and Alex prompted the blonde to open her arms as she went through cabinets, thoughtfully selecting graph paper, a ruler, a couple notepads, sticky notes, and some pens and pencils.
"What is your favorite color?" She asked while looking through the various jars of pens with narrowed eyes.
"Umm.. Purple?" Still stuck in the mindset that she needed to question her own every move. Alex simply smiled and grabbed two extra purple pens and set them in the girls arms, closing the cabinet doors as she smirked at the girl struggling to carry the various office supplies in her thin arms. Alex followed Piper back to her cubicle, picking up a good handful of pencils and rubber bands that the blonde dropped like breadcrumbs behind her.
They emptied the supplies on Piper's desk before Alex looked around and raised a finger as if to say hold on and vanished out of the cubicle. Piper heard something being dropped onto Alex's desk and she reemerged with one of her Hermann cups, placing it on the girls desk and filling it with pens and pencils.
"Alright," She turned to see Piper's grin and returned it before continuing, "Chris should be done installing everything and Linda said you have to do online training for the rest of the day. It's pretty boring but everyone has to do it. You can just listen to music and skim along. If you need anything, you know where I sit." And with that, the fascinating woman was gone. But not really, because Piper couldn't help but constantly remind herself that she was right on the other side of that wall.
She looked around her new space for a few moments before jumping at the sound of her phone ringing. She slowly picked up the receiver.
"Hello?" She asked timidly, assuming someone dialed the wrong number.
"Hey," she heard the husky voice beside her and through the phone at the same time. "I just wanted to make sure I didn't mess up your phone when I set up the voicemail. Is everything going okay?"
"Yeah, it's good. Thank you for helping me." She was excited to hear that Alex just called her to check on her, even though they were right next to each other. She smiled as Alex told her don't have too much fun over there before hanging up and returning her focus to the monitor.
She couldn't stop herself from removing her headphones and listening in as Alex made some phone calls, hearing the woman call people to inform them of mistakes they had made, sometimes politely and sometimes clearly frustrated with the person on the other line. She heard one phone call at around 11:45 a little more clearly, catching a few full lines of Alex's side of the conversation.
"Well, if it isn't the yogurt thief."
...
"Yeah, whatever. I'm gonna see if she wants to go out to lunch anyways."
Piper's heart rate sped up, silently praying that Alex was talking about her.
"Who do you think?"
...
"I guess, but I'm not buying you lunch after you ate mine."
A ball of paper flew across the room and landed in Piper's lap, making her jump.
"You missed, asshole," The blonde heard the click of the phone being placed back into its cradle followed by Alex's chair rolling away from her desk. The woman appeared seconds later, forearm resting high on the wall of the blondes cubicle as she leaned in.
"Wanna get some lunch?" The blonde couldn't help the huge grin that broke out on her face as she nodded eagerly and stood up, the ball of paper falling out of her lap.
"Here," Alex held out her hand, wanting the ball of paper. Piper dropped it into her hand and she peeked over the cubicle wall before tossing it in Nicky's direction. Her aim was dead on and the ball of paper was stuck in Nicky's hair as her head shot up above her cubicle wall.
Nicky lead the way confidently, taking them to a deli right across the street. Alex ended up paying for all of them, including Nicky. The three of them sat at a table near the window, Alex and Piper eating sandwiches while Nicky scarfed down a huge burger.
"So what do you think so far?" Alex asked through a mouthful of her sandwich. Usually Piper hated when people talked with their mouth full, but she couldn't find anything gross about this woman.
"It's nice," Piper said, sipping her water. "I mean it's hard to tell since I've been doing training."
"Yeah, it would be much more fun if you were electrical. We're way cooler." Nicky said with a grin, it seemed like there was some sort of playful rivalry between different types of engineers here. Alex rolled her eyes and Piper quickly bantered back.
"I wouldn't want to stick my finger in a socket like you seem to have done."
Alex let out a loud laugh, causing Piper to break out in a huge grin at the fact that she just made this beautiful woman laugh.
"Wow Chapman, that's cold." Nicky was already done with her burger and loudly scooted her chair back. "I'm gonna have a smoke, you guys are kind of assholes." She playfully shoved Alex's shoulder and walked outside, leaving the two alone.
"Training will take the rest of the day, but tomorrow I'll get you started on the good stuff."
With that, the two went back to the office and Piper spent the rest of the day trying to hold in her excitement.