First Impression

The autumn breeze swept her hair backwards as Jess scurried towards the life sciences research building. She tapped her badge at the entrance and with the sound of a confirmation beep, she pushed open the glass door and slid into the building. She peeked at her phone, irritated that she couldn't come in sooner than she had wanted to, started planning inside her head which experiments to prioritize as the elevator brought her up to the 5th floor. She dropped off her bag at her desk, and dashed into the lab to retrieve her box of slides before heading to the microscope room. Jess walked into the microscope room, expecting it to be empty as she booked it in advance. To her surprise, an unfamiliar face looked up at her from the confocal microscope. "Hello." Jess nodded. "Hi." replied Tony. He was shocked to see a girl holding onto boxes of slides, thinking that he would have enough time to figure out how to use the microscope before the next person came in. Yet, he couldn't help but to stare at this mysterious girl in front of him. "My name is Jess. I'm from the Hanns lab." She smiled. "Tony, from Raymond's lab." He couldn't take his eyes off of her. There's something familiar about her. She was on the chubbier side, and had a small nose, where her glasses kept sliding down as soon as she readjusted them. She wasn't attractive, in his opinion, perhaps slightly above average, but there was something about her that made him want to find out more about her. "Uh, I booked the room for the next hour; do you have something urgent going on right now?" She asked. "Oh, I just got trained on it, so I just need some time to figure things out. Is it okay if I stay on for another 30 minutes?" He hoped that she wouldn't kick him out. "Sure, I'll come back in half an hour then." She smiled again. He thought that it was cute. "Great, thanks." "Alright, see you around." Jess turned around and left, thinking, 'Great, now I have to wait another half an hour...'