He Liked Me While I Obsessed Over Him

Chapter 2 An Awkward Encounter

I had rewatched Mr. Mystery's videos countless times last night, eventually drifting off to sleep without realizing it. When I woke up the next morning, I realized I was going to be late in exactly ten minutes.

I threw on my clothes in a frenzy and sprinted all the way to the office.

Fortunately, the apartment my mom bought for me was in a great location, so I was only a few hundred yards away from the company.

The moment I rushed into the building and clocked in, I saw the doors of both elevators closing right before my eyes.

I sighed heavily. If my supervisor caught me arriving right on the dot, he would probably mock me relentlessly for the rest of the day.

To my surprise, as I walked over to the elevators in utter defeat, one of the doors slid open. Someone was holding the elevator for me! I secretly praised them in my mind, thinking they were an absolute saint.

But when I stepped inside, I froze. The person standing there was none other than the company CEO, Melvin Lambert. I had been with the company for three years, yet I had never seen my boss in person. I used to always wonder what he looked like. But good grief, why did my first time meeting him have to be when I was barely making it to work on time?

My heart sank. So I was arriving at the absolute last second and ending up in the exact same elevator as the big boss. Talk about terrible luck. I was already regretting stepping inside.

Obviously, it was too late to back out now. I stole a quick glance at him. He was dressed in an immaculate, tailored suit, his face entirely expressionless as he stared straight ahead.

Hoping to avoid the suffocating awkwardness, I pulled out my phone, only for a blast of loud music to echo through the cramped elevator.

However, I had fallen asleep watching Mr. Mystery's videos last night, and I had forgotten to turn down the volume.

Now, right there on my screen, Mr. Mystery's toned body was moving seductively. I instantly locked my screen and snapped into a rigid standing posture.

Out of the corner of my eye, I peeked at my boss. He had just turned his head, a barely perceptible smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.

My face flushed crimson instantly. This was profoundly embarrassing. Even my usually stoic, strict boss was amused by my ridiculous blunder.

"We're on the 24th floor, time to get off."

Finally, the elevator ride from hell came to an end.

As Melvin brushed past me, the edge of his suit jacket lightly grazed against me, giving me a sudden wave of goosebumps.

I groaned inwardly, 'Oh god, is the job I worked so hard to get about to vanish into thin air?'

Back in my college days, I loved to party. My grades were terrible, and I hated participating in campus activities. When it came time to look for a job, I faced endless rejections.

Eventually, I submitted my resume to this company. I hadn't held out much hope, but it happened to coincide with a massive hiring expansion. I was brought in simply as part of that hiring wave. I had been working here for three years now, and my life had been completely uneventful. Since my position never went up or down, the coworkers who initially rumored that I got in through nepotism eventually shut their mouths and accepted that I was just lucky.

Just as I had anticipated, my supervisor spent half an hour during the morning meeting mocking me for sliding in at the last minute. Fortunately, nobody brought up what happened in the elevator.

That afternoon, I logged onto my alt account to post a video venting about my embarrassing morning.

I also took the opportunity to complain about my meager salary, noting that if I were to get fired, my already precarious life would completely fall apart.

Right after I posted the video, my supervisor called me over to copy some documents. He said the boss needed them for an upcoming meeting and told me to deliver them directly to Melvin's office once they were ready.

Clutching the stack of documents, I made my way toward the executive suite. The floor was covered in wet patches, likely because the janitor had just mopped and hadn't managed to dry it yet. I silently warned myself to tread carefully and absolutely not to slip.

But as fate would have it, the one thing you dread most would always be the thing that happened.

Suddenly, my foot lost its grip, and I began to plunge forward.

My mind was already flashing to the humiliating image of me sprawling across the floor. But in the next split second, a hand reached out from behind, gripping my collar firmly and hauling me right back up.

My heart, which had leaped into my throat, finally settled back down.

I spun around, eager to offer my deepest thanks, only to find myself staring at a pair of pristine, high-end leather shoes.

'Wait! Weren't these Mr. Lambert's shoes?'

I groaned in sheer despair. My luck today was genuinely abysmal!

"Hand the documents to me."

He spoke without a trace of emotion, extending his hand toward me.

I stared blankly at his long, defined fingers, completely losing my train of thought.

His hands were stunningly beautiful, looking remarkably like Mr. Mystery's.

After a few seconds of me failing to react, Melvin gently tapped my head with his knuckles.

"Alice, what are you daydreaming about?"

Only then did I realize how unprofessional I was being, and I hurriedly thrust the documents into his hands.

"If your shoes are slippery, don't walk over here."

"Thank you, Mr. Lambert."

Good god, that was incredibly mortifying.

Once I crept back to my desk, I spent the rest of the day in a state of constant anxiety. Fortunately, no other embarrassing disasters occurred for the remainder of the afternoon.