Calla Vaughn felt the telltale shudder of the car through her seat just as she started to pull through the gate. “No, no, no,” she said out loud, as if the machine might actually hear and decide not to die in the middle of the post-lunch rush to the parking deck. Despite the feeble attempt to stop it, with a lurch and a cough and a cloud of black exhaust, her car sputtered to a stop.

Resigned, Calla slipped her glasses off and lay her forehead on the steering wheel, closing her eyes, the smell of burning oil stinging her nose. If this week would just end, if she could just get through this afternoon, then tomorrow, and make it to the weekend, everything would turn out fine. It had to. Surely, the domino effect of her life would still and cease if she could just shut the door to her little apartment and hide from the rest of the world until Monday.

The tapping on her window startled her, and she hastily sat up, slipping her black-framed glasses back on. She knew with her black hair and dark brown eyes the thick black frames made her face stand out. She’d resisted buying them, but Sami, her best friend and confidante, had insisted, claiming they gave her a striking appearance. She said the glasses made her look like she just needed a nearby phone booth to transform into a courageous and strong heroine in primary colors. Calla knew nothing could help her not ugly but certainly not beautiful features, but she kind of wanted to see if the new frames would change her life in any way. They hadn’t, of course. They were just glasses. So much for wanting to look like a superhero in disguise.

As she rolled down her window, her face flooded with uncomfortable heat. Of course, the car behind her would belong to Ian Jones, one of the mechanical engineers in the Dixon Contracting firm where she worked as a file clerk. She saw his signature a dozen times a day in her job but hadn’t ever spoken to him beyond an uncomfortable hello whenever they passed in the halls. He had bushy brown hair, light hazel eyes that shifted from gold to brown to green, and a face better suited to some rakish Duke in one of her favorite Regency romance novels. She’d carried a crush for him since her second day on the job three years ago, though he barely glanced at her whenever their paths happened to cross.

Trying to keep from actually crying out of embarrassment, something that would make this whole horrible moment a thousand times worse, she simply drawled out, “Hi there.”

His right eyebrow rose and his lips twitched up into a half grin. He had a dimple. “Need some help?”

If he only knew. The fish and chips lunch she had just wolfed down started to feel like bad sushi. She smiled weakly and asked, “Do you have a tow truck handy?”

He looked at her little Geo Storm that had rolled off the assembly line the year she was born and tapped the sun faded yellow roof. “Put her in neutral. We’ll just move it out of the way of the gate.” He gestured with his head, and she looked in the rearview mirror to see the growing line of cars behind them. She watched him wave an arm, and another man got out of a car three cars back.

With a sinking, burning feeling in her chest, she recognized him as one of the Dixon sons. She suddenly started wishing she believed in portals that would open up and suck someone into another dimension. Mr. Dixon, owner of the massive Dixon Contracting construction and architectural firm, had three identical sons. Triplets. No one could really tell them apart, so they were all simply “Mr. Dixon.” She guessed this was Jon from his pickup truck but honestly had no idea whether maybe one of his brothers, Brad or Ken, had borrowed Jon’s truck this morning.

The little Storm shifted when Calla felt Mr. Dixon’s hands grip the sooty back bumper. Following Ian’s directions from the driver’s window, she put her car in neutral and glanced out the window in time to see Ian’s biceps bulge and bunch beneath his shirt as he maneuvered the car while Mr. Dixon pushed. “Let’s get it to that spot there,” he said, and she turned the steering wheel as they propelled her into the senior Mr. Dixon’s space.

As soon as she set the parking brake, she hopped out of the car. “I can’t park here. Mr. Dixon—”

“Is nowhere near Atlanta today. He’s inspecting the New Orleans job for at least another three days. You’re fine. Don’t worry about a thing,” the young Dixon said. He smiled, clearly trying to put her at ease. Turning to the man next to him, he said, “Hey, Ian? You’re next, bro.”

As the two of them rushed back to their cars that still sat blocking the entrance through the gate, she lifted a hand at their retreating backs. “Thanks.” It sounded weak even to her own ears.

Sighing, cheeks burning with embarrassed heat, she pulled her phone out of her purse intending to call a garage. Her hands shook slightly from chagrin and, as the phone cleared the purse, it slipped from her fingers and crashed to the concrete parking deck floor. A flood of tears blurred her vision, making the cracks that appeared on the screen all blur together.

“Calla!” She looked up with tear-stained cheeks as Sami’s zippy little convertible pulled up next to her and her best friend put her head out of her open window. Sami’s eyes went from Calla’s face to the ground next to her feet, then she put her car in park, and hopped out. “Oh, Calla, honey, let me help.” She bent and picked up the broken phone, slipping it into her own pocket. She had on a brightly flowered shirt, mustard yellow leggings, and red boots. Somehow, with her blue fedora sitting on top of perfectly curled black hair, it worked. “I’ll call my uncle. He has a garage in Decatur.”

“Don’t bother. I couldn’t pay to fix it, anyway. I’ll just get it towed to a junk-yard. It’s where it belongs.”

Sami raised an eyebrow. “And then what?”

Realizing she had started to grit her teeth, she intentionally relaxed as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath and held it. In with the good, out with the bad. Letting out a long, slow sigh, she said, “Then I ride the Metro until I can get out of the hole my stepmother has so graciously dug for me.” She reached into the pocket of Sami’s shirt and snatched her phone. “I’ll be fine.”

“You’ll get out of that hole faster once you press charges,” Sami said. When Calla opened her mouth to protest, Sami held up her hand. “I know. I won’t say it again. That’s between you and God and the local police.” She looked at her watch. “Get back to work. No reason to add trouble at work to your load. I’ll take care of this. I have personal time saved, and you don’t.”

Calla hugged her, tightly, knowing God had blessed her with a true friend. She retrieved her bag from the back seat, made sure she didn’t have anything in the glove box she didn’t need, and rushed to the elevator just as Ian Jones reached it. Feeling the clumsy awkwardness that he always invoked overtake her, she smiled an uncomfortable smile and pressed the button for the second floor. “Thank you. Sorry to block your way.”

He turned to look directly at her. “Glad you had a small enough car that it was easy to move. What brings you to Dixon this morning Ms…?”

She stammered a reply, “Vaughn. Calla. Calla Vaughn.” Realizing Ian didn’t even know her name made it even worse. Did he think she was married? “It’s, uh, Miss. Not Mrs.” Had she really just said that? “Not Miss, either. Don’t call me Miss Vaughn. It’s just that I hate that Ms. nonsense and I’m not married. So I’m not Mrs. Vaughn. But don’t call me Miss Vaughn. I mean…” She closed her eyes one heartbeat after she shut her mouth. She took a breath, exhaled through her nose, raised her head, smiled, and said, “Call me Calla. And I, uh, file.”

The dimple had reappeared. Throughout her entire babbling introduction, he hadn’t so much as moved. He cleared his throat and nodded. “You file?”

“Here. I file here. At Dixon. I, uh, work in the file room.”

“Ah.” He nodded as the elevator stopped on her floor. When she just stood there, he held the elevator door open with his left hand and gestured with his right hand. “I believe the files are that-a-way.”

She glanced through the open doors and saw the oversized glass doorway that provided access to the rows and rows of filing cabinets surrounding the cluster of cubicles. “Right,” she said, stepping off the elevator. “Thanks. Uh, thanks for everything.”

He extended his right hand toward her and said, “My name is…” but when she placed her fingers lightly into his right palm he stopped speaking.

“I know who you are, sir,” Calla whispered, trying not to think about how nice his fingers felt beneath hers, though staring at his dimple didn’t distract her from that thought very much. She jerked her hand back and stepped further out of the way of the elevator doors. “I see your name all the time.”

“Right.” He acknowledged. “Well, you’re welcome. No problem at all.” He gave her a single wave goodbye just as the doors slid shut.

After the doors slid closed, Calla took a final deep breath. In with the good and out with the bad. After she slowly released it, she reluctantly headed to her little cubicle and put her purse in the bottom drawer of her desk. Next to her desk, a large cart from the architectural division sat, piled with papers, plans, and files. Knowing that would take up the rest of the afternoon, she slipped earbuds into her ears, maneuvered through the broken screen on her phone to access her favorite radio station’s app, and started sorting files.

Samuel Ian Jones thought about Miss Calla Vaughn and her big brown eyes the entire trip from where she left him on the second floor all the way up to the seventh floor. As he walked off the elevator, he tried to rid his mind of the worry and stress he saw in her eyes and focus instead on the amount of work he had to do in the next three hours before his four o’clock meeting. He crossed through the empty conference room that took up the center of the floor then maneuvered through the cubicles used by the interns and assistants. He went straight to his office on the far side from the elevators. He left the door open, knowing his assistant Penny would arrive bare seconds behind him.

Pulling his phone out of his pocket, Ian set it on the wireless charger, then used the remote control sitting next to the charger to turn on his favorite classical radio station. Only then did he allow himself to go to his coffee maker, choosing an English tea over a coffee pod. After confirming that he had no messages waiting in either office voice mail form or email form, he grabbed his fresh brewed tea and sat on the stool at his drafting table. Before he even picked up his pencil, Penny slipped inside and shut the door behind her.

“Your four o’clock canceled. The incoming storm has them closing down the site early.”

“Do I need to go now?” he asked, thinking of the twenty-story building in the heart of downtown. The weekly job site meeting was a vital part of the construction process at this point in the schedule.

“No. They want to try to arrange a phone meeting with you and the architect first thing tomorrow morning. The full job meeting stays at the regular time next week.”

“So just fast-tracking this week? Good.” He felt an immediate release of stress over what he needed to accomplish since he’d just added two extra hours of useful work time to his schedule.

She gestured at him. “You have something black on your shirt.”

He looked down at the white golf shirt he’d worn to work and saw the streak of oily black dirt. “Hmph. Must have been the Storm.”

Puzzled, Penny asked, “I beg your pardon? The storm’s miles away. Where did you eat lunch, exactly?”

“No, not that storm.” Unbidden, his thoughts once again returned to Calla Vaughn. She’d come across as utterly hopeless, which was silly considering they got the car moved within seconds of it breaking down. Maybe she just didn’t know what to do next. The Mister-Fix-It inside of him thought about looking her up in the company directory and calling her, making sure she could handle the arrangements. Maybe he could give her a ride home. Maybe they could stop for a bite on the way. He quickly talked himself out of it. That would ruin his self-imposed moratorium on helping any people under the age of sixty. Well, unless said people happened to have a broken-down car blocking the path to his parking spot. “Never mind. Anything else?”

“Yes. You received a phone call from someone who claimed it was important but addressed you as Sam. Since only your grandmother ever calls you anything but Ian, I figured it was a vendor. I took the number, anyway.” She held out a slip of paper.

As he took the note from her, he chuckled. One nice thing about going by his middle name, he always knew when someone actually knew him or when they looked at his name in some directory and tried to pretend. “Thanks, Penny.”

“Sure. Let me know if you need anything. I’m leaving at two, today, don’t forget. And I’ll be out all day tomorrow.”

“Right. Long weekend at the beach with the potential husband. I remember.” His own moral compass never entered his relationship with Penny, who happened to be a fantastic secretary despite her personal lack of faith and resoundingly secular worldview.

As Penny shut the door behind her, he looked down at the dark streak on his shirt one more time then shook his head, reminding…no, telling… telling himself to stay out of it. Instead, he unrolled a set of plans onto his drafting table and focused on the mechanical engineering for the shopping mall Dixon Brothers had contracted to convert into a megachurch.

By the time three o’clock arrived, the sky outside Calla’s cubicle window had darkened, and it looked more like nighttime than afternoon. She could see the branches of the trees across the street bending and bowing in the wind. Her phone had alerted her twice about thunderstorm warnings, and she thought about the wet walk from the metro station to her apartment she faced this evening. Resigned, she punched holes in the papers in her hand and fastened them to the prongs of the file folder in front of her. Inevitably, she would get soaking wet tonight. She tried to remember if she had an umbrella somewhere in her apartment; not that it would do her any good tonight. Still, since she had to ride the train for a while, she should probably have one on hand.

Even through the love song playing in her ears, she could hear the rain pelting against the windows. She began praying that the storm would move quickly through the area and completely dissipate before she had to go home. Maybe she could put in some overtime work. She certainly had enough work to do, and she really could use the extra hours.

Before she could go to her supervisor Francine and ask, her desk phone chirped. She slipped the earbud out of her ear as she answered the phone. “File room, Calla Vaughn,” she said by way of greeting.

“Hey, girl,” Sami said. “I’m driving you home tonight, but first we’re going to get loaded on nachos and pollo enchiladas,” she announced, accentuating the word pollo. “My treat. No arguing. See you at five.”

Before Calla could reply, Sami hung up. Relief at not having to walk in the weather warred with the desire not to take Sami up on what was clearly a charity offering.

Wait, silly, she thought to herself. This is Sami. It’s not charity. It’s a friend acting like a friend. You’d do the same thing.

Just as those thoughts left her, the DJ on the radio announced, “Next week is Thanksgiving. Crossroads Florists has teamed up with us here at Q103 to let you send someone special in your life a beautiful fall bouquet. Caller number ten will be our winner this hour. Four-oh-four, five-five-five, Q-one-oh-three. Caller ten.”

Phone still in hand, she dialed the number. Her heart leaped when she heard it ring. “Q103, you’re caller four. Good luck next time!”

They hung up without another word. Calla hit redial. To her surprise, she could hear the phone ring again. “Q103. You’re caller ten! Congratulations! Who do we have on the line?”

Mouth dry, heart pounding in excitement, she said, “Calla.”

“Well, Calla, you’ve won a bouquet of fall flowers from Crossroads florists. Who do you think you’ll send them to?”

Calla smiled. “Actually, I know exactly who deserves a bouquet.”