Not Scared Anymore

Chapter 5 - Kevin

Kevin figured he was probably supposed to water the cactus at some point, but he didn't know when, since the whole point of a cactus was to hold water. It had been a week since Nancy gave it to him, and so far, it had just sat on the desk reminding him of being stuck in the elevator with Stephanie. He still wasn't sure that was her name, but he really hoped so. If fate ever brought them together again, he didn't think he could call her anything else.

He was sure Nancy gave him a plant so he would be reminded of her, but it seemed to be doing the exact opposite. He never looked at the cactus and thought Nancy, he only ever thought Stephanie. He couldn't decide what to do: neglect it so it could die and he could justify throwing it out, give it to someone else, or just make it someone else's problem. There were a few other plants on a table downstairs, he figured no one would notice another one. That way, he wouldn't have to think about the elevator incident all the time, and he wouldn't feel guilty about killing it on purpose.

Either way, the plant had to go; he wasn't getting any work done with it on his desk. Plus, Nancy never came to this office. She probably didn't even know where he worked. She really only knew him because of his uncle, and he doubted his uncle was talking to his staff about him that much. Jared stuck his head in Kevin's office, and interrupted his reverie.

"Trivia night at the Bomber tonight. You coming?"

"Themed or general knowledge?" The usual group of guys was pretty decent regardless, but typically did much better if they got into the right frame of mind.

"I think its general. But Joey is coming so we will be good. His head is full of the most useless crap it's a wonder he ever gets anything done."

"You mean the most useful crap. He remembers things so the rest of us don't have to. I'm in. I need to get out and do something. I've been debugging Randall's code for a week, and I can't stand anymore of it." Randall had been an intern who had a great idea and tried to write the code for it.

Unfortunately for Kevin, Randall was more of an ideas guy than a getting-things-done-right guy, and he had left them two weeks prior for another start up. Thanks to his contract and the non-disclosure agreement he signed, his project stayed behind. Now they just had to fix it to get it working.

If he managed to fix it, it would be huge for their company. Kevin was known around the office as the "fixer" and had temporarily abandoned his own project to work on it. Everyone brought him their buggy code when they couldn't crack it. So far, he'd solved every problem laid across his desk. He refused to be defeated by Randall's, though clearly Randall had no idea how to code anything.

Jared was still talking, "Also, it's nacho night at the Bomber, so we should get there early so we can actually get a decent table. And obviously, eat our weight in nachos."

"Okay, well I should probably go home first then. Get changed. Eat a vegetable or something."

"Bah, there's onions and jalapenos on nachos, that counts as enough vegetables for the day."

Kevin had no idea how Jared managed to stay thin. He ate crappy food and drank heavily at least once a week. Apparently, those green juices in his fridge were good. He was a serious type A personality though, and rarely got more than four hours of sleep in a night. Perhaps he just kept himself so busy that it burned enough calories to allow for weekly drinks and bar food. In contrast, Kevin liked to visit the gym regularly, and ate a surprisingly healthy diet considering the environment he worked in surrounded by everyone else's junk food all day. 

"Okay, well, I'm going to head home now, grab a snack, and change. I'll meet you there at 7, and I promise I will eat enough nachos to completely over ride any health benefits I may have gained from the vegetables."