Delivering Trouble - Chapter 2

Greetings strong and beautiful friends! 

Chapter 2 is done and ready to be shared. In this chapter we follow Trent dive through a massive and expensive party, yet very emotinal as well. The package needs to be delivered. Trent meets Lauren and a spark is happening and a lust is born.

I hope you enjoy this chapter, and please let me know what you think about. 

Chapter 2 — The Emotional Party

The first thing Trent noticed was the smell.

Not in a bad way.

In a rich people way.

Everything smelled expensive. Clean. Sharp. Fancy. Like perfume, polished wood, and money. Lots of money.

The second thing he noticed was that this was not just a party.

This was a corporate apocalypse with a dress code.

The entire top floor of Jackman Global had been transformed. During the day it was probably full of people answering emails, making presentations, and pretending to enjoy meetings. But tonight it looked like a movie set. The open office had become a glittering maze of lights, flower arrangements, bartenders, and clusters of laughing employees.

Huge windows wrapped around the whole floor, showing New York at day and night in all directions. The city looked unreal from up here. Tiny headlights moved through the streets like glowing ants. Buildings stood shoulder to shoulder in the dark, and Trent had the weird feeling that he wasn’t inside the city anymore so much as hovering over it.

A server carrying a tray of tiny snacks nearly ran into him.

“Sir?”

Trent stepped aside.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m not used to places where the windows looks like diamonds.”

The server blinked at him, then kept walking.

“Strong start,” Trent muttered to himself.

He looked down at the package in his hand. Right. Delivery. Mission. Stay focused.

Unfortunately, staying focused got harder when he realized every person in the room looked like they knew exactly what they were doing.

The men stood around in fitted suits, talking with the relaxed confidence of people who had opinions about stock markets and wine. The women wore sleek dresses and sharp heels and looked like they’d never once had to dig through their couch for lunch money.

Meanwhile Trent was in a blue delivery shirt that now felt like it had been stitched together out of bad decisions.

He started weaving through the crowd, trying not to look too much like a guy whose job normally involved carrying bulk printer paper into dentist offices.

A jazz-funk cover band was playing near the far side of the room. Trent didn’t know what song it was, but it sounded like the kind of music that should be listened to while leaning on a grand piano and making complicated life choices.

There were bars at both ends of the floor. Ice sculptures. Giant floral displays. A dessert table that looked so elegant he was almost afraid to look directly at it.

One tiny dessert in particular caught his eye. It was sitting on a silver tray and looked like a chocolate cube wearing jewelry.

Trent glanced around, then popped it into his mouth.

His eyes widened.

“Oh wow,” he whispered.

A woman beside him turned.

She looked about thirty, wearing a black cocktail dress and an event badge clipped to her waist.

“Good, right?” she said.

Trent swallowed carefully, as if he were trying not to embarrass himself in front of a dessert.

“That tasted like a trust fund.”

She laughed.

“You must not work here.”

“Was it the shirt or the awe in my voice?”

“Mostly the shirt.”

He lifted the package a little.

“Delivery.”

“Ah. Then you probably want the executive area.”

“Great. And where is that?”

She pointed toward a section near the back of the floor where the lighting was softer and the guests looked somehow even richer.

“Past the main bar, through the glass doors, near the terrace lounge. Someone there can help.”

“Thank you,” Trent said. “You may have just saved me from wandering into a room full of accountants.”

“You say that like it’s dangerous.”

“I don’t know enough about accounting to rule it out, but I count on it.”

She laughed again and walked off.

Trent straightened up and kept moving.

As he crossed the floor, he caught pieces of conversation drifting through the room.

“…quarterly growth…”

“…Lauren pulled off the merger in six weeks…”

“…best company party in five years…”

“…heard the board is obsessed with her…”

There it was.

Lauren.

The CEO.

Just hearing the name made something in his chest wake up a little.

He didn’t even know her yet. He hadn’t seen her. She could have been cold, arrogant, terrifying, all three. But the energy in the room shifted every time someone said her name. Not in a scared way. In a fascinated way.

Like she was the center of gravity in the whole building.

Trent passed the main bar, where a bartender was shaking something in a silver mixer like he was performing magic on a martini. He passed a group of laughing employees trying to take selfies in front of the skyline. He passed a woman standing beside a giant screen showing a looping video about innovation, leadership, and other words Trent had heard many times and understood very little.

Then he reached the glass doors.

They opened onto a quieter section of the floor, half indoor lounge, half open terrace. Sofas and low tables were arranged in little islands. Heat lamps glowed outside against the night air. The music was softer here, the lighting warmer.

And this part of the party was different.

More intimate. More important.

This, Trent thought, was where the bosses roamed.

A man with silver hair and a tuxedo jacket stepped into his path.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

He wasn’t security exactly, but he had that same look of a person who had never once had trouble getting reservations.

“Delivery for the CEO,” Trent said, holding up the package.

The man checked the label and nodded.

“One moment.”

He spoke briefly into a small earpiece, then gestured for Trent to follow.

Trent followed him down a short hall lined with framed black-and-white photos of the company’s history. Most of them showed old men shaking hands or pointing at blueprints. One showed a younger Lauren standing at a podium in a dark suit, smiling at a crowd. Even in the photo she had that same energy people had been talking about. Calm. Sharp. Like she knew exactly where everyone’s attention was and had decided to keep it.

They reached a set of double doors.

The silver-haired man stopped and turned to Trent.

“Ms. Jackman is just inside. Give her the package directly.”

Trent nodded.

His mouth had suddenly gone a little dry.

No reason, he told himself.

This was just a delivery.

You walk in, hand over the box, say have a nice evening, maybe steal another tiny dessert on the way out, and boom. End of story.

The man opened the door.

Trent stepped inside.

And forgot every thought he had just had.

The room was spacious but quieter than the party outside. More like a private reception area. A long wall of windows looked over the city, and a few guests stood in small groups talking in low voices.

Near the center of the room, holding a champagne flute and speaking to two older men in dark suits, stood Lauren Jackman.

Trent knew immediately that it was her.

Not because someone said her name.

Not because she looked like a CEO in the way movies made CEOs look.

Because she carried herself like the room belonged to her, the building belonged to her, and if necessary the entire city probably would too.

She was stunning.

Her dark dress was elegant and sharp, simple in the kind of way that probably cost a frightening amount of money. Her hair framed her face in soft waves, and her posture was so confident it made everyone around her seem slightly less real. She looked somewhere in her late forties, maybe close to fifty, but in the kind of way that didn’t weaken her at all. It made her more striking. More self-assured. More impossible to ignore.

Trent just stood there for a second like a complete idiot with a cardboard box.

One of the men she was speaking to noticed him first. He leaned toward Lauren and said something.

She turned.

And looked right at Trent.

That was bad.

Not bad bad.

Bad for his ability to continue functioning normally.

Her expression changed for half a second, just enough to show surprise. Probably because the party was full of expensive suits and she had not expected to see a delivery guy standing in the middle of her private reception area looking like his brain had just unplugged.

Then she smiled.

It was a small smile, but it landed on him like a truck.

Lauren excused herself from the men and walked over.

Every step looked deliberate without seeming forced. She moved like someone completely comfortable with being watched.

“Hi,” she said.

Her voice was lower and smoother than he expected.

“Hi,” Trent said.

Good. Excellent. Brilliant opening line.

She glanced at the package, then back at him.

“I’m guessing that’s for me.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Unless there’s another extremely important, beautiful CEO on this floor.”

The words left his mouth before he had time to stop them.

For one horrifying second, Trent considered jumping out the nearest window.

Lauren tilted her head slightly.

Then she laughed.

Not fake party laughter. A real laugh.

One of the men behind her looked confused, like he hadn’t heard anyone make Lauren laugh in several fiscal quarters.

Trent relaxed by maybe four percent.

He handed her the package.

“Urgent hand delivery.”

She took it, but instead of immediately looking down at the box, she looked at him for a moment longer than she needed to.

“You brought this all the way up yourself?”

“Yeah.”

“Through that crowd?”

“I survived. Barely. I was nearly taken out by a woman with a tray of shrimp.”

Lauren smiled again.

“That is a dangerous part of the evening.”

“I could tell. Everyone here looks very capable.”

She glanced at his shirt, his name tag, then his face again.

“Trent,” she said, reading the stitched name above his pocket.

The way she said it made his name sound better than it had ever sounded in his entire life.

“Yep,” he said. “That’s me.”

“I’m Lauren.”

“Yeah,” Trent said, then winced. “I mean—I know. Not in a creepy way. People have been saying your name all night. In a professional way. Which somehow sounded worse once I started explaining.”

That made her laugh again.

“You’re honest,” she said.

“I panic with commitment.”

“I noticed.”

She shifted the package into one arm and, very lightly, touched his sleeve just above the elbow.

It was a small gesture. Casual. Brief.

But Trent felt it like someone had switched his nervous system to live wire.

“Thank you for making sure this got here,” she said.

“No problem.”

He meant to say something smoother after that. Something funny, maybe charming, possibly unforgettable.

What came out was:

“Nice building.”

Lauren’s smile deepened.

“Thank you. I had almost nothing to do with the architecture, but I accept the compliment anyway.”

“Good, because it’s all I had prepared.”

For a second they just looked at each other.

The room around them still existed. People still talked softly nearby. Glasses clinked. Music pulsed faintly through the walls. But for Trent, everything had gotten weirdly narrow and sharp, like the whole night had accidentally zoomed in.

He noticed that Lauren’s eyes were warmer up close than they had looked from across the room. He noticed how calm she seemed. How amused. How completely unlike anyone he usually met on his route.

Then a woman in a silver dress approached from the side.

“Lauren, the board chair is asking for you.”

Of course he was.

Because the universe hated timing.

Lauren glanced toward the doorway, then back at Trent. For just a second, and maybe he imagined it, she seemed mildly disappointed.

“Duty calls,” she said.

“Right,” Trent said. “That’s probably more important than me standing here complimenting windows.”

“It may be less entertaining.”

That one sentence nearly destroyed him.

She stepped back, still holding the package.

“Enjoy the rest of your evening, Trent.”

“You too,” he said. “Try to avoid the shrimp.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Then she gave him one last look, turned, and walked away with the woman in the silver dress.

And just like that, it was over.

Trent stood alone in the room for three full seconds.

Then four.

Then five.

His brain slowly restarted.

He exhaled.

“Oh no,” he whispered.

Because this was not good.

Not good at all.

He had shown up to drop off a box and somehow managed to develop a full emotional crisis in under two minutes.

He turned and made his way out of the private room in a daze.

Back through the hallway.

Past the silver-haired man.

Into the louder part of the party again.

Everything felt different now.

The band sounded louder. The lights looked brighter. People seemed blurrier somehow, like the world had dropped in quality while Lauren had been in high definition.

Trent drifted toward the windows and stood there, staring out at the city.

He could still feel where she had touched his arm.

Which was ridiculous.

Completely ridiculous.

He was a delivery guy.

She was the CEO of a giant company in a building that probably had its own secret wine cellar and panic rooms.

He had handed her a package. She had thanked him. That was the interaction.

Normal people would now leave.

Normal people would get in the van, maybe tell their friends about the hot CEO, maybe exaggerate how flirty she’d been, then move on with their lives.

Trent was not behaving like a normal person.

He was behaving like a man who had just looked directly at a very bad idea and thought, yes, let’s ruin the evening with that.

He rubbed a hand over his face.

“Okay,” he muttered. “You’re leaving. That’s what adults do.”

He took three steps toward the elevator.

Then stopped.

Because he realized something horrible.

He had not asked her anything.

Not for her number, obviously, because that would have been insane.

But not even a real conversation. Not even a question. Not even a chance to keep talking.

He had wasted the moment.

He had spent the entire interaction operating at the intelligence level of decorative furniture.

“Nice building?” he whispered to himself. “Nice building? That’s what you said?”

A passing guest glanced at him and then walked faster.

Trent groaned.

He should have asked something clever. Something memorable.

How long had she been CEO?

Did she actually enjoy these parties?

What was in the package?

Was she always this effortlessly terrifying?

Instead he had complimented architecture.

He walked into the elevator and rode all the way down to the lobby feeling like a man leaving behind the last train home.

When the doors opened, the giant marble lobby seemed colder than before.

The music from upstairs was gone down here. The glamour was gone too. Now there were just security guards, polished floors, and the revolving door leading back to normal life.

Trent stepped outside onto the sidewalk.

Cold air hit him.

Taxis moved past.

A siren wailed somewhere in the distance.

His van sat at the curb like an insult.

He stared up at the skyscraper.

All those floors. All that light. And way up there, somewhere near the top, Lauren Jackman was still walking through that glittering party while he stood outside in a blue delivery shirt with a grease stain.

He should leave.

Instead, he kept looking up.

And after about thirty seconds, a dangerous thought arrived.

What if he went back?

Not as a delivery guy.

Not through the front like this.

But back.

Into the party.

Into the building.

Back to the top floor.

It was a terrible idea.

Which was probably why, almost immediately, he loved it.

Trent looked at his reflection in the van window.

Messy hair. Cheap uniform. Face of a man about to make a wildly unnecessary life decision.

“You,” he told his reflection, “are either romantic or extremely dumb.”

His reflection looked unconcerned.

“Probably both,” he said.

He took out his phone.

There had to be a way back in.

And if there wasn’t—

Well.

He was funny.

He was stubborn.

And for the first time in a long while, he wanted something badly enough to do something stupid for it.

Way up above him, the party continued.

Trent looked up at the tower one more time.

Then smiled slowly.

“Okay,” he said. “Round two.”

Again, I hope you enjoyed it. There's more to come, so stay tuned for chapter 3. 

Thank you for the vist and your time. 

Much appreciated and best regards,

Kasper F. Christiansen