The commute to work wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, thankfully our apartment was only ten blocks away from Love Bugs' main office in Chicago. Instead of walking to work like I was hoping to I took an uber and grabbed a coffee at the local coffee shop in my neighborhood.

My pumpkin spice was almost gone, and I was just about to walk into the office building. Instead of sleeping till five like I had planned the notifications wouldn't stop and I decided I was up for the day. At least it gave me extra time to get up and ready for the day. I did more makeup than I usually would, but I didn't get nearly as much sleep as I needed to.

Love Bug Publishing was on the twenty and twenty-first floors of the Lester Tower. I opened the door to the lobby and brushed my dress down. The wind today was horrible and the Uber car's seat in the back was full of dog fur. Great. I was going to have to go to the bathroom on the lobby floor and lint roll the back of my dress.

"How may I help you?" A woman sitting at the reception desk asked.

I turned towards her and walked to her desk on the right side of the lobby. The rest of the lobby had a handful of chairs and tables scattered around the left side of the room with the elevator in the middle of the room.

"Hi. Sorry, today is my first day. I'm a new employee for Love Bug publishing," I explained.

The woman sitting at the desk was a little older than me probably in her late twenties or early thirties. She was pretty and looked like she fit in with the rest of the building.

Her long fingernails tapped away on the computer in front of her. The clicking on the keyboard filled the entire lobby making my stomach drop. I belonged here. I kept telling myself that over and over. My nerves from last night escalated with the exploding number of notifications on my phone. I had to turn it off in the Uber so I wouldn't annoy the driver.

"Are you Sophia?"

"Yes, Sophia Henry." I picked at my nails and bit my lip hoping I could still manage to get to the bathroom before I went up on the elevator. The back side of my dress had to be covered in dog fur and my black dress had to spotlight every little white hair.

"Excellent. It looks like your boss left me your temporary building ID," she reached under the desk into a tray and pulled out an ID lanyard. "You will need this to use the elevator. Once you get inside it will have a little scanner right about the floor keys. It won't move until you scan your building ID."

I grabbed the lanyard and looked at it. There was an empty spot where the image was supposed to go. "Thanks."

Putting it in my purse I went to the bathroom in the far-right corner. This building was way fancier than I expected it to be. The sinks in the bathroom were floating sinks that I had zero clue where the facet was. I threw my empty cup in the trash can and sat my computer bag down. Opening my purse, I grabbed my lint roller and turned around to have my backside towards the mirror. It took two sheets before I had no white fur left on me. Taking the lint roller, I rolled it down the front side of my dress just in case there were any extra fuzzies.

Taking a deep breath I went to the elevator and pressed the up button. My heels tapped on the floor as I went in and scanned my ID. The screen flashed green and I pressed floor twenty.

The elevator lurched and I felt the compartment move upwards. How was I going to do this every day? I hated the feeling of elevators. I grabbed ahold of the railing that went around the edge of the compartment and breathed through my nose and out through my mouth. It wasn't as bad as some of the elevators I've been on. This one was fairly new and it looked like they maintained it recently.

Ding.

I held my breath as the doors opened to the twentieth floor. It's time. My first day at my new job has officially started.

Walking down the main hall to the desk at the end my eyes wandered everywhere. Would I have my own office? Or would I have a cubicle? I wasn't sure what I wanted.

The secretary for the floor was another beautiful woman. Her dark skin glowed in the morning light coming in from the large highrise windows. She looked up from her computer and smiled at me.

"Hello, you must be Shopia our new hire. I'm Veronica. But my friends call me Ronnie," she stuck her hand out for me to shake.

I return the favor and put on my best smile. "Yes, I am. Nice to meet you." I wasn't entirely sure what to do when I met new people and the day was going to be filled with it. This is what happens when you unleash the world on a socially awkward person.

"Your office is going to be down the left hall room twelve, you will be sharing the office space with a few others but they are all in your department."

I nodded my head, "Thanks." I walked down the hall to my new office anticipation smothering me. Everyone, I would be working next to for the foreseeable future was in that room.

Room twelve was bright and beautiful full of rich warm wood tones and a cozy atmosphere. There were five desks scattered across the room each had their own personal touches with figures, picture frames, and various other paperweights. All of them except one was empty that faced the enormous bookshelf featured on the side wall. Looks like this desk was meant for me.

No one was in the office, which made me wonder where everyone was. I looked at the clock in the shape of a stack of books; it was eight on the dot.

Did I miss an email about a meeting?

I was sure I checked my email last night before I started working on my blog post. All that was inside was the email welcoming me to the company. With it being my new work email there wasn't anything for new emails to get lost in.

My stomach was in knots and my feet were already killing me. I wasn't sure why I wore heels when I hadn't broken them in. My feet were doomed to get a blister by the end of the day. But if all I got out of the day was a blister I would take it.

I didn't bring any personal touches to the office yet since I wasn't sure what my space was going to be. I reached into my computer bag and grabbed my laptop and my planner. The shrink wrap was still covering my new planner and I couldn't help but feel the edges of my mouth tip upwards as I unwrapped the planner.

This was a new beginning and this planner was proof of that. My previous job didn't need anything this fancy. My hard work was finally paying off.

I sat down on my rolling chair and tested it out. Way better than the chairs I was used to in college. You could tell how a company treated their employees based on the chairs they provided. These were good quality and I knew my back was in good hands.

"Well hello, there new girl," a voice from the doorway called out. I looked up from my desk to see the rest of my coworkers filling in with drinks and breakfast in their hands.

The voice came from a tall skinny guy with black hair. He looked to be in his mid-twenties not much older than me. There sure were a lot of young faces so far in this company. I looked at the others as they sat down in their seats. One more male and two females. One of the women looked pretty young while the other two coworkers were in their forties.

"Hi, I'm Sophia," I waved slightly and put my hand back in my lap clasping it with my other hand.

"We weren't sure if you would make it back here okay. This building can be a little confusing with the two floors for the company."

"I just got lucky, I guess. I picked the first floor and figured that's where I would be," I laughed.

"Here's a slice of pumpkin bread for you." He said as he walked across to my desk and sat down a small paper plate with a slice of bread on it. "My boyfriend owns a bakery so we always have extras that he can't keep at the store."

Pumpkin anything was my favorite call me a basic white girl but pumpkin was a fall staple at our apartment.

"Oh wow it looks amazing." I lifted the plate to my nose and took a deep breath. "Smells amazing too. Where is his bakery?" I asked.

"Down on North State Street. I'm glad you like deserts. I'm constantly bringing something in. My name is Theodore but you can call me Theo. Angelica over there in the purple dress has your coffee."

I looked at Angelica she was the younger woman of the two. She had just finished taking her work stuff out of her bag and came over to me handing me a small Starbucks cup.

"I usually do the Starbucks run on Mondays. I wasn't sure what kind of coffee you liked so I got you a plain caffe latte. But knowing now that you like pumpkin I'll get you a pumpkin spice next time."

"Thank you so much this is perfect." I couldn't believe how great my coworkers were. Coffee and dessert on the first day. At my old job, you would be lucky if your coworker even answered their phone to see if they could pick up your shift for you.

Lifting the warm cup to my lips I took a sip and a bite of the pumpkin bread. Both tasted good and I couldn't imagine how the day could go any better. With this being my second cup of coffee, I knew I would be set for the day. 

"The other two are Jasper and Helen. They may be a bit older than us, but they are pretty cool," Theo introduced.

The rest of the day went great. Theo and Angelica worked together to help train me on how to use the computer software system that Love Bug used to keep track of each author and their work schedules. Helen and Jasper were learning how to use the new system themselves and were fighting with technology.

The training was fairly easy all I really had to do for the day was learn the system and get set up making contacts with a few authors that Love Bug already worked with before but needed a new person to oversee and work with the author on future works. It would still be a few weeks before I could work on going through queries and find authors who I thought fit the company to be brought up for publishing.

Love Bug was getting more into publishing indie books that were doing well online and rebranding them. Giving them a new cover and a deep edit to make sure it fits under the company's name.

I was so excited about getting to message an indie author or just a hopeful writer to tell them their dreams of being published were coming true. This was what it was all about helping writers become the authors they always dreamed about.

At the end of the day, I checked my phone and saw I had a text from my mom from earlier in the day.

Crap. I hated missing any family members' messages but with my sound off and most of my notifications turned off due to the flood of them last night, I had no clue she had even sent me anything.

Technically I was off the clock so I hit call and decided to get this out of the way before I put everything up to go home. No one was currently in our office at the moment anyway. Helen and Jasper both went to go pick up their kids from school or a babysitter. Angelica was in the bathroom and Theo had to go print off a manuscript to read for the week.

The phone rang and rang until finally, my mom picked up the phone. "Hello, dear nice to hear from you."

I knew she was joking but I hated that I didn't see her message sooner. My father's health wasn't the best and I wanted to make sure if there ever was an emergency my parents could get ahold of me.

"I'm sorry mom. My phone's sound was off and I've been at work all day. I hadn't had a chance to take lunch today with the training I was doing." I apologized.

"I just wanted to see how your first day was going."

"It's going great," I said with a smile. "My coworkers are pretty nice and the building itself looks beautiful. I met my boss on my lunch hour it was the only time he had available today before his vacation starts this week. But it looks like he's just the hire-up boss and one of my coworkers in my office is the supervisor that I report to. All in all, I'm really happy with the direction I've gone."

"I'm glad honey. Your father is glad too. He says that you're finally using your degree for something. You know how your father is but I'm proud of you."

My father wanted me to become a lawyer or an engineer but I chose to go down the publishing career path. I took multiple classes in business marketing and literature. He never was happy with what I picked but it was my life and I was going to live it my way.

"I know. Dad can rest easy now that I have a more stable job. You guys won't have to worry about me moving back in with you guys after all." I joked. My older brother always made the joke that I would be the child who would have to move back in with mom and dad.

Mom laughed on the other end, "Well it's a good thing too because I don't think there would be much room for you at the condo."

"What do you mean condo?" I asked my heart racing.

"Your father and I decided with his health problems and with all you kids moved out of the house that it's time to downsize. We are getting a condo closer to your dad's doctor that's a flat so we don't have to worry about him climbing stars."

A condo. What was going to happen to my childhood home? My parents lived in the suburbs of Chicago but with the traffic, it took them forever to get into the city and to my father's specialist who worked closer to the busier part of the city.

"What are you going to do with the house?" I asked.

"Selling it of course. We can't afford the rent of a condo and your dad's doctor bills while paying for this big house."

I bit my lip trying to hold back the flood of emotions I was feeling. They couldn't get rid of the house. My childhood home was my dream house. I wanted one just like it when I grew up but now that I've grown up I realized just how far having a house like that was out of reach, especially with just a single person's income.

"If there's anything you want from your old room Sophia you need to pack it up and bring it back to your place. Otherwise, I'm packing everything up with Delilah to take to donation or throw out. I'm so glad that Delilah was able to find us such a nice place on such short notice. She was right that we needed this change."

Delilah this was all her idea. She was my oldest brother's wife and was constantly controlling anything that happened in our family. My parents adored her. She was a real estate agent and in my father's eyes was good as a lawyer. 'People are always going to need a place to live Shopia. See Delilah has a good stable job.' I could hear my father now saying, 'Shopia you got a job in publishing don't you know that people don't read anymore.'

"I'll swing by this weekend and go through stuff," I told her. Not feeling like talking anymore I said goodbye and ended the call.

"You look like you need a drink," Angelica said as she walked back into the office.

"You would be right." I sighed. I hated how life seemed to always look so perfect and then it hit you with a curveball right as you start to believe you had your life in the right direction.

"So let's go out and get some drinks. I don't have any plans. I'm sure Theo and his boyfriend would love to join us for some drinks. We can all get to know you better and you can see just how crazy Theo is when you get a few drinks in him." She laughed.

I really should go home and figure out where I was going to put all the stuff I still had at my parents' house. No one told you that when you became an adult that all the stuff your parents collected for you as a kid now became your problem. I never asked her to keep every single report card or every participation ribbon.

Just thinking about it all made me stressed out. "You know what why not." A few drinks never hurt anyone. And after a few drinks, I'll log back into my social media accounts and see what transpired over the workday. 

I'm sure it had died down and was just a flash flood of fame and had since receded back to it's banks of the internet.