Chapter Text
There was no way they both worked at Witness Publishing. He was certain he would have seen her at some point. After all, the company was incredibly small, a tiny independent but successful publishing firm.
Ichabod Crane worked in historical fiction. The department consisted only of himself and was housed in a corner of the basement of their building. He had windows thankfully, but the low hanging ceilings often made him feel extremely claustrophobic. He’d been trying to negotiate with Frank for months now to get him moved at least to the first floor. Still, Frank always cited a lack of room to move and Ichabod made due with the space he was given. Today, however, he decided to take his work with him to the lounge on the seventh floor.
The lounge, as it were, was a glorified sunroom that sat on the corner of the floor. The ceilings were slanted but vaulted as the seventh floor was the top floor of the building. There were large windows that let in glorious amounts of natural sunlight. A friend of Frank’s, a rather severe looking woman by the name of Reyes, had gifted them with furniture for the room when she shuttered her own publishing business and moved into consulting. There were several tables, lamps, armchairs and sofas that contributed to an inspiringly welcoming environment.
The smell of freshly brewed coffee hit him the moment he stepped off the elevator. He was puzzled by this, as no one but him used the lounge for work, but he pressed on nonetheless.
The sight that greeted him when he entered was not entirely unwelcome, but he was surprised. He had not expected to find anyone in the room at this time of day. Instead, he entered the lounge to see the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes upon.
Her skin was dark and rich, her bright brown eyes, framed by black rimmed glasses, were intently focused on all the pages spread out before her. She wore a large black and white striped cashmere sweater that drifted off one of her shoulders and black running tights beneath them. He could see the hint of another shirt beneath her sweater when she reached up to pull a pen from her hair which had been styled into a haphazard bun.
He tried not to be too distracted by the way both her legs were spread out as she leaned forward, stretching slightly. He spied a mug of coffee ahead of her that she picked up when she stretched forward, her toes curling into the carpet as she did so.
“My apologies for interrupting. I did not know this room would be in use at this moment.” The words tumbled from Crane’s mouth so quickly that he wasn’t even sure if he’d said what he intended to.
The woman jumped slightly as she finally noticed and put the coffee back down before rising to meet him. “Oh, no worries. The room’s big enough to share.” She smiled and suddenly he felt like every mystery in his life suddenly made sense.
“I do not think I’ve ever seen you here before, Ms…”
“Oh!” The woman extended her hand toward him. “I’m Abbie Mills, the new editor for the fiction department. I have historical fiction, young adult, all that jazz.”
He made a mental note to ask Frank more about this woman as he shook her hand. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Mills. I am Ichabod Crane from historical fiction. I was coming up to go over a manuscript actually.”
Abbie turned and gestured toward her papers that were spread out across the plush carpet. “Do you need me to go? I’ve been up here a couple hours so I don’t mind clearing out for a bit.”
“Oh, heavens, no! Stay as long as you must. You won’t even know I’m here.” He gave her an easy smile as he walked over to the bench seat that was attached to the window.
It was his favorite spot in the whole room to work. The light was bright but hardly overpowering. There were pillows which meant his back hardly ever cramped up. Best of all, the bench seat accommodated his 6’4 form.
As he set up the manuscript to go over for the third time, he pulled out his tablet and headphones, cueing up his favorite playlist that contained classical music good for concentration.
Abbie watched him as he hummed what she thought might be a song from Carmina Burana, crossing out, circling, and writing notes in the margins of the manuscript he was reading.
He was incredibly tall, probably a foot taller than her, with short dark hair and slightly rounded brown tortoise shell glasses. His eyes, she noted, were a rather arresting shade of blue. Though he was only casually reviewing a manuscript, he seemed to put quite a bit of effort into his work.
He was dressed the way Abbie imagined most college professors dressed: a white dress shirt, a navy blue jacket and trousers, and dark brown dress shoes. Ichabod had taken off his jacket and rolled up the sleeves on his shirt in an effort to get comfortable and Abbie noticed that his arms appeared quite muscular considering the lanky build of his body.
Stop it, girl!
She shook herself from her thoughts about Ichabod Crane and focused back on the task of assembling the final manuscript of a science-fiction novel she’d inherited from her predecessor.
Abbie felt excited as she finally got the pages in the correct order she wanted them in. She read through the first few chapters again, making small corrections and comments as she went. If the author had the edits and rewrites completed by the end of the week, they could finally move forward with preparing to publish. She smiled and let out a small happy squeal when she finally finished.
“Oh, this is gonna be fantastic.” Abbie said to herself, smiling softly. She gathered up all of the papers and put them on a sofa in a stack before standing to stretch and walking over to drop her coffee mug in the sink.
“I take it you have successfully completed your review?” Ichabod’s melodic voice carried across the room, sparking a warm feeling in her stomach.
“Yes,” Abbie replied as she finished washing the mug. “Finally. That thing was a mess when I first got it. It’s damn near perfect now.”
Ichabod laughed to himself as he looked down at the manuscript he was working on. “This is my third review of this particularly tedious tome. I suspect it shall require three more, but the author appears to be making a great deal of progress with each new round.”
“That’s always good.”
The room fell into an oddly comfortable silence as Ichabod and Abbie shared a long look. He felt his fingers tapping furiously at his sides and Abbie pretended not to notice that her grip hadn’t tightened around the mug somewhat.
“Well, I hate to cut and run but I actually need to get back to my office. It was lovely meeting you, Mr. Crane.” Abbie gave him a genuine smile and a small wave before scooping up her papers and leaving the room.
His breath hitched in his throat and he choked out a weak “My pleasure.” as she walked away. He distantly heard the elevator ring and was startled back into looking at his manuscript. He would try to pretend that his sudden lack of concentration on it had nothing at all to do with the woman he just met.