She supposed they hadn’t.
As she waited for him to look up from the papers he was arranging, she couldn’t decide if she wanted him to recognize her or not. She looked different now with shorter hair. And she’d matured in the intervening years as well. With a tiny shake of her head, she resigned herself to the reality that he probably wouldn’t recognize her. She obviously hadn’t meant as much to him as he had to her.
Forcing herself to look away, she reached under her chair to pull a pen out of her bag. One thing all jobs had in common was paperwork on the first day. An internship, even an unpaid one, wouldn’t be any different. She’d have to fill out paperwork to get credit for her program.
When she looked up again, her eyes locked with Matt’s. He stared at her for a beat, and she couldn’t tell if it meant he’d figured out who she was, or if he just thought she looked familiar and was trying to place her. It only lasted a moment, his brows drawing together, but then he shook his head like he was shaking himself out of a trance. Face clear, he started the meeting.
Well, that was that. From the way he went on like she was just another intern, she had to assume he didn’t recognize her. For all she knew, he was just checking her out since there were only two female interns in the room. The other three were guys. She didn’t know any of them. She’d hoped maybe one of her classmates from her other business classes might be here, but no such luck.
Matt cleared his throat. “I’m Matt Schwartz. I’m your intern manager. You’ll each be paired with a mentor in your department who you’ll work with directly, but they’ll send their evaluations to me. And I’m here to help you with anything you need. If you’re having trouble with your department, or you’re only getting assigned grunt work instead of actually learning, come find me, and I’ll meet with your department head to get it worked out. You’re here to learn new skills and get experience, not to memorize everyone’s coffee order.”
They all chuckled, relaxing while he continued.
“Alright, since I won’t be seeing you every day, this is my chance to put your faces with your names. I’d like to go around the room and have you all introduce yourselves. We’ll do the standard college student questions: what’s your name, where are you from, and what’s your major? We’ll also add in what you hope to get from the internship.”
Hannah smiled despite herself, surprised to be enjoying an HR presentation. When her turn came, Matt kept his polite, neutral look in place, not even looking like he might recognize her at all. A wave of disappointment washed over her. Wow. It stung that he had no idea who she was, no memory of her, when she’d cared so much about him once. And she’d thought he cared about her. Too caught up in her own head, she didn’t even register anyone else’s name.
Thirty minutes after the round of introductions, the head of HR came in and distributed paperwork for them to fill out before taking them on a tour of the offices to find their assigned departments. Hannah felt eyes on her as she followed the others out of the room, and turned her head in time to see Matt staring at her, his expression unreadable. Well, if he didn’t remember her, she didn’t feel the need to help him out, so she just gave him a polite smile and left the room.
The rest of the afternoon went by in a whirlwind, keeping her busy and distracted so she didn’t continue to obsess about Matt. She spent most of her time being a gopher—getting coffee and taking files between people. Even though Matt had said she should be doing meaningful work instead of just fetching and carrying, it was only the first day. She wasn’t going to complain already. One of the marketing assistants took her around for the first hour, introducing her to everyone and getting her oriented to the office area, and she met Sandra, who would be her mentor.
Sandra sat down with her and showed her the company’s social media pages. “Look around at what we’re doing. Tomorrow I’ll take you through our strategy, and feel free to let me know if you have any ideas after looking through everything here. This is going to be your baby for the next couple of months.” After that Hannah found herself on her own since Sandra had a big project to get out the door that day.
At the end of the day, she caught a glimpse of Matt climbing into a green pickup when she came out to the parking lot, a newer model than the one she remembered him driving. She stood watching him until he started his truck. The wind picked up, making her shiver, and she scampered to get to her car, cranking the heat so she wouldn’t freeze to death. Blowing on her hands and rubbing them together, she couldn’t help her thoughts turning to Matt some more. Would he ever figure out who she was? Would it be worse if he did or if he didn’t?
Hannah Glover.
Matt sat on the couch, beer in hand, repeating the name to himself, shaking his head, still shocked that it had been her today starting the spring internship. He’d seen her name on the paperwork, but assumed it must be some other Hannah Glover.
But nope.
It wasn’t.
She looked the same, but different. Older, shorter hair, less blushing, more clothes than he remembered. Of course, it was January. Everyone wore more clothes in January than they did in July.
The TV blared Big Bang Theory in the background, the laugh track distracting him from his thoughts. He had the volume up louder than normal, hoping to
