Neanderthal Seeks Human(25)

He continued to survey me for a long minute then asked, “Have you found a job yet?”

I shook my head and rolled my lips between my teeth. Even though it had only been a week and half and I was eligible for unemployment, I felt anxiety about my current state of being out of work.

He reached for his coffee and watched me over the rim of the cup as though he were considering something, considering me. When he put his cup down he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a business card and a pen, “I think I might be able to help you.” He wrote on the back side of the business card.

“What? Do you think I should get into the security guard business? I am pretty tall, for a girl. And I can be fierce when needs be.”

He tilted his head to the side in the same way I was becoming used to then handed me the card, “I don’t doubt it but my company always needs someone good in the business office.” He closed his pen and set it on the counter, “I’ve written down the name and number of our Director of Business Operations. You should call him, send him your resume. I can get you the interview- if you want- but you’ll have to get the job on your own.”

Viki returned with our food as I studied the card. I turned it between my fingers and read the front:

Quinn Sullivan- Cypher Systems, Inc.

Under his name was his phone number and business email address. I flipped the card to the back and stared at his handwriting rather than the name and number and information he’d written. His letters were all capitals, severe and precise; he put little dashes through his sevens but not through his zeros; his words were in a straight line rather than drifting up or down in the absence of lined paper. I liked his handwriting. I imagined reading a handwritten letter from him. I thought about him writing it, taking the time to sit and write and think of me. It made a volcano of warmth erupt in my stomach.

When I looked up he was frowning at me, his gaze guarded, “Of course you don’t have to apply if you don’t want to.”

I placed my hand on his arm without thinking, “Oh, no! I’m going to apply. Really, thank you. Thank you for thinking of me.” I withdrew my hand when his eyes moved to my fingers and I tried to tuck my hair behind my ears as I turned to the plate of greasy food left by Viki. I stared at the plate for a moment before I spoke, “I’m very grateful for everything you’ve done for me. Last night and-” I swallowed a building lump in my throat, “and this morning and now this.” I gestured to the card on the counter. I met and held his gaze as I added with a thankful smile, “You’re a really nice guy.”

His frown deepened as though I’d just insulted him. His attention moved over my face, hair, neck, then stopped; he closed his eye-lids before he sighed and looked upward in an almost stealth eye-roll.

He half said, half mumbled, “I’m not that nice.”



~*~



Despite one more extremely awkward moment where Quinn wanted to drive me home on his motorcycle and I somewhat freaked out, stubbornly refused, and insisted on taking a cab, the rest of the breakfast was actually really nice. Rather, more precisely, it was as nice as it could be considering I spent most of our time together distracted, attempting to think of a way to get him shirtless again. During one weak moment I contemplated throwing my coffee at him.

Later that night, as I lay on the couch in Elizabeth’s apartment trying to concentrate on reading my book and failing, I thought about my debate with Quinn about the motorcycle. If he’d offered to drive me home in a car I likely would have said yes.

As it was, he owned a motorcycle.

I’ve never been on a motorcycle and, since my mother died on one, I have absolutely no desire to ever ride on a motorcycle. Obviously, I didn’t tell him that. I didn’t like to think about much less talk about my mother’s death and I doubted Quinn, already thinking I was a complete nutcase, much wanted to hear about it.

“Janie? Janie, are you here?” I heard Elizabeth burst through the door just as I was getting up to brush my teeth, for the tenth time that day, and go to bed. There was an unexpected urgency in her voice so I met her at the hall.

“Yeah- I’m here, are you ok?”

When she saw me she stepped back and closed her eyes, her hand was over her chest; “Oh God. I’m going to kill Jon.”

I lifted my eyebrows in confusion. “Jon? My Jon? What happened?”

Elizabeth let the bag on her shoulder fall to the ground and she sighed, “He called me, like, eleventy thousand times today, he kept paging me. He said the two if you were supposed to meet today and you didn’t show up.”

It took me approximately five seconds to remember my meeting with Jon, that I’d promised to meet him, and realize that I completely forgot all about it. The sight of Quinn’s bare chest must have wiped my memory.