Neanderthal Seeks Human(9)

“I Kinneared him a couple times.” Elizabeth volunteered as she thumbed through photos on her phone. She looked up to our silent blank faces and lifted a single brow, “You know, ‘to Kinnear’, to stealthily take a clandestine picture of someone without them knowing. Hello? Don’t any of you read the Yarn Harlot’s blog?”

“Oh yeah, I heard about that. Didn’t the Yarn Harlot do that to Greg Kinnear at the airport or something?” Ashley placed her knitting on her lap, pointing at Elizabeth.

“Yes, yes. She wrote about it on her blog then it was put in Urban Dictionary and the New York Times yearly review thing or something-er-other.” Elizabeth turned to me and looked from my open mouth to my eyes, “Oh, don’t look so shocked about it.”

“I still want to know who him is.” Sandra stood up and leaned over Elizabeth’s shoulder as she paused on the first in a series of pictures of Sir Handsome McHotpants. I drank another swallow of my wine. All the ladies stood, except for Fiona, and clustered around the couch as Elizabeth drew her thumb over the touch screen of the phone. The group let out an audible gasp.

“Holy hotness, Batman. Who is that?” Ashley’s blue eyes were round as saucers.

“That’s Sir Handsome McHotpants.” Elizabeth sounded almost proud, “He’s a security guard at Kat and Janie’s building. Janie’s been lusting after him since he started a few weeks ago. I don’t know is real name but Janie might.”

Kat nodded, a small smile curving over her lips, “I recognize him. Janie isn’t the only one who has noticed.”

Marie started to laugh as she straightened and moved back to her discarded yarn, “No wonder you’re like: Jon who?”

“Damn, Janie, did he cuff you?” Sandra punched me on my shoulder, “Did you have hot elevator eye sex? Is that why you’re the shade of my red sweater right now?”

I didn’t realize that I was blushing until that moment. I put my wine glass aside and pressed my hands to my cheeks. It wasn’t that I was embarrassed by their comments, quite the opposite; I enjoyed their good natured teasing. I knew I was blushing due to the memory of his gaze, the intensity of his blue eyes as they moved over my body, the warm, charged strength of his hand on my back and arm. I felt more affected by him than all the other events which proceeded his presence, even all these hours later, after my day from hell. I moved my hands to cover my face and shook my head.

“Janie, did something happen?” I felt Elizabeth shift her weight on the couch as she addressed me, her voice contrarily laced with excitement and concern.

“No, nothing, except I talked to him and you all know how well that always goes over.” I left my hands on my face and sighed.

“What did you talk about?” Fiona’s soft voice made me feel a little calmer.

“I- I talked about the days of the week and the international standard for assigning numbers to days of the week.” My hands dropped from my face as I met their stares.

“Oh, geeze, Janie! What brought that up?” Ashley snorted as she laughed, moving her attention back to the soft mass of stitched yarn on her lap.

“No, wait, tell me everything.” Elizabeth said as she passed the phone to Fiona so she could see the pictures; Elizabeth grabbed my hands in hers and forced me to meet her pale blue eyes, “Leave nothing out. Start at the beginning and repeat what happened word for word- especially everything he said.”

So I did. I tried to stay focused as I repeated the story without allowing my mind to wander and expand on some meaningless tangent. When I repeated the part about ISO 8601 and how he’d asked me to expand on the ‘seamless intercourse’ between government bodies they all gasped.

“Ah! What did you say?” Sandra was leaning forward in her seat, “I can’t believe he flirted with you! Did you flirt with him back?”

“What? No- no, he wasn’t flirting with me!” I shook my head emphatically.

“Oh, Janie, au contraire mon frère, he was most certainly flirting with you.” Ashley wagged her eyebrows at me, her teeth sliding to the side in an impish grin, her thick Tennessee accent applied to the French colloquialism causing everyone to giggle, “Although he sounds like the strong and silent type. You must have made an impression. Kinda weird, though, him flirting with you right after you’re fired.”

Kat nodded, “I agree his timing could have been better but you must have obviously made an impression.”

“Of course you did, look at you- you’re stunning.” Fiona’s tone and expression was matter of fact as she gestured to me with one hand.