Like You Read About (3 page)

After
another quick shy look at Daniel she rushed on, “IT needs to be able to upgrade some of the infrastructure as well as replacing some of the older computing equipment our staff are using. Take Jim for example, his computer very likely is run by mouse-power, like on a wheel, running to catch some cheese, not clicking, and wouldn’t run any new software program we bought him for HR functions anyhow.” A soft chuckle erupts and Jim enthusiastically nods his head.

“
Jim, I’ll be expecting that small crate of neatly packaged unmarked twenty dollar bills by the end of the week,” with a wink in Jim’s direction, “seeing as apparently you’re getting the lion-share of the all the spoils from my budget-y goodness.”  She is actually feeling a little bit saucy, and this might be the first time that Cora was intentionally funny at a meeting. Notice that, why don’t you, Dan.  Well notice it, but remember, I’m not actually flirting with Jim because he’s gay, flag waving, parade marching, Cher loving gay. 

Daniel
’s head is bent over the cover sheet, and he flips back and forth to the spreadsheet and data he had provided which now included additional information from the accounting team.  He looks up at Cora. “How is it that you’re able to get me more than I had requested?  This covers everything on my list, plus what I need to support a new HR infrastructure, several new computers as well as upgrades for the AV equipment in the conference room.”

“Well I’m magical
, Daniel, didn’t you know that?” she says with a smile, startling herself, Kaelyn, and probably everyone else at the table; that bordered on flirting, clearly she was high, or insane… yup, she’d gone round the bend.

“Which is why I made sure not to anger her when I left her my request along with a sacrificial offering
,” Jim pipes up from the end of the table, which brings another round of snickers and guffaws.  When did the monthly meeting become amateur night at the Laugh Track Comedy Shack?

“
Mr. J. and I reviewed all of the requests and really focused on what our priorities should be to move us forward through the rest of this fiscal year and into the next, IT and HR are two key areas.  The computing equipment made sense, as did the infrastructure, and the conference room equipment will pay for itself if we are able to properly court buyers and investors.  What we have now doesn’t give us the opportunity to make eye grabbing sexy multi-media presentations. You want the money; you need to bring the sexy sometimes.”  Oh My God Cora, sit down and stop saying sexy, you are embarrassing yourself, again, just stop.

Cora sat down and the meeting continued as all the other divisions reported on their areas, progress, needs, etc.  Stacy from HR
, her official title was employee relations specialist, but she liked to call herself the cruise director, solicited ideas for what to do for the rescheduling of the holiday party, which had been cancelled by a bitch of a blizzard.  Since Boston Pharma was a “family” company this was a spouses, significant others invited to-do, and after much chatter it was decided that we’d have a dinner dance for Valentine’s Day at the jazz club down the block if they were free.  Inwardly Cora groaned, attendance at these things was compulsory unless you were actually dead, hospitalization did not excuse you.  Drinks, dinner and dancing while she sat with Kaelyn and her husband Tommy while they made suggestive comments and got handsy with at each other all night—so very seriously not Cora’s idea of fun.  It was not a good time, and it was most certainly not for those who were single or who had a weak stomach. 

The meeti
ng ended and the room cleared out quickly.  Cora walked around the table to pick up the copies of the report left behind, stopped next to Daniel, and took a deep breath.  He was still looking over the spreadsheets trying to make sense of it she guessed.

“Hi,” she said, trying not to sound too breathy, “how was your break?  You grew a beard
.” Inwardly she kicked herself,
well duh Captain Obvious, it’s all over his sexy hairy face.

“Yeah, I got lazy over break, I moved at the beginning of December into this little bungalow I bought and I spent all of the break painting, sleeping, or eating beer and pizza while I painted.” 
He was looking at her, right into her eyes; and it made all kinds of her parts tingle in some serious ways.

“Well it suits you, very handsome
.” She couldn’t snap her mouth closed fast enough, stupid, stupid, stupid girl. Why not just take off all your clothes, lie out on the conference table and offer to do all manner of naughty things to him and his hotness of a body?  Her mind drifted as she wondered what the scratch of that beard would feel like on her cheek, her inner thighs, her nipples—
focus Cora.

A blush rose
up his neck as he shyly responded, “Thank you, I needed some validation. I like it but my mom is all over me to shave it off and the guys upstairs are making Grizzly Adams jokes.  How was your break?  I feel like it’s been forever since I’ve seen you.  I spent the last week at the plant in Woburn. Some knucklehead turned off all the heat and a pipe burst in the server room.  Computers don’t work, we can’t produce drugs, and we don’t make money. Said knucklehead is up to his eyeballs in shit.  Luckily that’s covered by insurance and won’t eat into this nice little late Christmas budget miracle you worked for me.”

“Oh it was nothing, you guys need the money, I found the money, I found it for
Jim, and others as well so you’re only kinda special.” She was flirting with him, actually flirting, what in the hell had possessed her?  Who cares, she was going to run with it. “Well
‘someday, and that day may never come, I'll call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day…’” again, she snapped her mouth shut, at this rate she probably looked like a turtle, or a guppy.
  “I’m so sorry, that was a crappy Godfather impression, please forgive me.  Although it was better, and more relevant than ‘Leave the gun, take the cannoli.’  I’ll just go hide under my desk now.  I clearly lack social skills to be allowed to interact with other humans. I watch way too many movies, way too many quotes clogging up useful space in my head.”  Oh my god, stop talking Cora.

“I’ll let it slide, this time, and I’m sure whatever that favor is I can handle it.”  She could
not breathe, and her smile at him must have been blinding, she really could not have been any more obvious if she rubbed all up on him and marked him with her scent.  “That’s a really pretty smile, Cora, you don’t smile often enough, I would have grown the beard years ago if I’d known it would have this effect.”  He winked at her, he actually winked at her, and he wasn’t sure what had overcome him.  Cora was pretty, but she seemed shy, except for today; today she was on fire, and it felt like he was seeing her for the first time.

Obviously,
he’d seen her, second Tuesday of every month since he was promoted two years ago, and whenever he had to fix her computer or steal some candy.  She looked very different today than she did at that first meeting, she seemed to have put serious effort into her physical appearance, but Daniel had always thought she was lovely.  She always had a smile, but it seemed a sad smile and it made him wonder what it was that made her sad.  Every now and again, he wondered if there was a way to make her happy, instead of sad, but that wasn’t his responsibility, right?

I
t’s work, and after a disastrous experience in his first job out of college, he’d never really put anyone at work in the “potential” category, maybe he needed to rethink that.

“Well, I need to get back to my
desk, I’ve got a conference call shortly with a potential HR systems vendor.” He could feel her pulling away as all those words rushed out of her on a breath. He could feel the moment fading, and it had been a moment, hadn’t it?  Had she felt it too?

He met her ey
es again, held her gaze, and smiled; a slow, sweet smile that said he had things on his mind, and wouldn’t she like to know what they were. “Well Cora, thanks for the support, and the compliment. I’ll try to make sure I get to stop in to say hi again soon. Three weeks is way too long not to say hey to a smiling friendly face, who always has those tasty strawberry hard candies to steal.”

It was her turn to blush as she stammered, “No problem, you know where to find me if you need candy, or whatever
.” She turned and nearly ran from the room.

Yup, there was definitely
something different about her today, or maybe he was just finally waking up; but he didn’t have the first idea of what he should do about it. So, he tucked it in his back pocket, grabbed his tablet, checked his Blackberry and walked towards the elevator and back to his quiet space on the fourth floor where he could fix things and think and drink coffee, lots and lots of coffee.

Back at her desk
, Cora logged back in to her computer and turned off the voicemail.  While she waited for her screen to come up she dumped the extra reports in the recycling bin and picked up a strawberry candy, they were sugar free, and she could have five for one point, no one but Kaelyn knew they were sugar free.  Apparently Daniel liked them, she pulled out her grocery list and put a x3 next to that item on her list, no way was she going to run out now.

Before she even opened her
email, a chat box opens up:

Kaelyn
-
So, did you go for it, did you offer yourself up as a sex slave, to love and cherish til death do you part?  At the very least invite him to drinks with the group?

Cora-
Don’t you have actual work to do?  Besides I’m not here for drinks this week, so the less he knows the better, no one can poach on my turf

Kaelyn
-
Yes, Mr. J is paying me to work as a yenta, or a pimp, whichever works.  If you want to stop poaching you need to mark your territory, go rub up on him, or pee on his shoes

Cora-
I did talk to him after everyone left, I complimented his beard, he thanked me for the budget support.  Apparently he bought a house and he’s been busy painting and last week was in Woburn fixing a water pipe server room destruction, as for the shoe thing…ewwww… you are twisted, how is it you are allowed to raise actual humans?

Kaelyn
-
Yeah I noticed the beard, you removed all the oxygen from the room when you looked up and took a deep breath as you took it in, I know how you love beards, what is that about anyway?

Cora-
Oh fuck you, no one turned blue, but holy hotness, that beard made me tingly in parts I’d forgotten got tingly, we chatted a little, I said some stupid shit, blushed like an idiot and ran before I made an even bigger fool of myself

Kaelyn
-
There is no way you made a fool of yourself, he was peeking at you during the meeting too you know, and not for the first time

Cora-
He was just looking at me because he was all grateful that I bought him stuff, Jim was probably looking at me like that too

Kaelyn
-
Trust me, Jim might look at Adam in reception that way, but not you, sorry you don’t have the right bits and pieces

Cora-
Fine, fine, fine, we’ll talk about this tomorrow at lunch, you know I don’t like to use chat for this, and there’s really nothing else to say.  We’ll go out for lunch before I leave for the conference in Norwalk

Kaelyn
-
Blargh, you are always pissing on my parade

Cora-
At least I’m not pissing on your shoes

Kaelyn
-
Touché

Cora closed the window and went about sorting through emails.  She was pretty sure that no one in IT actually read the chat logs but she wasn’t going to say anything else too foolish.  She had stuff to do to get ready to leave for the conference and she needed to buckle down and stop thinking about the handsome beardy IT guy on the fourth  floor who wanted to steal her strawberry candy.  And since she had hair the color of a ripe strawberry, she could pretend that meant any number of things, right?

Chapter 3

While sitting in the booth across from
Kaelyn at the local diner the next day at lunch Cora decided to throw caution to the wind and order eggs and toast and bacon and home fries. Oh, she’d track it, but she’d need some sustenance to go another round with Kaelyn on her relationship, or lack thereof with Daniel Santagata.

“Before you start on me, one conversation, some compliments and a little flirting does not mean we’re headed towards some sheet melting sexy times, or anything more serious,”
Cora keeping her face stern as she tried not to let her mind wander to said sheet melting, and scratchy beard goodness.

“Flirting?!?”
Kaelyn schreeched, “You didn’t mention anything about flirting yesterday. Why do you have to keep information from me? How can I plan your battle strategy if you withhold important data from me?”

“
Keep your voice down, it wasn’t actual flirting. I made a stupid movie quote, he mentioned stealing my candy, I blushed, blah blah blah,” Cora nodded her head decisively and waived her hand dismissively. “See, it was nothing.”

“Candy stealing is definitely flirting, and he was whistling as he walked past my cube towards the elevator.” 
Kaelyn dug in to her double cheeseburger, doused with ketchup and mayo and bacon, seriously, where did she put it all?