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Hazel
Today is that kind of average day, where nothing goes excessively smoothly, but neither is wrong.
I started my day by forgetting an important deadline at work and getting scolded by my boss; luckily, the client who commissioned the job decided to add some new changes last minute and gave us a prorogue. Thank God! At least now, I have enough time to complete the job and apply the new requested changes.
My little mishap resulted in my boss watching me like a hawk. That’s why, for lunch, I am eating a mini sandwich at wolf speed, standing at the entrance of our office building. I could have ordered lunch at my desk, but I really needed a short breather from the overbearing pressure upstairs. Now that I am done with the sandwich and drinking some water from a bottle to gulp the dry sandwich, I have no excuse but to get back upstairs and work like an automaton.
Just when I am reading to climb the few steps to the entrance, a guy gets in my way and stops right in front of me, watching me. What the?!! I can smell a subtle scent of white musk with some hints of vanilla, where is it coming from? Is there a scented candle shop nearby? I’d love to check it out. I love white musk. I try to identify with my nose the direction the perfume is coming from, and it seems to be wafting right out of the guy still standing in front of me, blocking my way. Weird. Maybe he works in a scented candle shop.
I get a better look at the guy, and I am surprised not to have noticed before how tall, muscular, and handsome he looks. He should be around my age, maybe a little bit older, with jet-black hair, shaved on the sides and longer on top, brilliant blue eyes, contoured by long black lashes, full lips, perfect for kissing, angular solid jaw, and a body to swoon for. He is wearing a suit, maybe too overdressed to work in a candle shop. What do I know? Anyway, this kind of A-league specimen would not be interested in someone like me, so I’d better go back to my work and forget about it.
When I go to bypass him, he catches my forearm and says, “Mate!”.
And this is when I snap at him because first, I loathe strangers touching me and invading my personal space, even handsome strangers; second, I am most definitely not his mate, dude, fellow, Mellon, or any acquaintance, for the matter.
“Take your hands off me! I don’t know you, and if I knew you, which I don’t, I wouldn’t allow you to call me mate!” I renounce in one breath.
The guy lets go of my arm, looking a little puzzled.
“We are mates,” he reiterates.
“I don’t know you. So, we can’t be mates.” I reply matter-of-factly.
Then, a thought occurs to me. “Did you go to Hafford University?”
We could share some courses at university. I don’t know; many people attended, and I could have forgotten his face completely. Although I find it difficult to believe I would forget someone this good-looking. He could have got plastic surgery after graduating.
“Can’t you smell me?” he asks suddenly.
And this keeps getting weirder. He is probably just a nutcase, and I am here wasting my precious time entertaining him. Ok. Enough of this.
“I am not going to smell you! Go back to your scented candles business or whatever it is you do. I am busy. Goodbye.”
The guy seems even more puzzled, a little shocked, especially at the part regarding the scented candles, so maybe I got his job wrong, or on the contrary, he is amazed that I got his job right without knowing him—Smarty me.
He stands there dumbfounded, watching me leave through the building entrance.
ns 15.158.61.6da2
