I don’t even have to be consciously imagining these scenarios anymore. Most nights he’s in my dreams. The other day, I had a dream in my sleep that was so raunchy I couldn’t look him in the eye at the vending machine the next day. As it turned out, I abandoned my craving for a Kit Kat and hightailed it back to my desk before he was finished making his selection. And I was sweating when I finally made it there. When he walked past on the way to his office, I shuffled papers around on my desk so I’d look busy and unapproachable.
Not that he ever approaches me anyway. Not when he has Leslie at his beck and call. He’s been working here for three months, and Leslie’s been in his office several times a day, every day. I’ve started eavesdropping on her reasons for going in there. They’re almost as entertaining as my own fantasies. Here are a few of my favorites:
“Coffee’s fresh!”
“Do you have a fire extinguisher in here?”
“Wanda needs your t-shirt size. I told her you were probably a large—I’m a pretty good judge of these things—but she wanted me to ask you to make sure.”
“Can I get your John Hancock on this letter?”
“I need a tall guy to help me reach something in the supply closet. Do you mind?”
And she ends just about everything she says to him with this annoying giggle: “Ah-huh-huh!” Like little girl hiccups. Once, involuntarily, I loudly mock-giggled along with her at the end of her sentence as she was leaving Jude’s office. She shot me a dirty look on her way past, but when I peeked through his window a few seconds later, I caught him grinning at me. He looked down as soon as he saw me glance over.
I’m not going to lie; that made my day.
Of course, I reverted to my awkward self a couple of hours later, when I called him “Babe” before hanging up with him on a routine phone call about reserving the videoconference room for a client meeting. Yeah. That happened. In my defense, I was distracted (about work, for once, not one of my daydreams), and I meant to say, “See you later. Bye.” But I somehow got tongue-tied and started to combine the words “later” and “bye,” so it would have come out, “See you bater,” which almost sounds like I’m calling him a shortened form of “masturbator,” so my brain short-circuited, and I ended up saying, “See you, babe.” And then I hung up right away before I could correct myself, because I was trying to meet a deadline on another job. It was a slip of the tongue of epic proportions. Despite being very busy, I sat there at my desk, blushing and staring at my phone for at least a minute before I recovered and, with shaking hands, went back to work. I made a point of not making eye contact with him for the rest of the day, too.
Tonight, I do a double take when I get a glimpse of my computer clock at 6:30. “Shit!” I mutter, kicking it into high gear. I have thirty minutes to get my butt to FedEx for their latest drop-off. I hop from my chair and look over the partition that separates my desk from Lisa’s. She’s long gone. A quick sweep of the office tells me everyone else is, too. Except Jude.
Oh, Lord. This is what king-sized fantasies are made of.
But I don’t have time for fantasies.
I do a quick spell- and format check of the document and hit print, practically running for the printer on my shoeless feet. “Oh, gosh, oh, gosh, oh, gosh!” I whisper as I run back to my desk to hit “print” again when I realize I forgot to print the first copy in color. When I get there the second time, red lights are flashing, indicating a jam. “Son of a White Sox fan!”
With the precision and efficiency of someone who’s cleared about a thousand paper jams, I open all the little hidey-holes that paper loves to get caught in, reaching my hands in spaces and around hot metal parts, tossing the fan-crinkled paper over my shoulder.
“You will print for me, you piece of steaming crap!” I say lovingly to the machine as I close all the doors and tap my foot impatiently while it resets my job and sends it through again. “Come on, baby. You can do it. I just need one copy. Just one. I’ll make the saps at Kinko’s make my duplicates. Just give me one copy.”
The last page slides out, and I grab the stack victoriously. “Ha-ha!” I cheer, holding the document aloft as I rush back to my desk for my shoes and purse. On my way past Jude’s office, I inform him, “I’m leaving! You’re the last one here!”
“Oh, blimey. Mind if I follow you out then? I lost my office key recently.” He grabs his jacket from the back of his chair and shrugs it on as he hurries to catch up to me at the door. “Hole in one of my trouser pockets, I’m afraid. Keep forgetting to ask Wanda for a new one. Key, that is. Actually”—he keeps talking when I don’t say anything—“I’m a bit afraid to ask her. She’s sort of… humorless… and… scary. Am I the only one who thinks that?”
This is the most Real Jude has ever said to me. I wish I were less distracted so I could enjoy it more, but I’m dancing like a woman with a bladder-control problem as I hit the lights and lock the door.
“Right. You’re in a rush,” he observes.
“Yes,” I answer. I put the proposal between my teeth
