I shake my head.
Jessie fans herself with her hand, as she gets up from the chair and starts to walk away. She turns back to grin at me. “I’m going to go and pretend I need to take the elevator somewhere, so I can be there when he gets out. Once you see him, you’ll understand my excitement. Brace yourself Opal. You are about to see the most beautiful man who ever existed.”
Laughing softly and shaking my head, I can’t help but wonder what this guy is going to look like to have her that excited about his arrival. I mean is he made of gold or something?
I guess I’m about to find out. Jessie has only been gone from my desk for a couple of minutes when I hear the ping of the elevator arriving and I know it’ll be mere seconds before the door opens. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s this Brett guy, but a couple of seconds later, I hear Jessie laughing in a flirty way. I smile to myself as I picture her tossing her hair back and laughing hysterically at something that is, at best, mildly amusing probably.
Pretending to be fixated on my computer screen, although I have completely lost track of the figures, I wait just a few seconds. I then realize I’ll have to start over again. Great. Thanks for that Jessie. I can’t put all of the blame on Jessie though. I should have had more sense than to let myself get pulled into the conversation, but Jessie is a good friend and I have to admit I enjoy her cheerful personality. It keeps office life interesting.
I glance up without moving my head when I hear quick, quiet footsteps approaching. I don’t see much. I don’t let my eyes linger in case he catches me looking at him. All I see is a flash of a grey suit and that the man is tall. I mean everyone is tall compared to me, but he must be well over six feet tall. He has a definite presence, a confidence that I can almost feel as he moves towards me, and despite myself, my breath catches a little in my throat.
Keeping my eyes glued on my screen again, until Brett is almost at my desk, I know it would be rude not to acknowledge him at this point. His cologne fills my nostrils, a woodsy, spicy scent that should be overpowering but somehow isn’t. As I turn my eyes up to look at him, I try to forget Jessie’s words and her excitement.
I smile up at him, flashing him my polished, customer service smile. It freezes on my face when I finally allow myself to look at Brett properly. Jessie wasn’t exaggerating about Brett’s looks. In fact, calling him the most beautiful man I would ever see actually feels like she’s sold him short a little bit.
The man is that fucking hot.
He looks like he’s around thirty five, certainly no older than that. With thick dark hair in a trendy style that manages to look tousled and casual like he hasn’t made any effort with it at all, and yet perfectly styled and in place at the same time. Staring at his full, thick hair, I imagine myself pushing my fingers into it as his lips move to meet mine. It would be silky soft, the kind of hair you want to touch constantly and can never get enough of.
I force myself to look away from his hair, feeling my cheeks turning pink as I shake off the image of my hands in his hair, his lips on mine. It turns out that looking away from his hair is a mistake. It had been distracting, but it has nothing compared to his eyes. They’re the color of caramel, a warm greenish brown that makes me melt inside. His eyes are so mesmerising that I can’t look away from them, and the longer I look at them, the more detail I see. The green is flecked with tiny specks of lighter brown, a color that is almost gold the flecks catch the light and sparkle as though they really are tiny pieces of gold leaf floating there in his eyes.
The gold flecks make me think of my earlier thought when I wondered if the man was made of gold or something. It turns out I wasn’t wrong, except that next to him, gold would look like cheap copper. Something to be tossed aside in favor of the much better thing beside it.
Brett clears his throat.
Now, I feel the slight flush on my face when I realize just how long I’ve been staring at him. Wow, Jessie was so right about him. I should have been more prepared, so I could play it cool.
Instead, I stare at Brett and I realize with horror that I’m still staring at him. Even as my mind screams at me to look away from him, I just can’t quite bring myself to do it. And to make matters worse, my mouth is still frozen in my fake, customer service smile. My cheeks are actually starting to ache from the smile. I must look like I have a damned coat hanger wedged in my mouth.
Could this get any worse? I mean I guess I could have set him on fire or something, but on a normal scale of things, where arson isn’t a player, then no, it really couldn’t be going much worse at all.
I finally manage to force my eyes away from him. Well, not away from him exactly, but I manage to stop staring into his eyes like some extra from a bad soap opera, and at least move my gaze down to this mouth. It’s no safer really, all I can think of when I look at his lips is
