Sing Me Sweet | BRITTANA

Chapter 1: Undressed

"… and she said to me, 'No, Drew, I wasn't responsible for those files. And besides, I don't do things half-assed.'"

"She said that to you?"

The man sitting across the lunch table from me nods, his dark eyes alight with a mixture of irritation and excitement as he recounts his story. "She did. And Davis and I checked the records; you know when those files went missing? Early April. You know when she switched departments and I took over her job? Late May. She lost those damn files. Stupid cow." His hand pounds down on the table, making me jump a little.

"Drew-" I try to reason.

"No, seriously B," he isn't giving in with this, "She's a complete psychopath. The woman is like a dragon or something, walking around acting like she owns the place."

"But," I say, lifting the coffee cup to my lips and taking a sip, "Dragons can be fun."

"She's a dragon with teeth and claws," Drew says flatly, eyes narrowed at me. "Evil."

"Oh, well." A beat, and then, "Do some dragons not have teeth or claws? That'd be kind of weird. Wouldn't that make them… snakes?" I'm trying to lighten the mood, to distract him from the aggravation stewing inside him. But my question is still an honest one; wouldn't a dragon without claws be a snake?

"You aren't helping," Drew accuses, letting out a puff of air with a small smile. My attempt worked. "You're supposed to be sitting here being the supportive friend while I gripe about work."

I frown, "I thought you liked it here."

Drew Adams had been hired only a year ago, and the two of us hit it off pretty fantastically from the get-go. He's a collage graduate that had been scooped up and offered a position at this massive place even before his diploma was in his hand. Brilliantly smart, and almost as good at his job as I am at mine.

Dark, shaggy hair covers his head. He has a boyish face, with round cheekbones, and expressive blue eyes. Slim, he wasn't the work-out type, but not lanky and uncoordinated. Drew was anything but uncoordinated. Neurotic sometimes, his workspace was always spotless, but he was charming and charismatic. He was easy enough to get along with, and though brilliant, acted like a child pretty often.

Essentially? He was the kind of guy who, when a girl walked past him on the street, their gaze lingered just a little too long to be casual observation.

The down side to that, however, was that he was not at all interested in female attention.

"I do," he insists, "I just hate Daniels. She's a monster. The old bat needs to just retire and go visit those grandchildren in Greece she brags about non-stop." He's getting riled up again, I can see it. When he's like this, sometimes it's best to just let him run his course. Trying to stop Drew when he wants to rant is like trying to stop a freight train at full force with one hand. Difficult.

"I don't even work in her department," he continues, "And she talks my damn ears off. I've come home with blood stains on my shirt; she makes my ears bleed whenever she talks to me." He ends his words in a huff, glaring ahead of him as if the woman was right there and could see his dislike for her.

Drew gets along well with most people. He was just that guy. He didn't even have to know your name to strike up a conversation with you; he felt more like an old friend than a stranger. But his only real downfall was that he was very organized and neat with his workspace. Accusing him of misfiling something down in the records room? A big no-no.

Me on the other hand, though I do my work with care and precision, my work place is a bit of a disaster sometimes. It's not so bad that there are plates of food or garbage everywhere, I don't have mountains of junk all over the place and I can clearly see the floor. It's more just that I am very good at getting distracted and moving on to something else before I've finished a task. Organized chaos.