Office Mates

Noob

Marian and Robin are sitting at their desk. Marian looks at the time, 4:55pm. They are supposed to go out tonight for drinks with Graham. She is anxious to see where the night will take them. Robin is so private he has never opened up about his past before. Marian looks at Robin who still has his headphones on. She decides to text Theo about her going out with some friends. Then she grab's Robins headphones and pulls them away from his ear.  "Robin, take off your headphones!" She lets the headphones snap back into place on Robin's head an smiles, she has always wanted to do that.

Robin looks frustrated. He takes his headphones off carefully and puts them back on their hook. He checks the time, it's 4:59, work isn't even over yet. Robin looks over at Marian who is completely done and ready to go. Robin starts to close down his computer. He isn't sure what exactly he is going to share tonight. He usually doesn't talk at all about Livia because if he did talk about her, he wouldn't know how exactly to talk about everything that happened between them. Does Marian expect the conversation to last 10 hours. That seems unreasonable.

Marian starts talking to him now that he clearly is done with work. "Are you ready for drinks tonight?" At this Marian starts to make a little hand sign of her drinking an imaginary drink. Robin thinks Marian still acts like a kid sometimes. Robin isn't even convinced yet this is going to help. "Is this absolutely necessary?" he asks his office mate. Marian starts nodding her head immediately.

The two go back and forth with each other. Marian, "it's necessary if you want my help." Robin, "but what if I don't want your help." Marian, "you need my help, though." Robin, sighs. He is annoyed. He is giving up his free time to go and spend the night with Marian and Graham. Usually when he and Graham hang out they play video games. When they play video games they only talk about the game. He would much rather be gaming with Graham then out drinking with Marian and Graham.

Marian can tell he isn't fully committed when she offers him this lovely thought. "You know, you could always ask Graham for dating advice." Robin tries to imagine what type of advice Graham would give him. Graham is of course wearing a top hat in Robin's imagination and he is standing in front of a chalkboard. Written in chalk on the chalkboard is "Graham's 4 surefire ways to get the girl. 1. Adopt a stray pet with her. 2. Catch her as she is about to fall down. 3. Start a fake relationship and then fall in love for real. 4. Become her boss and impress her with all of your money." Robin shakes his head immediately. He doesn't want Graham's advice. 

Robin starts to think about what Marian said earlier. About experimenting in her life. Robin is ready to give it a try. He decides that he is going to give Marian's advice a month. After a month of following her advice, he will see if it really did help him. He figures it's about time he tried something new since his last relationship went so horribly. And even though Marian may be annoying to share an office with, there is no doubting her intelligence. Marian is one of the smartest people he has met. Maybe he could give her the benefit of the doubt. But just for a month.

At this point, Graham walks into their office with a smile on his face. As he walks in he says, "yes! I am so glad you didn't leave without me. I had to walk upstairs quickly to make sure I caught you two. Not like that's a problem. I like getting a workout in before I drink some beers." Marian smiles at Graham. "You are buying the beers tonight, right?" Marian shoots a look at Graham. Robin also starts looking at Graham. Graham starts to feel a little embarrassed. "I thought this was your thing Marian?" Marian looks back at him, she folds her arms across her chest and says, "yes, this is my thing, but I am the one doing work tonight." Robin looks at the two of them as they stare each other down. He doesn't like the vibe and and decides to breaks the tension by saying, "I don't care who buys tonight, but without alcohol I won't be sharing any life stories." Marian and Graham continue to square off with each other until finally Graham caves. "Fine," he says, "but we have to stop by my car first."

The three of them are off. Marian, Graham, and Robin. They get to the parking lot at their work and Graham leads them over to his car. They get to a white lifted truck. It hasn't been washed in what seems like a year. Graham unlocks his car and stars rummaging around inside the car for something. Robin assumes it's probably his wallet. While Robin and Marian stand and wait for Graham to finish up, Marian notices someone else in the parking lot. Someone she sees out of the corner of her eye.

Before she can go look, she is interrupted by the return of Graham. He has a huge, Cheshire cat grin on his face and he pulls from behind his back this white lump. Next he uncurls it, Marian notices now that it is a baseball cap. He plops the cap right on Robin's head. On the cap is one word, "noob". Marian and Graham immediately start laughing. Graham bends over and in between wheezes gets in a "since your so new to dating." Robin looks at the hat on his head in the rear view mirror of the truck and puts together what it says as he tries to read backwards.

The noise of Graham and Marian laughing got the attention of the other person in the parking lot. It was Aurora. She has her phone out and a stand that she is using to record herself doing something. She is dressed in this soft baby blue outfit that makes her blue eyes even more stunning. Marian watches Aurora approach them and puts together suddenly what Aurora is doing. "Are you making a PikPok video?!" Aurora blushes and is now standing directly in front of the three. "Yeah, I am" she says awkwardly.

Graham perks up at this. "Oh, you have PikPok? Can I get your handle? Mine's Grahamstheman. I mostly do work out videos, but I do other stuff too, like react videos." Marian smiles as well. She knows how embarrassing it is when you are caught making a video by people around you. Trying to explain what you are doing is always awkward, even worse if people don't know what PikPok is. Aurora smiles at Graham. "Okay. I will follow you. Mine's FallforAuroraJ. I normally just make dumb dance videos that I send to my friends." Graham pulls out his phone to pull up the app. Aurora looks at Robin who hasn't greeted Aurora yet and she ask him, "Do you have PikPok, Robin? I would like to follow you too." She stands there waiting for Robin to speak.

Robin on the other hand had one thing on his mind. From the moment Graham put this hat on his head he has wanted to take it off. And when he realized that Aurora was there he kept worrying about her seeing him in this stupid hat. But then Aurora ended up right in front of him and this stupid hat is still on his head. At this point she hasn't asked about it. Now she is probably going to ask about this stupid hat.

Marian realizes that Robin is not responding to Aurora's question when she steps in. "Hey Aurora, what are you up to tonight?" Aurora smiles, "I am just sitting her making PikPok videos and then I am going home." When Robin hears this he says, "what is PikPok?" At this point Marian cringes. Robin sounds like such an old man sometimes. She doesn't know many people left who don't have any social media accounts. She should try to steer him away from this topic before Aurora thinks it's weird. "Robin, Graham and I are going out for drinks tonight." Aurora responds, "that sounds way better than what I am doing." Graham picks up immediately on what Marian is trying to make happen. "that all depends on the company you keep, right Robin?" The two look at Robin. Aurora is right here. They could gladly get her to come with them tonight. They just want Robin to agree to inviting her. Graham starts nudging Robin. Everyone is waiting on Robin. Finally, he puts his hands over the word on his hat, looks at Graham and says, "our Tuber's here, it's time for us to go." And just like that the three of them awkwardly walk away from Aurora and leave her in the Blahco parking lot.

The three get into the backseat with Robin in the middle since he is the skinniest. Marian is on one side looking angrily at Robin and Graham is on the other side looking confused. Graham grabs Robins face, "you were supposed to ask her to join us!!!" Marian chimes in, "what's wrong with you!?" And finally Robin reaches up to the noob hat. "Why did you put this stupid thing on my head? It was all I could think about." And with that, Robin took the noob hat off his head and dramatically threw it onto the car floor. Marian looks back at Robin and says, "this is why I am your love guru and not Graham."  The three drive the bar in silence. Something Marian has never done in her life. She was hopeful that her advice would help Robin get Aurora, but so far she is a little worried about her ability to help such a prickly person.