Play It By Ear

First Impressions

I wrung my hands together and continued to burn holes in the floor with my eyes. I could still feel the deep blush on my cheeks and had a small feeling that, considering how long it had already been on my face, it may be permanent. My boss was still chatting away; completely unaware of the internal battle I was fighting instead of actually processing what he said. I pondered how painful it would be when my mother killed me for quitting a job she had worked so hard to secure for me. I cringed slightly and bowed my head further down. Staying definitely seemed the lesser of two evils.

My employer, because I refused to ever speak his name ever again, stopped talking and I realized that the room seemed too quiet for my liking without the deep grumble of his voice. My eyes flickered up and scanned the area in front of me. He was standing behind his desk, arms crossed and a frustrated look on his chiseled face.

"Georgiana?"

"Just George please, sir." His lips twisted into a tight smirk and a nasty glint glimmered in his eye.

"Sir? George, there is no need for formalities seeing as you've already told me what you think of me.”

I felt my face blanch. Apparently the cursed blush could go away. The memory of what happened only a few minutes prior played over in my head at his reference to it. Not that it hadn't already been doing it, but the direct mention seemed to make it all the more vivid. At that rate, I doubted that I would ever be able to forget. The embarrassment I had felt as soon as the words had slipped out of my mouth rivaled the fear I had felt in the witness stand less than two years ago as one of the worst of all time.

I had turned around, and I could have sworn my heart had stopped beating. He was... Beyond the scripture of words. His dark brown hair was chopped short and his face was youthful but serious. Like someone forced to mature drastically before their time. I knew that kind of face well. Despite that though, his mouth was pulled into a mischievous, playful smile and his bright emerald green eyes danced.

He was handsome, yes, maybe even strikingly so but yet there was something else that seemed to draw me to him. Some sort of attraction I couldn't comprehend. Quickly though, I wrote it off as lust originating from the secretary's claims of his playboy ways. I mean, come on. There had been talk of sex with him only moments before, of course my body was curious. It was a wonder that hormones hadn’t already been my demise.

"You look nothing like the George Alfred I was expecting. Mind explaining why you suddenly changed genders?" I felt a blush creep over my face at his words and frowned. Was he expecting a guy? Did he not feel comfortable with me around? Would I lose the job I desperately wanted just because I wasn't what he expected? I sighed softly to myself. Of course he wouldn't fire me over something so trivial, I was just being paranoid. My eyes had widened slightly when I realized that I hadn't answered him and the proper time in which to respond had long passed. Mr. Leighton's eyes continued to stare at me in all of their deep emerald brilliance. They were definitely the type of eyes a girl could lose herself in.

"My name is Georgiana, George is just a nickname," I stammered, my voice barely coming over a whisper. He curtly nodded and I was taken back at his sudden change in demeanor. What had I possibly done in the nine words I had spoken to him?

“Well, while I appreciate your coming in today, you Miss. Alfred are far too young to be working here. What are you, fifteen? I’m sure you have boys and shopping to worry about and being my personal assistant, no matter how temporary, requires a lot of devotion. I just can’t deal with unreliable and flakey at this point in time. You may leave.” He massaged the bridge of his nose and turned away from me. I could feel the anger boiling up and running rampant through my veins. The audacity!

“I’ll have you know, I turn eighteen in two weeks and you know absolutely nothing about me!” My voice was getting higher pitched and squeakier with every word but it didn’t matter and my anger had already taken over far too much to turn back now. “You don’t know what kind of person I am! What kind of pompous, conceited, self righteous, elitist ass are you? You’re only a few years older than me and yet you’re talking to me like a five year old! Just because you’re so gosh darned freaking brilliant and gorgeous and such a freaking hit with the ladies doesn’t mean you can speak to me like that! “

My words hung in the air for a moment and I waited, hand slapped over my mouth forcing any remaining thoughts from escaping my lips, for him to turn around and kick me out of the building himself. My body was shaking from the adrenaline of yelling at him though. It had been such a long time since I had just let go. The past few years had been spent in a haze, doing everything I could to stay under the radar. Hidden.  And staying hidden meant keeping emotions to myself.

 Mr. Leighton turned around and for a moment I couldn’t help but stare. His face was void of all emotion and my body tensed. I readied myself for a retorting explosion but I was only met with silence. My breath had long since been trapped in my chest and ever Ms. Wilburstein seemed to stop breathing. At least he had stopped rubbing the bridge of his nose like I was causing him an intense tension headache. After a few long moments, his face twisted and he face was covered with an emotion I couldn’t quite place.

“Well, we know she has a backbone!” He said in a rather surprising snarky tone and took two long strides over to where I stood. “Come on. For that little eruption, I’ll give ya a trial run.”

I was ripped out of my memory with the sound of my employer clearing his throat. I realized that once again, I had failed to answer him.

“I apologize about that sir-” He cocked an eyebrow at me and I bit my lip, “Sorry, I apologize about that Mr. Leighton.” I watched as the tension in his face lightened slightly and he gave me another half mouth smirk. While it was hot, and God was it hot, I could see those smirks being his cause of death one day.

“Just Casimir please, ma’am,” he said, mocking my earlier statement. The blush worked its way back into my features.  I watched as he pulled out the large swivel black leather chair across the desk from me and flopped down rather unceremoniously.

“Casimir?” His name felt foreign to my lips even though it wasn’t the first time I was saying it. It was definitely different saying it with him right then. It also certainly didn’t help that the way I said his name came out a little too throaty and husky for my comfort zone. I prayed he hadn’t heard the faint whisper. He, however, seemed to notice this as well and his eyes snapped up to my face.

“Yes, Georgiana?”

“I thought I said to call me George?”

“I like Georgiana.” I opened my mouth but realized that I had nothing witty to reply. And that left me feeling quite a bit too vulnerable for my liking. The room was quiet for a few minutes as we both just stared at each other. It wasn’t unpleasant or entirely awkward, just the look of two people who were trying to figure their companion out.

The phone on his desk released a shrill ringing sound, pulling us both out of our trances. I watched as Mr. Leighton shook his head and picked up the phone, motioning me out of the room at the same time. I nodded, getting his message and stood. I awkwardly picked my purse up from the floor and straightened out my outfit. Before I could turn around though, he covered the mouthpiece with one hand.

“Go home. I’ll see you here tomorrow at eight am sharp. Good bye Georgiana.” I smiled and turned to walk out of the room. Tomorrow was a new day and I was determined to prove his earlier assumptions wrong. This was definitely going to be an interesting job; I could feel it in my bones.