Vice

32: Making Out

"I should go," Natara mutters, hopping off of Mr. Vice's lap. Her curls are frizzy and her cheeks burn after her make out session. It was her first kiss and the closest she's ever come to making out in her entire life.

She runs back to the safety of Mr. Vice's office door, raising her hand in a wave to hide her girly smile. His green-grey eyes stare back. He gives her a needy expression - like he might beg her to stay - but his face blankens. Natara's heart clenches, trying to pull her back to him, before she slips out the door.

Back in the safety of the hallway, she leans back on the door and lets out a long breath, touching her fingertips to her lips.

Was what just happened even real? Was it all some crazy dream or hallucination? Natara certainly can't believe it. She kissed her boss. She rubbed his shoulders and sat on his lap and he held her hips in a way she hadn't even seen in her drama TV shows. 

Her fingertips drop from her lips and she tries to remember what she was supposed to be doing before she delivered him his coffee. She was supposed to be going back to her office to continue her work for the day. Right. Yes. That's what she was supposed to be doing.

She hurries back down the hall and to her office. When she gets there, Jaquie stands beside her desk, tapping his foot. He doesn't look happy.

"And where exactly have you been? I came to drop off more paperwork for you ten minutes ago and you've been M.I.A. for that entire time." Jaquie shakes his head, running his hand through his short, prim hair.

Natara's mouth hangs open as anxiety spurs her heart to beat too fast. She grips the skirt of her dress, staring down at the floor. It's not like she can say where she really was or what happened. Jaquie would fire her, for sure. She searches her brain for any kind of excuse she can muster.

"I, um, I'm sorry...I had some bad food poisoning from breakfast I think. I was in the bathroom for a while," she lies. Jaquie's face whitens. Her eyes widen. What had she just told him? That she spent the morning exploding on the toilet? She really couldn't come up with something better than that?

Ugh, I'm a terrible liar.

Thankfully, Jaquie seems either so startled by her openness or too disgusted by her honesty to press the subject. He fiddles with an ink pen in his button up shirt pocket, looking anywhere but into Natara's eyes. "Oh, er, alright. Are you feeling better now?" 

Natara nods and places her hand on her abdomen, doing her best to give him a slightly pained smile. If she's sticking to her awkward explanation, she might as well act like it. "Yeah, for the most part. My intestines are still a bit...unruly. Sorry I wasn't at my desk." 

Her eyes land on the second stack of paperwork Jaquie must have just brought and her heart sinks. She feels tired from merely looking at it. 

"W-well," he stammers. "I guess try not to eat whatever you ate for breakfast again. Ta ta." He waves his hand lazily in the air above his head, spins on his heels, and retreats from her office. Natara plops down in her chair, letting out another long exhale. She's relieved he didn't press the subject.

She drowns herself in the paperwork for the rest of her day, trying her best to keep her thoughts off of Mr. Vice. She really, really does not understand him and Natara is the type of girl who likes to have at least a little bit of understanding about things in her life. 

So she distracts herself with stamping on signatures, editing documents, and highlighting key points on each of the pages before her. She does such a good job of distracting herself that she ends up working well through lunch.

Someone knocks on her door and her head jerks up. She's met with a familiar handsome face and a dimpled smile.

"Hey, you'd look a lot prettier if I could see you past all of those papers," Jace jokes as he walks in. "I didn't see you down in the lunchroom. Did you order in?" He glances around. "Nevermind. It doesn't look like you ordered in."

"Hm? Why? What time is it?" Natara asks, looking at Jace with the blank dazed stare of a young woman who has spent way too much time staring at documents. Jace checks his watch.

"Almost four," he says. Natara raises her eyebrows. She missed lunch by four hours? It's really almost dinner time? In fact, it's almost time for her to head home as long as she isn't supposed to stay late again for her paperwork. 

She decides to ask Jaquie after she finishes a few more pages if she'll be able to go home at a reasonable time today. All of the urgently marked papers she got finished already, so she assumes she should be able to.

Jace smiles and waves his head in front of Natara's face, interrupting her thoughts.

"I think you might be working a little too hard," he chuckles. "How am I supposed to treat you to lunch when you forget eating lunch even exists? I have to head back home to my apartment now but let's definitely rain check lunch together, yeah?"

"That sounds nice," Natara replies with a smile. Jace winks and slips out the door.

But as Natara returns to her paperwork for the rest of the evening, it isn't her upcoming lunch date with Jace that is on her mind - it's the feel of Mr. Vice's soft lips against hers. She fantasizes so much that she accidentally stamps the top of a document that didn't even need a signature stamped on it.

She wishes she could focus on the wonderful, nice, funny, and handsome coworker who asks her out on actual normal dates instead of the sexy enigma of Mr. Vice.