Girl Stellar [Shourtney]

5. Leo

-/-/-

"I'm pretty good at my job, right?"

"Your human job or your Realm job?" Ian asks me as I meet with him inside the office bathroom. "I don't know how you can stand working as his secretary, but if that's what it takes to fix the Mistake, then keep at it."

"Hey, it's not that bad, man," I remark, crossing my arms in front of his hologram. "How's it been there at the Realm? Are Rhett and Link picking up on the oddness of it all? I am so nervous that the Unknown's already sent them a heads up. And it's been, what, five days there since I left."

"No suspicious activity so far," he answers. "But I'm glad you seem to have adjusted to human life. When I was on Earth, it was so difficult."

"Why and when were you on Earth anyway?" I ask, raising an eyebrow. "Now that you mentioned it again, maybe you have some tips."

"I don't, I went there a long time ago," he replies, scratching the back of his neck. "Next time, give me a heads up when you call. Rhett and Link might just enter this office anytime and see you calling with me. That would suck."

"What sucks is that I have to find someone in the entirety of California who may be compatible with Shayne," I tell him, sighing. "Even though that person has a soulmate of their own, they would just need to make Shayne feel loved enough for a lifetime for him to mistake them as his soulmate, despite never being meant. But how would I, like, ensure that?"

"Just be the man behind the curtain," Ian answers before suddenly covering his camera. "Oh, hey, Rhett, Link! What's up?"

"Oh, shit," I mumble. "Alright, I'll call you in a month, dude. Bye now." I immediately end the call and sigh. A close call, but I do wish I had more time to talk to Ian. Those monthly calls were the only lifelines I had to the Realm.

When I exit the bathroom, I continue doing some work for the office, and as soon as I finish, I decide to look for the best dating apps as well as good date outfits for Shayne. I had already watched videos about dating to get myself acquainted about how humans actually perceived romance, which is a bit simpler than how Realm beings understood it though. But eventually, I find myself looking at date outfits that could fit me, and I wondered why.

I gaze at Shayne from the small window on his office door. He was attractive: big muscles, clean face, blue eyes. He was ideally physically interesting, but another factor, of course, would be personality. Now, I wouldn't say Shayne was boring, because our dinner talks were always full of fun and knowledge and all that. But would other women say the same about him? The idea of other women being appalled by how much of a genius he actually is despite the masculine stereotype of muscles and mind was already increasing my stress for the day. Why did the idea of other women entering his life slightly annoy me?

My desk phone suddenly rings, and I pick it up, jolting. Shayne says, "Hey, is tomorrow still happening?"

"Yes, of course!" I exclaim almost a little too jittery from the shock. "Have you prepared an outfit? Or a place to go to? I'm already looking up some dating apps, maybe we could go over them later."

"Are there clients outside?" he asks and my eyes widen at my own mistake. "Oh, God. There are. Did you just say that out loud?"

"Oh, gosh, I am so sorry," I reply, trying not to make eye contact with the slightly bothered clients. "My bad, dude. My bad."

He chuckles. "No, it's alright," he assures me. "Yeah, we could go through them later. I do hope I don't have to be a social butterfly to meet these people."

"Well, actually...," I mumble. "I was thinking if you could plan to meet up with three people this August. Trial and error basically. Since it's just August 1st right now, we'll try #1 on Monday. We'll give her a week or so to see if she responds. If yes, it stops. If not, we proceed to #2 on the 11th. Same procedure. #3 would be on the 31st hopefully. I mean, I hope #1 works well already so we wouldn't have to go through #2 and #3. You know... what I mean."