Factory Story – Part 2

Nate looked down at his cof­fee soaked busi­ness shirt and then at his emp­ty cof­fee mug. The wet shirt did­n’t real­ly both­er him, but the emp­ty mug did.

He put the mug into the sink and unbut­toned his shirt and took it off.

Scar­let made her­self a cup of hot water and dropped in a sug­ar cube while she watched Nate dis­robe. She made a point of look­ing him up and down.

“Not bad for a nerd.”

Nate smiled as he put the plug in the sink and turned on the taps. “Thanks, I think.” He replied as he soaked his shirt in the warm water.

Scar­let sipped at her sug­ar water and shrugged and left Nate to do his laun­dry.

With a fresh cup of instant cof­fee, and his wet shirt over his shoul­der, Nate final­ly made it back to his office. He hung the shirt up in the hope that it would dry before the end of the day. Know­ing it was unlike­ly, a prob­lem to wor­ry about lat­er.

Despite the lack of a shirt it was time to get to work. Check­ing the web­site and his emails kept him busy for a few hours. A few peo­ple came up to his door, as if about to ask him a ques­tion. But they would notice he was sit­ting semi-naked at this desk and they would just turn around and leave again. He actu­al­ly got a lot more work done than usu­al.

Around lunch time he checked the shirt, it was still damp, and it was still rain­ing heav­i­ly out­side. Sand­wich at his desk for lunch.

Again.

Just as he was about to take his first bite, his inter­com buzzed and Scar­let’s voice filled his small office.

“Nate, deliv­ery here for you, guy wants you to sign for it.”

He set his untouched sand­wich down and reached over and pushed the buzzer. “I’ll be right out.”

The deliv­ery guy smirked at Nate’s lack of shirt an hand­ed Nate the elec­tron­ic-clip­board.

“Nice out­fit.” He said.

“Er, thanks.” Replied Nate as he glanced at the deliv­ery guy.

He was short­er than aver­age, fit­ter than aver­age, his wet uni­form show­ing of than it should, sandy brown hair that did­n’t look nat­ur­al and bright green eyes that did­n’t look nat­ur­al either, the creas­es around his eyes when he smiled said he was over 30, but not by much, his name badge read ‘Bri­an’, but he did­n’t look like a Bri­an.

Nate signed the clip­board and took the pack­age and was about to leave, when the deliv­ery guy, Bri­an, stopped him.

“Oh, and here’s my card.” Bri­an said, scrib­bling a phone num­ber on the back and hand­ing it to Nate. “In case there are any, erm, prob­lems.”

Nate frowned at the card and shrugged. “Okay then. Thanks.”

The deliv­ery guy turned and bound­ed down the stairs two at a time, and head­ed back out into the rain.

Nate was still look­ing at the card. “That was a lit­tle weird, right?”

Scar­let smiled look­ing over the edge of her news­pa­per. “Only if you think get­ting hit-on by a super cute man in uni­form is ‘weird’.”

Nate looked up. “He was hit­ting on me?”

Scar­let added a thir­teen to her sudoku. “I was flirt­ing with him, yet you end­ed up with his num­ber, its not rock­et sci­ence you know.”

Nate nod­ded. “No, much more com­pli­cat­ed.” And he turned and head­ed out of the room.

From behind him Scar­let shout­ed out. “Wait 20 min­utes, ring him, ask him for a cof­fee, tonight. If he says yes, can­cel what­ev­er bor­ing thing you were going to do.”

Nate stoped at the door and looked back at her. “Real­ly?”

Scar­let shrugged. “Or you could do noth­ing at all and go home tonight and play com­put­er games. Up to you. But next time you feel lone­ly you’ll know it was because you could­n’t make a phone call.”

Nate walked back to his office, even less sure what to make of Scar­let.

—
Sto­ry con­tin­ues in part 3.

Part of my cre­ative writ­ing class. Week­ly Assign­ment 3.