I lost track of time again, but I didn’t work through lunch. Not quite. Around one I grabbed a comic book I’d brought to read while I ate and headed for the staff lounge.
Flipping through the pages and whistling softly, I read while I walked down the mostly empty hallway. My toe hit something solid and I looked up just before walking into a door frame.
That would have sucked.
For half a second, I was disoriented. Where was I? This wasn’t the staff lounge.
I’d walked straight to the copy room.
What was it with this place? This was the second time I’d wandered over here without meaning to.
And once again, Hazel stood in front of the copy machine.
Pheromones, man. Motherfucking pheromones.
My mouth curled in a grin. She was wearing a dress today. Dark blue with tiny white polka dots, belted at the waist, with a pair of coffee brown heels.
It was impossible not to imagine stepping up behind her and grabbing her hips. Pressing myself against her while I kissed her neck. Hiking that dress up around her waist.
She glanced over her shoulder and her eyes flicked up and down, taking me in. Was she remembering that night too? Thinking about what it had felt like when I’d taken her right on that table?
I took a step closer. “We really need to stop meeting here like this.”
“We aren’t meeting here. I’m making copies.”
“Is that what they’re calling it now?”
With a roll of her eyes, she turned back to the copy machine.
I kept grinning. She was so cute when she was annoyed with me. I lowered my voice. “What was that? We should both work late and accidentally run into each other here? Hazel, I’m shocked. That doesn’t sound like it would be an accident.”
“Will you be quiet? Someone might hear you.”
“I’m just trying to keep things professional.”
She glared at me over her shoulder.
I put a hand up in a gesture of surrender. “I am. You’re the one in here looking cute by the copy machine. What am I supposed to do with that?”
“Do with what?”
“With you.”
She whipped around and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Nothing. Not here.”
I made a show of looking around. “You don’t have to whisper. We’re alone.”
“Corban.”
“Okay, not here. But there’s a closet down the hall. Or one of the interview rooms?”
She huffed out a breath and took her copies off the machine. But I’d seen the little smile she was trying to hide.
I chuckled again. “Okay, you’re right. We’re at work.”
“Thank you.” She tapped her copies into a neat pile. “Speaking of, I need to get back to my office.”
She moved to step around me. Without really thinking about it, I shifted so she couldn’t get past. She pursed her lips and tried to get by. I moved in the same direction that she did, then we both shifted to the other side.
“Corban.”
“What?”
“You’re in my way.”
We both side-stepped the same direction again.
“I’m trying to let you by.”
She rolled her eyes again, but the corners of her mouth turned up. “No, you’re not.”
“Did you know pigeons can do math?” I didn’t know where that had come from, but it got her to stop moving.
“Math? I think you’re making that one up.”
I took a small step closer. “Nope. It’s true. One study found that pigeons can rank images in order of how many objects were pictured. They can basically count.”
“One study?” she asked. “Without additional data to confirm the findings, I remain skeptical about the math skills of urban scavenger birds.”
“It doesn’t mean those initial results aren’t valid.”
She tilted her head and raised her eyebrows. “It means for those birds it was valid. But did they have a representative sample? Or did the researcher study his or her own birds and deem that adequate to draw conclusions?”
I knew she was trying to poke at me about my research, but I didn’t care. I was slowly inching closer to her. Pretty soon I’d be close enough to—
“Hazel,” Elliott said behind me.
She stiffened, clutching her stack of papers to her chest.
“Hi, Corban,” he said, standing in the doorway. “Good to have you both back. How was the conference?”
Hazel’s eyes widened. “It was just a typical conference. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
He looked mildly confused and swung his gaze to me.
“Unfortunately I was a little under the weather and missed the first day.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“But Hazel was nice enough to check in on me and make sure I was okay.”
“Um, yes, I did do that.”
“Once I was feeling better, the rest