JACK

It was 3:15pm. Jack hated 3:15pm. What made it even worse was it was a Wednesday at 3:15pm. Hump day. Jack straightened his back and shuffled left to right in his stiff corporate office chair, supposedly ergonomically setup so that his back wouldn’t get sore. Well no success there he thought, cursing the HR department of Hill Industries. 3:15 in the afternoon was the worse time in a work day, Jack had decided. It was just far enough past lunch to have had him sitting at his desk for a while but it was still a long way away from knockoff time at 5. Being 3:15 on a Wednesday was even worse. It was only the middle of the week and the weekend was still a dream, a hope that lay at the end of the working week.

Not that Jack would be doing much on the weekend. He had no dates lined up and was not going to use Tinder again. He had tried that a few weeks ago at the urging of his mates and had ended up meeting a very pretty girl who had the most narcissistic personality he had ever met and insisted on taking selfies every five minutes, or photos of the food or photos of the drinks or photos of anything she possibly could. Jack liked finding out about women on dates, what they were interested in but he had found out more about this woman on one date than he would have liked to find out if they had been married for five years. Not that she wanted another date anyway. She had complained that he had talked to much on the date which surprised him as he thought he could count the amount of words he spoke on both hands. She said he was boring, no wait, she had dropped a finger in front of him and told him, ‘you’re basic’, whatever the hell that meant. So no more Tinder for him.

Blind dates hadn’t worked either. His Aunt had set him up with a date a month ago. It was the daughter of a woman she played tennis with. Well she said she played tennis with her but Jack knew they just hung around the tennis courts, drinking and looking at the younger men who actually were playing tennis. Despite knowing this, he had high hopes for the date and she had seemed wonderful at first. Until she started talking about her cats. Cats, plural. She had nine cats. That wasn’t a good start as Jack was scared of cats. He had been at a friend’s house when he was young and fallen asleep. A cat had decided his chest was a good place for it to sleep and drifted off. He had woken up to see the stretched anus of a cat, inches from his face and it had freaked him out. He hadn’t liked being around cats ever since. So this woman and her nine cats could have been a problem. Jack was willing to face this for the right woman. This wasn’t the right woman. She had hundreds of photos of cats on her phone. And videos. A lot of videos including one of a grey cat licking its butt to clean itself. Jacks nemesis, the cat anus, was all too present in that video. He had decided to still give her a chance until she talked about wanting to get married the following year, have three kids and move to the country. He wasn’t ready to map out the rest of his life during the first date.

Well, maybe if it was with Jill. Jill worked in marketing. Jack always thought there had to be some sort of hiring requirement for marketing as most of the women who worked there were in their twenties and were drop dead gorgeous. Of course, he never mentioned that thought to anyone in case he was called sexist or brought up on some sort of sexual harassment case and fired. Jill had started about six months ago and yes; she was gorgeous like all the others but there was something different about her. Her smile was a little crooked but not in a bad way, in an endearing way. Her long brown hair was always up in a high ponytail and she dressed in confident, appropriate work clothes. Nothing too slutty like some of the other girls and not restrained like a librarian. Just perfect. He had thought about asking her out a number of times but knew that a nearly thirty-year-old, slightly overweight bearded man was way out of his league with a marketing girl.

He ran his hand through his short light brown hair and stretched his back again. Damn this chair was going to kill him. On the plus side, he had just bought a box set of the last season of Doctor Who at lunch so he had something to do when he got back to his one-bedroom apartment that night. Another reason he could never get a marketing girl. There was no way, any of those girls were closet geeks. Jill would be refined and fun, out partying with her friends and talking about some soppy TV show about gossip or pretty liars. He didn’t have a chance.

He reached over and opened his water bottle and gulped down the last drops. Well, at least now he had an excuse to get out of his chair.  

 

JILL

It was 3:15pm. Jill hated 3:15pm. It was even 3:15 on a Wednesday so that meant Laura would want to get the girls together and go to the coffee shop and discuss whatever might happen on that stupid hospital drama that would air on television that night. She didn’t watch the show but she had learned to nod along and look interested in whatever Laura and the others would talk about. It was either talk about the TV show or which guy in sales or management one of them was sleeping with this week. Jill loved her job but the stereotypes she encountered in marketing killed her.

It was part of the reason she had left her last job, that and the sleazy CEO who kept hovering round her desk saying she looked stressed and needed a massage. She was only stressed because he was hovering behind her offering her massages. Plus, he kept calling her Jillian. Her name was not Jillian. Jill was short for Jill, nothing more. So she had quit and had been lucky to find a job at Hill Industries within two weeks. If she kept saving up, she would be able to move out of home and find her own apartment soon.

She was twenty-two next week and it needed to happen soon. Not only because she wanted to but because it would get her mother off her back about finding a man and settling down. As if she needed a man to be happy. She wouldn’t say no if the right guy came along, but she didn’t need a man. She had a few close friends with which satisfied the social requirement and a few battery operated devices that satisfied in other ways. Plus, she had her television shows she liked. Game of Thrones and Doctor Who were high on her list. She did try and keep her geek side hidden though.

She had been on a few dates. She had tried Tinder a few weeks before and had swiped on a guy who liked hiking and martial arts. He sounded interesting but she found him to be the most narcissistic man she had ever met. He had short brown hair that he had obviously spent hours styling and wore a shirt that was two sizes too small so that his muscles would show. He kept talking about his gym workouts, his time at the skate park or about when Nine Inch Nails would tour again. He also kept talking about his ‘bro’s’ and how great they were. She thought he may have been a closet gay but the date ended before I could work that out.

Her uncle hat set her up on a blind date a month ago and that hadn’t worked out either. It was the son of someone he golfed with. Jill wasn’t keen on going but thought she may as well have a night out. She shouldn’t have bothered. The guy had creepy and weird down pat. When they first met he hadn’t been shy about looking at her boobs. Not that there was a lot to look at but she didn’t appreciate that being the first thing he paid attention to. At dinner, he hadn’t sat opposite to her. He moved his chair around so he was sitting next to her. He even tried to feed her from his fork. She had tried to tell him she was allergic to mushrooms but he kept insisting that the mushroom risotto he was eating would ‘change her life’. That was after he had taken a photo of it for his Instagram. If there was one thing Jill hated was people taking photos of their food for social media. 

Men were just another hassle in her life and she was focused on her career. Although, she thought, looking up and across the office. If Jack asked her out she wouldn’t say no. She had been captivated the first time they had met at the water cooler in her first week. They had both tried to fill up their bottles at the same time and when he looked up to apologise, he just stopped and stared. Not in a bad way, just lost for words as though he had seen the best thing his eyes had ever seen. It was only her though. She knew she wasn’t special but that one moment made her think she could be. He did eventually apologise and let her fill her bottle first. He had welcomed her to the company and even offered to show her the good places for lunch. She never had the chance though as the girls took her to lunch that day, and the next and Jack hadn’t come and asked her again.

Thinking about that day, Jill realised she had finished her water and went to fill up her mug again.

 

 

WATER COOLER

It was 3:15pm. Jack and Jill both were heading to the water cooler but neither realised the other was heading that way. Jack was busy looking at his mobile phone and Jill was looking over her shoulder to make sure she could avoid coffee with the girls. Neither noticed each other and they collided right at the destination. Jack fell straight onto his ass and after stepping back twice, Jill fell as well. They looked up and saw each other and laughed at the coincidence, meeting again like they had six months ago. Jack stared again and Jill smiled.

‘Hi,’ she said.

 

THE END

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