Introducing Cecilia Bergman
RP Universe: Nothing Better Universe (a DC AU)
Characters: Jason Todd (coffeebased) and Cecilia Bergman (slpwlkngdreamer)
Timeline Notes: Occurs roughly four years after Bruce Wayne's death, two years after Damian and Mariel's arrival and about a year before Tim gives up being part-time Batman to be Oracle/Seer. (timeline headache) EDIT: see timeline!
Jay and Cecilia, take one
If there was one thing Cecilia absolutely did not miss about being in the force, it was the fact that she never had to bother with heels.
Sure, she'd worn them occasionally, when the bigwigs were showing up or for court dates, but she'd never had to wear them every godforsaken hour of the day. Or if she'd had to, she'd been able to discreetly slip them off, give her toes some breathing room.
But not here, not in this office. So she simply sighed, and curled her toes against the leather of her shoes, and tried to ignore the pinch by focusing on her work. There were meetings to organize, people who were dropping by, and she needed to get her boss's schedule ironed out.
:::
Jay knew that he was early. But it wasn't as though he had anything better to do with his time. Tim was being a jackass, scheduling him at 2 in the afternoon. The kids were still at school, so it wasn't as though he could just stay in the cave and train himself or anything.
He could've been asleep. Jay pushed the door open with more force than necessary, making a beeline towards Tim's office. If he knew the squirt, he'd have some kind of gaming console in there somewhere.
Jason spared a glance for the secretary, noticing the way the utterly miserable look on her face. Trust Tim to pick the boring ones. "Hey, Friday, tell my baby bro that I'm crashing his office til he gets back."
:::
Cecilia raised an eyebrow, and got to her feet, ignoring the way her toes screamed at her to sit back down, bitch. "I'm sorry, but Mr. Wayne wasn't expecting any visitors at this hour."
In the back of her head, though, her cop instincts kicked in, and kicked in hard. This man had the same features as her boss, to be sure, but she wasn't aware that Mr. Wayne had any brothers. Unless she had missed that part in her research, of course.
:::
He tried very hard not to laugh. Jason pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head. "Um, okay. Guess you're new. I'm Jason. Jason..." he paused helpfully then frowned when she didn't finish his sentence.
"Wayne. Jason Wayne." He really didn't like keying the girl up too much, but hey, it was part of his cover to be a moron. "Of the, I own this building Waynes?"
:::
Oh. She'd definitely missed that part in her researc then. It was convincing, true, and his body language indicated he wasn't lying he said he was one of the Waynes, but she didn't think her boss would like it if he just came in.
She eased up a little, and offered a sweeter smile. "I'm sorry, but I don't think I can let you in. Maybe later, when your brother comes back. But if you don't mind, you can wait here for now." She gestured to the spacious waiting area, which featured a coffee machine and a sideboard of snacks and pastries for those with a case of the nibbles.
:::
"Come on, sweetheart, little Timmy won't mind a bit." Won't mind that much, he amended in his head. Jason really didn't have a problem with waiting. There was a TV, anyway. "I really haven't had any sleep yet, just got off my yacht for this boring old meeting." He hazarded a puppy dog look.
Most women liked it.
:::
Cecilia raised an eyebrow. If there was anything she didn't like, it was being treated as if she was some dumb blonde who didn't know any better - which was funny, since she was a brunette. And the way this...Jason...spoke to her and looked at her, it was as if he expected her to keel over in a lovesick swoon.
Well. He had another thing coming.
She increased the saccharine content of her smile, and said, "If that's how you feel, I'm sure you can find your way back to your yacht, take a nap, and come back at two o'clock, when Mr. Wayne has come back."
:::
Jason laughed, "Oh February, I think I like you most of all." He gave her a clumsy salute and dutifully sat in the corner closest to her desk, trying to give the impression of cheerful tipsiness.
"What time is it in the real world, anyway?"
:::
"Twelve thirty," she replied. "And my name is not February, or Friday. It's Cecilia."
:::
"Alright, Cecilia," Jason said, deliberately drawing out her name. 1230. Jesus, he really had to go get a life. Or actually become a playboy or something. There had to be a better way to spend the morning hours.
"Mind being a dear and getting me a bottled water and a croissant?" He sucked in his cheeks, trying to look pathetic. "I've got a hangover and Tim's First Aid Kit is in his office." He didn't think that the kid would mind him razzing his secretary. Not mind enough to kill him anyway.
:::
Cecilia resisted the urge to snap, "Get it yourself, you spoiled SOB." This was her boss's brother; she couldn't very well just do what she would have liked to do and cuss him out for ordering her around when he had no right. People could give her commands, for sure, but only if they had the right rank and had earned her respect. Her former boss at the police department was one, and her new boss was another.
But Spoiled Rich Boy here was not one of them.
Still, she smiled, but this time made it as cold and as thin as ice. "I'm still not letting you into his office."
:::
Yikes. Where did Tim find these people? Granted, Jason wasn't at his most respectable. "Hey, I'm sitting all the way over here." He raised his hands in mock surrender. "I'm not even touching the door."
He looked her over more carefully. There was no reason for any of the secretaries at Wayne to be this on guard. Jason took in the set of her shoulders and the way she seemed to loom, petitely, behind her very modern desk.
She looked like a cop.
:::
He was right, she thought. He was sitting all the way over there, and it wasn't as if he was going to be moving anytime soon. And then she realized she'd been acting more like a detective trying to keep a suspect in detention - all because he's rubbed her the wrong way.
Ceci, she thought, you're not a cop anymore.
She sighed, letting the tension seep out of her shoulders. "I'm sorry, sir," she murmured, and offered him another smile - a genuine one, this time. "I'll get you the croissant. Would you rather have coffee with that? It might help with the hangover."
:::
Yeah, definitely a cop. "I'm okay with water. Gotta hydrate." Jason watched her cross the room to the chiller, appreciating the view. Now the question was, why did Tim have ex-police doing his typing.
"Last time I was here, secretary was blond. Hot too."
:::
Some deeply feminine voice long-buried in the back of her head bristled at the comment, and wondered "Why? Aren't I hot, too? Or is it just because I'm a brunette?" But she kept her inner voice down, gave no indication of it, and she merely shrugged as she came over to him, accompanying the croissant with a packet of butter and strawberry jam.
"I'm not entirely sure what happened," she replied, bending at the knees as she put the plate of pastry, a butter knife, and a bottle of water on the low coffeetable in front of him. "I found out there was an opening, so I took it. It was certainly much better than any of the other options out there."
And much cushier than her previous job, that she knew for sure.
:::
"Yeah, we treat you right at Wayne." Jason tried very hard not to leer when she bent over to put the plate down in front of him.
His stomach managed a half-interested growl when the smell of the freshly warmed bread hit him. "I'll give you this though, Grant couldn't heat up a pastry to save his life." Jay twisted the lid off the bottle, cracking the protective seal.
:::
A small, involuntary smile curled on Cecilia's mouth at the compliment. "Glad my long years of heating up doughnuts didn't go to waste," she said, the tone wry and a bit more relaxed.
Maybe this guy wasn't as bad as she thought. Might be just the hangover that made him intolerable to her when he first came in.
:::
Jay noted that she was beginning to relax around him. "Man, what I wouldn't give for a jelly doughnut." He gave her a sad, put-upon smile. "But I've really got to watch my carbs," He cut himself a piece of the bread, appreciating the fact that it was crumbling impossibly around his cutlery.
"Have you had any lunch, Cecilia?"
:::
"I have, thank you," she replied - which was truth enough. She'd already eaten her lunch: a sandwich she made from whole-grain bread and the best cold cuts and cheese she could afford - which was a whole lot more lately, given her new salary. And as it was a rather large, hearty sandwich, she really wasn't feeling too hungry.
But she smiled at his remark on jelly doughnuts, and added, "Been a while since I had a doughnut."
:::
Bingo. Jason swallowed. "I think I spy a really handsome one right over there." He hesitated, not wanting to lay it on too thick. "I'd love the company."
He wasn't lying. It would be damn awkward to just sit there and eat, with nothing but Cecilia to stare at. He'd probably try to make conversation over the palatial distance between them and end up annoying her.
And since you could catch more flies with honey... "I mean, you don't have to." He willed his eyes to look bluer. That usually worked.
tag
:::
For a brief moment, Cecilia's inner instincts against all things bad and wrong went up, raising red flags and sounding klaxons. Was it right to accept his invitation? She was just a secretary after all, and this was her boss's brother. Would it be all right to accept?
But she'd been raised to a strict code of courtesy by her parents: her mother was Latina, and insisted that it was the height of rudeness to force people to eat all by themselves.
And besides, it was just a doughnut, not a three-course dinner or something.
"Anything you like in particular?" she asked, moving to get a plate and selecting a chocolate-frosted one for herself.
:::
Jason polished off the last of his croissant quickly to make room for the doughnut. "Jelly please." He really could just wait until he saw Tim and just ask him about the girl. Then again, what else was he going to do with his time?
:::
She couldn't help but laugh as she carefully picked up a jelly doughnut, grabbed a handful of paper napkins for the inevitable mess, and put the plate between the two of them, sitting a respectable distance away from him on the sofa. "You remind me of my old partner, before I came here. Loved jelly doughnuts too."
:::
Partner. So the police background wasn't a secret. "It's okay, I'm totally pro-gay marriage." Jason bit into his doughnut and hummed happily as the jelly burst into his mouth.
:::
Cecilia blinked in confusion. "I'm...not entirely sure what you mean," she said, slowly, taking a careful bite from her own doughnut, the chocolate smooth on her tongue.
:::
"Your partner, right?" Jason rolled his neck, trying to smooth a kink out from last night's patrol.
:::
She rolled her eyes. "Kurt was my partner. I was a cop - detective, really. Before I landed this gig." She gestured to the room around them.
:::
"A cop?" Jason snorted into his bottled water. "No offense, Cecilia, and I'd hate to wreck what I feel like is a lot of progress in our relationship, "But you don't look like a cop." There. Bait.
:::
She shrugged. She'd heard that line before, both from perps and from her own colleagues. "I've heard that line before. I know, I don't. But I am - was." And a damn good one, she didn't want to say - if not for the itty-bitty flaw of her temper.
:::
Well, this couldn't be an accident. Tim had probably handpicked her himself. "Hey, no one ever thinks I've got a degree in Business Management. I can sympathize."
"Tim's lucky you're his P.A. then. He used to complain that he changed secretaries like he changed shirts." He finished off his water. "None of them really kept up with his filing system.
:::
She laughed. "The filing system here isn't all that hard, once I learned the intricacies. The one at the department was worse." She gave him a look. "Business Management, huh? You do have a bit of the look: can't have that much money to spend unless you're either a trust fund baby or are managing businesses of your own, or for someone else."
:::
"I'm more of the latter. I handle the real estate portion of Wayne Industries." Jay leaned back into the plush couch. "Timmy-Tim-Tim's more of the public face of the company." He grinned at her from beneath his bangs,
"I'm more like our dad, really."
:::
"Uh huh. Billionaire playboy, just like Bruce Wayne," she said, smiling wryly.
:::
Jason's smile dimmed a few watts despite himself. "Yeah. Although Wayne Industries went past billions over ten years ago." He made a valiant attempt at a grin, "Old Brucie was very modest."
Sometimes, remembering Bruce was dead still felt like a punch to the gut. It'd been four years, and it still got him sometimes.
"Do you disapprove of billionaire playboys, Officer Cecilia?"
:::
She leaned back, eyeing him speculatively. Well now, that was rather sweet of him, wasn't it, calling her "officer?"
"I'm not entirely sure," she replied. "Never really been anywhere near their sort. As long as they pay their taxes and they're clean about where they got their money, as well as clean about their personal habits, can't say I disapprove of them."
She waved a hand airily. "Too high up there for me to be bothered by them. Interesting to watch, but not touch."
:::
Speaking of approval, it was difficult to not like her. "I'm a different variety altogether. Wouldn't mind being touched." He smirked at her. "Wouldn't mind it at all."
And he even meant it.
:::
"And that," she stated, "is where I draw the line." She smiled, but it was the sort she used to remind her old friends at her old job about the professional lines that stood between them.
"I know it when a guy hits on me, and I know that there are just some kinds of guys I can't let hit on me. And besides, this is the first time I've met you. I don't know you too well."
:::
Jason pouted, manfully. "Hey, I'm not that kind of girl either." He looked over her shoulder at the large modern art piece Tim used as a wall clock. "Man, time does fly."
:::
Cecilia followed his gaze, and nodded. "Right. He should be here in a few minutes." She picked up the used china and cutlery, setting them aside in a bin discreetly placed close to the sideboard.
:::
Jason's eyes followed her across the room, studying the mincing steps she took in her glossy pumps. "It's been nice talking, though."
:::
She smiled at him as she returned to her seat behind the desk. "That it has," she said, and she knew she wouldn't mind talking to him again.
But it was back to work for her, and she knew that in a while, her boss would walk in, and he and his brother would disappear into his office for a chat. And all would be normal again - sort of.
:::
Jay smiled at her one last time before picking up a magazine.
He was going to send her some decent shoes. Something that felt like a sneaker but looked good enough to suit her.
Maybe he could even have them custom made. Something with a steel heel and lots of support.
Characters: Jason Todd (coffeebased) and Cecilia Bergman (slpwlkngdreamer)
Timeline Notes: Occurs roughly four years after Bruce Wayne's death, two years after Damian and Mariel's arrival and about a year before Tim gives up being part-time Batman to be Oracle/Seer. (timeline headache) EDIT: see timeline!
Jay and Cecilia, take one
If there was one thing Cecilia absolutely did not miss about being in the force, it was the fact that she never had to bother with heels.
Sure, she'd worn them occasionally, when the bigwigs were showing up or for court dates, but she'd never had to wear them every godforsaken hour of the day. Or if she'd had to, she'd been able to discreetly slip them off, give her toes some breathing room.
But not here, not in this office. So she simply sighed, and curled her toes against the leather of her shoes, and tried to ignore the pinch by focusing on her work. There were meetings to organize, people who were dropping by, and she needed to get her boss's schedule ironed out.
:::
Jay knew that he was early. But it wasn't as though he had anything better to do with his time. Tim was being a jackass, scheduling him at 2 in the afternoon. The kids were still at school, so it wasn't as though he could just stay in the cave and train himself or anything.
He could've been asleep. Jay pushed the door open with more force than necessary, making a beeline towards Tim's office. If he knew the squirt, he'd have some kind of gaming console in there somewhere.
Jason spared a glance for the secretary, noticing the way the utterly miserable look on her face. Trust Tim to pick the boring ones. "Hey, Friday, tell my baby bro that I'm crashing his office til he gets back."
:::
Cecilia raised an eyebrow, and got to her feet, ignoring the way her toes screamed at her to sit back down, bitch. "I'm sorry, but Mr. Wayne wasn't expecting any visitors at this hour."
In the back of her head, though, her cop instincts kicked in, and kicked in hard. This man had the same features as her boss, to be sure, but she wasn't aware that Mr. Wayne had any brothers. Unless she had missed that part in her research, of course.
:::
He tried very hard not to laugh. Jason pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head. "Um, okay. Guess you're new. I'm Jason. Jason..." he paused helpfully then frowned when she didn't finish his sentence.
"Wayne. Jason Wayne." He really didn't like keying the girl up too much, but hey, it was part of his cover to be a moron. "Of the, I own this building Waynes?"
:::
Oh. She'd definitely missed that part in her researc then. It was convincing, true, and his body language indicated he wasn't lying he said he was one of the Waynes, but she didn't think her boss would like it if he just came in.
She eased up a little, and offered a sweeter smile. "I'm sorry, but I don't think I can let you in. Maybe later, when your brother comes back. But if you don't mind, you can wait here for now." She gestured to the spacious waiting area, which featured a coffee machine and a sideboard of snacks and pastries for those with a case of the nibbles.
:::
"Come on, sweetheart, little Timmy won't mind a bit." Won't mind that much, he amended in his head. Jason really didn't have a problem with waiting. There was a TV, anyway. "I really haven't had any sleep yet, just got off my yacht for this boring old meeting." He hazarded a puppy dog look.
Most women liked it.
:::
Cecilia raised an eyebrow. If there was anything she didn't like, it was being treated as if she was some dumb blonde who didn't know any better - which was funny, since she was a brunette. And the way this...Jason...spoke to her and looked at her, it was as if he expected her to keel over in a lovesick swoon.
Well. He had another thing coming.
She increased the saccharine content of her smile, and said, "If that's how you feel, I'm sure you can find your way back to your yacht, take a nap, and come back at two o'clock, when Mr. Wayne has come back."
:::
Jason laughed, "Oh February, I think I like you most of all." He gave her a clumsy salute and dutifully sat in the corner closest to her desk, trying to give the impression of cheerful tipsiness.
"What time is it in the real world, anyway?"
:::
"Twelve thirty," she replied. "And my name is not February, or Friday. It's Cecilia."
:::
"Alright, Cecilia," Jason said, deliberately drawing out her name. 1230. Jesus, he really had to go get a life. Or actually become a playboy or something. There had to be a better way to spend the morning hours.
"Mind being a dear and getting me a bottled water and a croissant?" He sucked in his cheeks, trying to look pathetic. "I've got a hangover and Tim's First Aid Kit is in his office." He didn't think that the kid would mind him razzing his secretary. Not mind enough to kill him anyway.
:::
Cecilia resisted the urge to snap, "Get it yourself, you spoiled SOB." This was her boss's brother; she couldn't very well just do what she would have liked to do and cuss him out for ordering her around when he had no right. People could give her commands, for sure, but only if they had the right rank and had earned her respect. Her former boss at the police department was one, and her new boss was another.
But Spoiled Rich Boy here was not one of them.
Still, she smiled, but this time made it as cold and as thin as ice. "I'm still not letting you into his office."
:::
Yikes. Where did Tim find these people? Granted, Jason wasn't at his most respectable. "Hey, I'm sitting all the way over here." He raised his hands in mock surrender. "I'm not even touching the door."
He looked her over more carefully. There was no reason for any of the secretaries at Wayne to be this on guard. Jason took in the set of her shoulders and the way she seemed to loom, petitely, behind her very modern desk.
She looked like a cop.
:::
He was right, she thought. He was sitting all the way over there, and it wasn't as if he was going to be moving anytime soon. And then she realized she'd been acting more like a detective trying to keep a suspect in detention - all because he's rubbed her the wrong way.
Ceci, she thought, you're not a cop anymore.
She sighed, letting the tension seep out of her shoulders. "I'm sorry, sir," she murmured, and offered him another smile - a genuine one, this time. "I'll get you the croissant. Would you rather have coffee with that? It might help with the hangover."
:::
Yeah, definitely a cop. "I'm okay with water. Gotta hydrate." Jason watched her cross the room to the chiller, appreciating the view. Now the question was, why did Tim have ex-police doing his typing.
"Last time I was here, secretary was blond. Hot too."
:::
Some deeply feminine voice long-buried in the back of her head bristled at the comment, and wondered "Why? Aren't I hot, too? Or is it just because I'm a brunette?" But she kept her inner voice down, gave no indication of it, and she merely shrugged as she came over to him, accompanying the croissant with a packet of butter and strawberry jam.
"I'm not entirely sure what happened," she replied, bending at the knees as she put the plate of pastry, a butter knife, and a bottle of water on the low coffeetable in front of him. "I found out there was an opening, so I took it. It was certainly much better than any of the other options out there."
And much cushier than her previous job, that she knew for sure.
:::
"Yeah, we treat you right at Wayne." Jason tried very hard not to leer when she bent over to put the plate down in front of him.
His stomach managed a half-interested growl when the smell of the freshly warmed bread hit him. "I'll give you this though, Grant couldn't heat up a pastry to save his life." Jay twisted the lid off the bottle, cracking the protective seal.
:::
A small, involuntary smile curled on Cecilia's mouth at the compliment. "Glad my long years of heating up doughnuts didn't go to waste," she said, the tone wry and a bit more relaxed.
Maybe this guy wasn't as bad as she thought. Might be just the hangover that made him intolerable to her when he first came in.
:::
Jay noted that she was beginning to relax around him. "Man, what I wouldn't give for a jelly doughnut." He gave her a sad, put-upon smile. "But I've really got to watch my carbs," He cut himself a piece of the bread, appreciating the fact that it was crumbling impossibly around his cutlery.
"Have you had any lunch, Cecilia?"
:::
"I have, thank you," she replied - which was truth enough. She'd already eaten her lunch: a sandwich she made from whole-grain bread and the best cold cuts and cheese she could afford - which was a whole lot more lately, given her new salary. And as it was a rather large, hearty sandwich, she really wasn't feeling too hungry.
But she smiled at his remark on jelly doughnuts, and added, "Been a while since I had a doughnut."
:::
Bingo. Jason swallowed. "I think I spy a really handsome one right over there." He hesitated, not wanting to lay it on too thick. "I'd love the company."
He wasn't lying. It would be damn awkward to just sit there and eat, with nothing but Cecilia to stare at. He'd probably try to make conversation over the palatial distance between them and end up annoying her.
And since you could catch more flies with honey... "I mean, you don't have to." He willed his eyes to look bluer. That usually worked.
tag
:::
For a brief moment, Cecilia's inner instincts against all things bad and wrong went up, raising red flags and sounding klaxons. Was it right to accept his invitation? She was just a secretary after all, and this was her boss's brother. Would it be all right to accept?
But she'd been raised to a strict code of courtesy by her parents: her mother was Latina, and insisted that it was the height of rudeness to force people to eat all by themselves.
And besides, it was just a doughnut, not a three-course dinner or something.
"Anything you like in particular?" she asked, moving to get a plate and selecting a chocolate-frosted one for herself.
:::
Jason polished off the last of his croissant quickly to make room for the doughnut. "Jelly please." He really could just wait until he saw Tim and just ask him about the girl. Then again, what else was he going to do with his time?
:::
She couldn't help but laugh as she carefully picked up a jelly doughnut, grabbed a handful of paper napkins for the inevitable mess, and put the plate between the two of them, sitting a respectable distance away from him on the sofa. "You remind me of my old partner, before I came here. Loved jelly doughnuts too."
:::
Partner. So the police background wasn't a secret. "It's okay, I'm totally pro-gay marriage." Jason bit into his doughnut and hummed happily as the jelly burst into his mouth.
:::
Cecilia blinked in confusion. "I'm...not entirely sure what you mean," she said, slowly, taking a careful bite from her own doughnut, the chocolate smooth on her tongue.
:::
"Your partner, right?" Jason rolled his neck, trying to smooth a kink out from last night's patrol.
:::
She rolled her eyes. "Kurt was my partner. I was a cop - detective, really. Before I landed this gig." She gestured to the room around them.
:::
"A cop?" Jason snorted into his bottled water. "No offense, Cecilia, and I'd hate to wreck what I feel like is a lot of progress in our relationship, "But you don't look like a cop." There. Bait.
:::
She shrugged. She'd heard that line before, both from perps and from her own colleagues. "I've heard that line before. I know, I don't. But I am - was." And a damn good one, she didn't want to say - if not for the itty-bitty flaw of her temper.
:::
Well, this couldn't be an accident. Tim had probably handpicked her himself. "Hey, no one ever thinks I've got a degree in Business Management. I can sympathize."
"Tim's lucky you're his P.A. then. He used to complain that he changed secretaries like he changed shirts." He finished off his water. "None of them really kept up with his filing system.
:::
She laughed. "The filing system here isn't all that hard, once I learned the intricacies. The one at the department was worse." She gave him a look. "Business Management, huh? You do have a bit of the look: can't have that much money to spend unless you're either a trust fund baby or are managing businesses of your own, or for someone else."
:::
"I'm more of the latter. I handle the real estate portion of Wayne Industries." Jay leaned back into the plush couch. "Timmy-Tim-Tim's more of the public face of the company." He grinned at her from beneath his bangs,
"I'm more like our dad, really."
:::
"Uh huh. Billionaire playboy, just like Bruce Wayne," she said, smiling wryly.
:::
Jason's smile dimmed a few watts despite himself. "Yeah. Although Wayne Industries went past billions over ten years ago." He made a valiant attempt at a grin, "Old Brucie was very modest."
Sometimes, remembering Bruce was dead still felt like a punch to the gut. It'd been four years, and it still got him sometimes.
"Do you disapprove of billionaire playboys, Officer Cecilia?"
:::
She leaned back, eyeing him speculatively. Well now, that was rather sweet of him, wasn't it, calling her "officer?"
"I'm not entirely sure," she replied. "Never really been anywhere near their sort. As long as they pay their taxes and they're clean about where they got their money, as well as clean about their personal habits, can't say I disapprove of them."
She waved a hand airily. "Too high up there for me to be bothered by them. Interesting to watch, but not touch."
:::
Speaking of approval, it was difficult to not like her. "I'm a different variety altogether. Wouldn't mind being touched." He smirked at her. "Wouldn't mind it at all."
And he even meant it.
:::
"And that," she stated, "is where I draw the line." She smiled, but it was the sort she used to remind her old friends at her old job about the professional lines that stood between them.
"I know it when a guy hits on me, and I know that there are just some kinds of guys I can't let hit on me. And besides, this is the first time I've met you. I don't know you too well."
:::
Jason pouted, manfully. "Hey, I'm not that kind of girl either." He looked over her shoulder at the large modern art piece Tim used as a wall clock. "Man, time does fly."
:::
Cecilia followed his gaze, and nodded. "Right. He should be here in a few minutes." She picked up the used china and cutlery, setting them aside in a bin discreetly placed close to the sideboard.
:::
Jason's eyes followed her across the room, studying the mincing steps she took in her glossy pumps. "It's been nice talking, though."
:::
She smiled at him as she returned to her seat behind the desk. "That it has," she said, and she knew she wouldn't mind talking to him again.
But it was back to work for her, and she knew that in a while, her boss would walk in, and he and his brother would disappear into his office for a chat. And all would be normal again - sort of.
:::
Jay smiled at her one last time before picking up a magazine.
He was going to send her some decent shoes. Something that felt like a sneaker but looked good enough to suit her.
Maybe he could even have them custom made. Something with a steel heel and lots of support.