Office Hours (Office #24) - Thursday

[drywitmartini]

Hawkeye managed, at some point during the week, to procure a putter, several golf balls and one of those machines that returns the ball if you putt it at the right place

Comments

[justagalegirl]

Alysha avoided the golf ball that came rolling out of his office neatly as she appeared in the doorway bearing gifts.

"You said something about wanting pie?" she asked, looking a little bit pleased with herself.

[drywitmartini]

Hawkeye looked up from his next putt, straightened and leaned against the putter. "I did, and you listened," he sounded pleasantly surprised. "Maybe I should hold office hours more often, or at least on days after my radio show if it's going to lead this."

[justagalegirl]

"Or it means that this is an oddity and not a pattern," Alysha pointed out with a quick smile. "Guess you'd find out next week if you held office hours again."

[drywitmartini]

"For a chance at pie, I'd be here every day of the week." He threw out an arm to welcome her. "Come on in, make yourself at home." There was a desk, a chair, an empty bookcase and a plant that still had the price tag on it. "Are you the Alysha of Baking class fame or merely a humble listener?"

[justagalegirl]

"Alysha Gale," she agreed, coming in and setting the pie down on the desk. "And I'm not humble at all." She glanced around the office. "I'm enjoying your book collection. You really have some interesting editions."

[drywitmartini]

"My book collection is outdone only by how impressive my new office garden is. The books are all first or second editions, of course. Only the best." Somewhere deep down, he felt himself channeling Charles Emerson Winchester III. "You'll find everything from non-existent poetry to the very oldest absent classics."

Hawkeye leaned down to smell the pie.

[justagalegirl]

"I've always found the best classics to be the missing ones," Alysha commented, more than a little amused. She eyed the poor plant though, itching to remove that price tag and make it more at home. "It's strawberry rhubarb. If you don't like rhubarb, I'm afraid you'll have to suffer."

Really he should just be glad she was in a good mood when she'd made it. Rhubarb was tart enough without the added sourness of a Gale in a pissy mood.

[drywitmartini]

"I love rhubarb. Rhubarb first came to the United States through my home state of Maine. You can't go past good rhubarb. Putting it into pie form was pure genius, so I'll do no suffering of any pie-related kind. What about you? Is your illness-related suffering from last week out of the picture?"

[justagalegirl]

"But when did it first come to Canada?" she asked, unable to douse that particular bit of Canadian spirit. "Putting it in crisps isn't bad either. Or stewed rhubarb over pancakes is my cousin Charlie's favourite." Alysha smiled at him for the question. "Completely gone, thank you. Just a summer cold."

[drywitmartini]

"I can't help you with the Canadian trivia. My useless facts about rhubarb are limited to Maine's history only. I used to drive my co-workers nuts with Maine trivia. By the time we went our separate ways, they probably knew as much about Maine as I did, or close."

[justagalegirl]

"Good thing you went your separate ways then. You would've started repeating yourself, and they'd've noticed," she teased.

[drywitmartini]

"Only if I didn't give them enough to drink, and that never happened!"

[justagalegirl]

"Are your facts about Maine as accurate when you're drunk?" she asked.

Totally legitimate question, really.

[drywitmartini]

"Even more accurate than when I'm sober," he assured her. "In fact, almost everything I do is better with liquor. Nothing like a dry martini to lubricate the senses and mind."