Thursday morning, after most of the twits have left the building.

[billboyd]

Bill is on his knees next to the ficus (pushing little mottled brown and white sticks of plant food into the damp soil, grumbling under his breath at the damage inflicted when he notices a spot where all the leaves have been stripped away from whippy, twig-like stems, and damn that stupid blonde twat, now he has a piebald ficus, and right when the

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[billboyd]

Way to be obviously entranced with her mouth, Boyd, he thinks drily, and shakes his head slightly, thinking about the way Keira would roll her eyes at him if she were privy to this spectactular little display of intelligence.

"He's with someone," Bill says, "so it's likely to be a bit. I'll call back and tell him you're here though, if you'd like to sit down." He has to bite his tongue to avoid offering to get her a cup of coffee or something else to drink, and he's not sure if he's exasperated with himself or amused.

Scarlett (whose lips, Bill notes, are pink, not scarlet at all, glossed but not tarted up to the extreme) tilts her head at him slightly, her pretty lips curling slightly into a pout. Oh, now I've done it, he thinks, and he's definitely amused now. She's on to me.

"Sit down, love," he says, smiling and endeavoring to keep his eyes off of her mouth.

He turns away without waiting to see if she actually does and picks up the phone, dialing the interview room from memory. When it's picked up -- presumably by Johnny -- Bill can hear bits of an in-progress discussion ("...it's always more in your mind than in your body, man, it's all a matter of relaxing and accepting...") and then it stops mid-sentence, and Johnny is saying, "Yeah, man?" into the mouthpiece.

"We've got a late-comer," Bill says. "I wouldn't have bothered you, but she's... someone you might want to see." Or her mouth is, anyway, but he decides not to say that.

"Okay," Johnny says, sounding brightly cheerful. "Gimme a few minutes, tell her I'll be out in a few." He's talking to Elijah (Bill guesses) again before he even hangs up the receiver.

Bill wonders how he's going to get any work done with her mouth in his lobby.

[girlydrink]

Billy's smile at her little pouting trick is unexpectedly warm, if a little jaded around the edges. Scarlett finds the combination strangely appealing and so doesn't bridle at being told to sit down and wait quietly like a good girl, which she may very well have done under other circumstances.

Leaving the sign up sheet on the counter as Billy picks up the phone and begins dialing, Scarlett meanders over to the chair closest to the desk and sits, crossing her legs. The move causes the already obscenely short skirt of her dress to inch a few inches higher along the tanned length of her thighs. Not bothering to tug the hem back into place, she drags her bag onto her lap and begins rooting around in its depths. She knows...somewhere in here...

"Mmm," she murmurs, pleased, as her fingers brush against the slick, rumpled packaging of the half-bag of Skittles she had known she'd left there the day before. From the corner of her eye, she sees Bill hang up the phone. He makes no move to strike up any further conversation with her, instead turning his attention to something on his desk, which suits Scarlett just fine. She's never had very much patience for small talk.

Pouring a couple of the brightly coloured candies into the cupped palm of her hand, Scarlett settles back into her chair. One by one, she pops the Skittles into her mouth, closing her eyes and letting out a quiet, happy hum as she rolls each over her tongue, sucking the candy shell away before crushing the chewy insides between her teeth.