Chapter 2
Twenty minutes later, eight people were sitting on the floor around the candle in the board room which was sitting in the middle of the circle of people. The candle let out a light glow that allowed only a small amount of light into the room. Four other workers had joined their company ten minutes ago. There was; Helen the obnoxious and stuck up twenty two year old receptionist, thirty two year old Nigel the tediously boring lab technician, Connor who was the shy and quiet cleaner and a 23 year old work experience student Sophie. Silence had descended upon the room and there was an air of awkwardness. Most of the people there were unfamiliar with each other and had nothing to discuss except work.
Harry and Nikki were sitting opposite each other with Leo on Harry's right hand side. Leo struck up a feeble chat with Nigel but the conversation abruptly ended a minute later.
Five minutes later, Charlie spoke animatedly, "I know what we can do. I have got the spin the bottle game sitting at my desk. I'll go get it and we can all play!"
Harry said, "But Charlie…you don't have a desk?"
"I know that, Harry," Charlie replied, "but I soon will have." She gave Leo a smug look that went unnoticed by the rest.
Leo understood perfectly. Charlie clearly had a plan that she was going to put into action. Charlie skipped out of the room and came back a minute later.
She then started to set up the game with the help of Helen who was excited as she had had a crush on Harry for a while now and was hoping he would ask her out. Harry was oblivious to Helen's obvious attraction, but Nikki wasn't and was glaring balefully at Helen who avoided Nikki's gaze.
"Okay…the rules of the game are; we each take it in turn to spin the bottle and whoever the bottle ends up pointing at, the spinner has to kiss. Got it?" Charlie explained.
"Yes," was the chorused answer.
"Oh…just to point out…no boy on boy or girl on girl action. Agreed?" Charlie stated.
The answer this time was a resounding yes.
Leo was feeling awkward. He really did not want to be playing this game. He considered himself, at 55 to be past these childish games. I mean, he was a professor for goodness sake! He should put a stop to this madness! But…he couldn't so sat in silence.
Charlie reached out and spun the bottle. It turned slowly in its holder and the pointer slowly stopped at Leo. Charlie grinned, "You're up professor." Leo was embarrassed and scared and could feel Nikki and Harry's silent laughter without even hearing it.
He got up and met Charlie in the centre and kissed her softly on the cheek.
"Twit Twit Twoo!" Harry wolf whistled and Nikki burst out laughing at the expression on Leo's face.
"Shut up Harry," Nikki and Leo said together loudly.
Many more spins of the bottle followed. Poor Nigel was forced to kiss Helen six times in total. Charlie was up a few times to kissing Leo again, Harry and Nigel too. Harry also kissed Sophie and Helen (to her obvious delight.).
Each time that Harry got up to kiss another girl, Nikki watched on with a dark expression on her face. The bottle had yet to land on her for which she was glad. She didn't understand why she felt so angry when she looked at Harry kiss Sophie, Helen and Charlie. Was it jealousy? No, it couldn't be. Could it? Her body was a whirlwind of emotions as it came to her turn to spin the bottle.
Leo and Charlie were on tenterhooks as Nikki slowly reached out and spun the bottle. Harry was silently praying that the bottle would land on him and then he could…no he could not think of Nikki as anything other than a friend. She did not like him that way he reminded himself. Everyone held their breath as the bottle slowly turned. An age seemed to pass before the bottle slowed down and stopped.
"Your up" Nikki said to Harry staring right into his eyes.