Thanks for reading!
- 7 -
Gill had a plan today.
He had strategically bought a newspaper outside of his apartment that morning, and he had carted it around with him all day. It was folded tight under his arm as he slipped past slower pedestrians, as he spun through the revolving doors of the office, and as he finally crammed into the elevator. Just for the sole purpose of hiding from her this afternoon.
He noisily held up the paper to his nose, engulfed in the strong scent of ink as he was shielded like he was in his own little room of tragedies and cars for sale. A semi-truck angrily held on its horn all of the way down the street, zipping past and rattling the newspaper in his hands. Undeterred, he gave it a flick to straighten it out and feigned interest in the mediocre columns.
Here he was all but locked away, and yet… he felt eyes on him. Puzzled by the sense, he went with his gut and peeked over the top corner of his paper that was comically raised to keep his peripheral blocked. Sure enough, brown eyes were staring back at him in surprise.
"Um! Sorry!" She squeaked in fear and embarrassment for getting caught peeping. She scratched behind her ear and clumsily looked down the street where the truck disappeared.
Gill folded the page over and saw she had been trying to get a glimpse of the classifieds on the back. He wordlessly pulled the last page with the job postings free and handed the noisy square over to her. "You can have it."
"Oh! Thank you!" She accepted it a bit too enthusiastically. She immediately got to work skimming the ads on her lap, pulling out a pen from her bag and circling in blue ones that sparked her interest.
Gill's curiosity was piqued, but he quickly went back to his stock exchange article.