"Getting to Know You"
Author's Note: Have you ever seen two people who might or might not be flirting? Sometimes, they might not even realize that they're doing it at all!
"Chapter 9: Cupcakes"
When Claire offered to pay Dr. Jaming thirty Gilda to fix her hair dryer, he almost felt bad about taking her up on it. If he hadn't needed the money, he might have refused payment altogether. It would be extremely easy to fix, and it probably wouldn't take him more than fifteen minutes. As he disassembled it at his work table, there was a knock at the door. "Come in, Meredith."
The door opened, and Meredith stepped in and shut it behind her. "How did you know it was me?"
"You're the only one who visits," he replied, carefully picking off the dust that had clogged the dryer and caused it to stop working as well as it should. "What have you been up to?"
"Cupcake."
Jaming raised an eyebrow and turned to give her an odd look, his monocle whirring as it automatically adjusted to focus on her. "What did you just call me?"
Meredith snickered, shaking her head. "No, no...I brought you a cupcake. Granny Rosa is handing them out at the docks. I thought I'd grab you one before they were all gone."
Jaming looked at what she held out for him to take, and laughed a bit nervously. It was a vanilla cupcake with white buttercream frosting. She held one in her other hand, and he guessed that the second one was for her. "Oh! Thank you, I appreciate it. You can just, um...set it down anywhere, and I'll eat it later."
'An actual cupcake. That makes a little more sense!'
Meredith put the cupcake down at the other end of the table, and leaned over to peer at the mangle that lay before him. "So, what did the hair dryer do to annoy you?"
He grinned up at her and pointed to his head. "Have you seen my hair? It's a travesty!" He chuckled, turning back to his work and trying not to notice how closely she was standing. "No, it's Claire's. She said it won't blow out hot air anymore. With this much dust contamination, it's no surprise."
"Can you fix it?" Meredith asked him, straightening up again, and failing to notice that he looked both relieved and disappointed.
"Hah! 'Can I fix it', she says," he chortled as he began to reassemble it. "Nothing simpler!"
"Pff, no conceit in you, is there?" she snorted.
"I'm not conceited," he protested good-naturedly, reaching for the screwdriver. His hand settled on top of hers, and he jumped a bit as he saw that she had grabbed it before he could. He let go of her hand as if it had burned him. "Uh..."
"Heh, sorry. I was just going to hand it to you," She held it out, her cheeks reddening as she avoided his gaze.
Jaming felt his own cheeks heating up, and he was grateful that she was looking away. He cleared his throat and accepted the screwdriver, taking it from her without touching her. "Thank you."
Meredith moved off and sat down on one of the wooden stools to eat her cupcake. "Anyway...I was wondering if I could buy some hunks of copper from you. No one else seems to have them."
Glad for the change of subject, Jaming relaxed a little and tightened the screws that held the two halves of the hair dryer's plastic exterior together. "How many do you need?"
"Three. I want to turn them into a spool of wire for my bracelets."
"Oh, well, I've got loads of copper wire already. In that cabinet over there. You can just take what you need." He gathered up the dust bunnies he had extracted from the hair dryer's fan and dropped them into his waste basket.
"Oh, thanks!" She got up to look. "What do I owe you?"
"Nothing," He plugged in the dryer and tested it, then nodded as it immediately sent out a jet of hot air.
"No, I can't just take it for nothing!" she protested, then added, "But I can't seem to find it."
Jaming came over to help her look just as she turned to face him, and when he moved to step around her she moved to get out of his way. Unfortunately, she moved in the wrong direction, and ended up blocking him anyway. They moved the other way, then back, in a sort of impromptu dance before they were both laughing awkwardly.
"You stay put; I'll move," Meredith told him.
"Roger!" He saluted as she moved to stand behind him, and when she could no longer see his face he grimaced.
'Who the flipping hell says 'Roger' these days? Ugh...'
"Thank you for the dance," she chuckled, and out of sight from him she winced. 'Real smooth, Meredith...Ugh.'
"Mm-hmm," he muttered before scratching his head. "Huh...You know what? You're right, it isn't in here. I remember, I recatalogued my supplies in alphabetical order. I might just have to go back to my old system. It only made sense to me, but at least I knew where everything was!"
Jaming closed the cabinet and turned, raising an eyebrow at Meredith as if asking her if she wanted to go another round. She stood aside and made a sweeping 'after you' gesture, which prompted him to laugh again. He noticed that he seemed to be doing a lot of that lately. He shook his head and went over to another cabinet.
Sure enough, there were six large spools of copper wire on the bottom shelf. "Ahh, yes. Here they are. And since you wouldn't let me pay for the bag I bought from you before, I'm not going to let you pay me for this, so there!"
He plunked it down on the work table and folded his arms with a smirk, which she returned as she took the spool and stuffed it into her pack.
"Actually, you just paid me in copper wire. You win."
He swaggered off to enjoy his cupcake. "I always win."
"No conceit, huh?"
A moment later, Jaming noticed that she was staring at his mouth. "What?"
"Um...You've got a little something. Just there," Meredith touched her own mouth to demonstrate, but of course he brushed the wrong spot. "No, other side."
"Oh?" Jaming nearly got it, but without a mirror it was hard to tell.
"Here, I'll get it," she told him.
Jaming instantly froze, but he didn't object as she brushed a dollop of frosting from the corner of his mouth. He swallowed hard as she backed off and sucked the frosting from her thumb, and as his heart thundered in his chest he wondered if he was about to have a panic attack.
Then the moment passed as suddenly as it arrived, and she was telling him that she had to get back to work. "Yes, and I'd better return this hair dryer to Claire. Thank you for the cupcake."
After she left and shut the door behind her, he sagged against his work table. "Whew...What was that all about, now?"
Jaming easily brushed aside his reaction to what she had just done by telling himself that he simply wasn't used to allowing people to breach his personal space, and that women had always unnerved him a little. The fact that his only friend just happened to be a woman was bound to lead to the occasional moment of awkwardness, and he decided that he should try not to read too much into it.
He just wished that he could figure out why the image of Meredith licking frosting off of her thumb continued to relentlessly repeat itself in his mind's eye, making it very difficult to concentrate on his work! "If I didn't know better, I'd think she did that on purpose..."
