Thanks for your wonderful reviews, they make me all warm and fuzzy. Hope I aren't using too much English slang for those who aren't from around here. I had to re-write this a couple of times. I'm rubbish at talking to men myself (even though I'm married) and I have tried and failed miserably to start conversations, usually with people who end up thinking I'm a freak.
Ho hum… hope you enjoy. I'll look forward to any and all reviews J
Much love and respect to Charlaine Harris who invented this magical world, and to Alexander Skarsgard for being the perfect Eric.
In a flurry of activity I made cannelloni, having to soak pasta sheets when I found no tubes. It was messy but those are usually the best dishes. I cooked the meat, rolled it, covered it in special sauce (Bolognese with Worcestershire sauce) and put it in the oven covered in cheese.
'it'll be about 20 minutes' I told Eric as I washed my hands.
'it already smells wonderful' he called back from the sofa.
'that's the onions' I said as I grabbed a beer a settled on the sofa near him.
'and there's the science' Eric laughed.
'hey, mr office man, I can't help it, it's a thing I do' I said, and punched his arm.
'it is a bit of a second nature thing for you' he said, turning to look at me.
'like I can see how things work without having to look it up in a book. Science seems so natural, even though that sounds insane'. I blurted, my brain seems to have focussed on looking at his muscles straining at his shirt, and my mouth is wandering off on its own…
'you make pretty good sense to me' he said, punching my arm and taking another drink of his beer. 'hey, do you wanna do anything tonight, or should we watch a film?' he asked, catching me off guard.
'oh, um a film sounds good, I just need to email my friend. Do you have the internet?'
'yeah, I'll get you the code. Is that the girl at your house on Saturday morning?' he asked, moving to a chest of drawers and getting a small card.
'yeah, Julie. I just wanted to check in with her and see how things are.'
'cool, its wireless so you can sit out here or in your room.' he sat back down with me and handed me the card.
'great, I'll send her one now, while the food cooks' I said, moving to my room to get my laptop. My ulterior motive was hard at work, getting everything done before spending a peaceful evening with Eric. Maybe if he drinks a few more beers he'll be a bit looser with information.
I plugged myself in sitting on my bed, just to get this email out o the way. Didn't want him glimpsing it, Julie was my fountain of good advise and she would know what to do.
After what felt like infinity for my laptop to load up, I wrote a short plea to Julie.
"dear Julie,
How's work? Are they handling everything ok? The boss here, Pam, is very insistent that I should consider staying on permanently. But she kept dropping hints about how the tall blonde Eric likes me and how I obviously like him. Please impart your unnatural knowledge, oh mighty Julie.
Hope you are having fun
Sookie"
After making sure it was sent, and checking for any in the inbox, I shut my laptop down and went to check on dinner.
I must have calculated the temperature wrong, because dinner was ready, and almost on the verge of burnt. I rescued it and allowed it to cool slightly while I gathered bowls and cutlery.
'its ready if you are' I called to Eric. I placed all the mats and bowls on the table, with one in the centre for the dish.
As I brought the dish over, Eric's eyes lit up, it must have been quite a while since anyone cooked for him.
'that looks delicious' he said, waiting for me to dish up. I spooned out some for each of us and waited for a reaction.
Eric took his first bite, I held my breath.
'mmm, that is gorgeous' he said, pushing more onto his fork.
'glad you think so' I said, and began eating mine.
After finishing the meal, Eric took the dishes to the kitchen and put them in a dishwasher.
That seemed to go rather well, I thought to myself, but now I have to have courage for this evening.
'Coffee?' Eric called from across room,
'no thanks, the beer is fine' I replied, would getting him tipsy make him talk? Or would I just be more inclined to act silly? We'd have to see.
We sat down on the sofa and looked through the tv guide.
'so are you from California?' I asked him, struggling to find something to talk about.
'no, I moved here as a child' he replied, flicking to the movie listings.
'oh? So your family live nearby?' I continued,
'no, I don't really have any family' he said, concentrating on the page he was reading.
'oh, I'm sorry' I couldn't think of anything else. I know what its like to have few relatives, life must have been hard for him.
'its fine, I was an only child, my parents had me late in their life, they've been gone about 10 years now' he turned to me, 'what about you? Were you born in the city we found you in?'
'yeah, well close by' I told him.
'and your family?' he asked,
'I have a brother, but I don't really talk to him, and my grandma died a few years ago' I said, feeling a pang of pain about gran.
'I'm sorry, guess we have more in common than we thought' he said, looking straight into my eyes.
His eyes bore into me, they were the bluest eyes I had ever seen. Like a crystal clear lake on a sunny day.
He broke eye contact first, reaching for the remote. I rearranged myself, finding I had been leaning a little closer to him.
'how about this?' he said, flicking onto a channel.
'is that 'Shadow of the vampire'? doesn't it have Eddie Izzard in it?' I asked, surprised at his choice.
'yeah, I like how the actor playing Max Schreck really followed the same method acting style' he said,
'oh, but that's not it, the guy is actually Count Orlok, pretending to be an actor staying in character' I told him, he looked nicely surprised. 'its one of my favourite films, along with the original Nosferatu'.
As the film wore on, we drank a few more beers and we arrived at the crucial part where we find out Count Orlok's payment for the acting is the leading lady.
'see?' I nudged him,
'I must have missed that last time, that's an interesting idea though' he said, moving a little closer 'hey, you think any of those vampires on TV are real vampires?' he joked
'nah, too many pictures of them grocery shopping or having lunch.' I thought about the idea for a moment longer, wishing the ideas on such TV shows could be real. Would certainly help me with those headaches I get.
The film ended and Eric collected the empty bottles, taking them through to one of his assorted recycling bins.
'you fancy another? Its almost 10pm' he called from the kitchen,
'yeah, one more might help me sleep' I said, this could be my last chance to get him to talk more
He brought the beers over and switched the TV to the news channel. It was quite funny, the newscaster was cheesy and the music before the commercial break was dodgy.
'the people here seem so optimistic, its strange seeing such joy on the news' I said, taking another drink.
'Are Americans optimistic? Or are you British just depressed' he laughed
'we're not depressed, we're realists. My theory is, if you plan for every disaster you'll never be disappointed but nicely surprised each time things go right' I said, hitting him with a cushion.
'nope, that's just you. All the others I met at your lab were just depressing.' he said, gaining revenge with a cushion from his side.
'like who?' I demanded, standing up for my co-workers and my country.
'James was miserable, you clearly knocked him back more than once. Your manager was depressed, clearly feeling inferior to her staff's competency. I'm pretty sure right now your team leader is depressed, because you are here.' he listed, checking off his fingers as he went.
'James wasn't depressed, he just hated you. For some reason he thinks you are competition. My manager has always been that way, she may be miserable but she still instils fear in all of us, my team leader will be fine, my team will look after her.' I exclaimed each of my points, hitting him relentlessly.
Eric grabbed my cushion, leaving me defenceless, and leaned towards me. I braced myself.
'so you can stay' he stated simply. Still holding the cushions above his head.
'what?' I peeked out from behind my arms,
'well if James doesn't matter, you don't like your manager and your team leader is fine, you may as well stay' he said, still threatening cushion death.
'there are other considerations, why so eager? My cooking can't be that good' I said, moving my arms down a little further.
'I like the company' he said simply, bopping me on the head lightly with a cushion.
'oh, so you came on the trip to my lab to find a flat mate?' I asked, trying to grab one of the cushions and missing, earning another bop on the head.
'no silly, you were going to be staying at Bill's house, its bigger, but I asked Pam and…' he stopped short.
'rescued me from boredom?' I added, memorizing his words.
'yeah, rescued' he said, sounding distant. I took the opportunity to grab a cushion and bop him on the head.
'glad we had this chat' I said, hoping to distract him 'must consider getting a better weapon for next time' I stood and threw the cushion at him, he caught it. 'I'm gonna go to bed, I'll try not to walk in on you undressing tonight'.
I was sure I heard him mutter something before calling goodnight, but I couldn't quite hear it.
I got changed for bed, and snuggled up under the sheet. The breeze from the window was perfectly counteracting the furious blush on my face. My mind was racing round in circles, he asked Pam if I could stay with him? But then, she had that gem of information to use to make me stay and didn't.
I rolled my eyes to myself and tried to get to sleep. Though this brought up thoughts about whether Eric had shared my dream, or if he'd watched Dr who and not realised it.
Maybe an experiment was in order.
I tried to get as comfortable as possible, and focussed on something Eric wouldn't have seen.
Hmm, a couple of people sharing a house in London, weird flat-mates, military wannabe friend, arty man in the basement flat. (ringing any bells?) this was another fall-back dream to help me sleep. Again, in the background was Eric, fully clothed this time. I wondered if this was an indication that he had fallen asleep.
I wasn't entirely asleep, and felt this may be an interesting development. It did also make me wonder if this was part of my other problem, my head-ache inducing issue. In my dream I moved towards Eric, he didn't seem to see me. I tried to whisper in his ear, but got little reaction. However by leaning closer, my hand brushed by his shoulder, and with that contact I got bright visions of what he must be dreaming about.
This was quite a surprise, to my memory this had never happened before, but it had been a while since I'd shared a building with someone.
I left Eric, in my dream, to enjoy his brightly coloured scene. Moving like I was walking through toffee to find my dream. I found the bit I'd left, my attic room, and settled back into it. Not long after I drifted off to sleep properly.
I was woken again by the sunlight, I really must remember to close the curtains. I turned my alarm off, only 10 minutes until it was due anyway. Got showered and dressed, then made my way to the kitchen to start the coffee machine. I had just filled my cup when Eric emerged. He looked a little better than yesterday, but still quite sleepy.
'did you sleep any better?' I asked, getting him a cup.
'a little, still had strange dreams, you appeared briefly.' he said, sitting on the stool opposite me.
'oh? Were you trapped under a giant cushion?' I laughed.
'not likely, that would be you. No mine was weird, you were floating around whispering something' he said.
'I'll shout next time' I said, smiling. This was unexpected.
We drank our coffee, as I explained to him the joy that is 'Spaced'. when I rolled around to 7.20 we got in the car and made our way to work.
As we entered the front door I set off towards the labs, expecting Eric to head off to the office.
'so you still in Bill's lab? Shall I come get you at lunchtime?' he asked across the foyer.
'no, Pam has sent me to Sam's lab today, but yeah, lunch sounds good.
Upon reaching the lab, I found Sam in his usual high spirits. He introduced me to his lab, even though I ha met all of them in Sunday. He showed me what the main problems were, and I got stuck in.
Time seemed to pass in a blur, I had just looked at the clock, it was 11am. Pam appeared at the door, and called me into the corridor again, I sighed internally.
'how's it going?' she asked casually.
'not bad, we've isolated the major problems and I'm just sorting out what needs changing, hopefully we won't even have to change the written method.
'excellent, I hear you haven't always worked in a lab' Pam said, I hadn't seen this coming but I was sure I knew what she was driving at.
'I have spent a few years working in offices, just to try a different profession.' I said, crossing my fingers behind my back.
'why would you say office work didn't suit you?' she asked,
'they were surprisingly disorganised, considering the importance of their company.' I told her, and I knew as soon as I'd finished, by the smile spreading across her face, I was going to be seeing a lot more of Eric.