The Matchmaker

Chapter 40

She solemnly returns to her browsing and I turn to peek at Zander who's idly sipping on water by the water cooler.

Returning to his desk not far from me, he turns on the monitor and just stares vacantly since it was password protected and belonged to someone else.

Leaning back against his chair, Zander swivels it till he's directly facing me and then grins before rolling towards me, catching every eye in the room.

My eyes widen when he comes halting next to me. "Erm....Glacinda, would you mind explaining any technical issues of the report in front of you?"

Glancing down at the stack of paper-clipped, stapled pages, Earl tilts his head and offers me, Glacinda a stern look....waiting for me to elucidate on the extremely blank papers.

Narrowing my eyes, I raise my head with righteous defiance. "There's nothing to explain. As of right now, there are no issues, technical or otherwise."

What's he doing? A written report had nothing to do with the tech guy! Why is he trying to look for mischief when I felt jittery?

"She's right," piped in the employee who was looking at me earlier.

Getting a better look at him now, he was much younger than I had originally assumed. He was probably around the same age as Zander or a little older but definitely in his twenties as well.

Maybe he's sticking up for Glacinda because of some sense of age comradeship?

"Oh really?" Earl...Zander asked in return.

Raising his head superiorly, the employee whose name plate read 'Xeno' offers Zander an arched brow. "Yeah, and shouldn't you be fixing the computer on the third floor? I heard Marco hasn't been able to access anything and everything keeps resetting."

"Already been taken care of," Earl replied smoothly, not even flinching which was what I did because once this was all over, poor Marco would still have a crap computer.

I'm about to send Zander a telepathic message of 'what gives?' When the static of the earpiece goes off.

Glancing at Zander, the concentration on his face suggests that he's tentatively listening in through the receiver in his ear.

"Oh Henry!" Celia wailed.

Patrick's voice immediately follows. "Oh my coffee crisp!"

"My adorable Kit Kat!"

"Stop, now gimme a Hersey's Kiss."

What in the love of chocolate bars have we done?" I whispered harshly, the garbled static of the mic turning up an octave.

What were they doing?

There's a moment of silence and I can faintly hear Randy's voice mumble something from the other end before Patrick picks up where he left off. "No you stop. I'm more crazy about you."

"No. You. Stop."

"How could I? You stop!"

"No, you!" Celia exclaimed, adding a giggle at the end.

A giggle? What in the name of Earl's bald cap is going on?

"But I'm crazy about you! You colour my world like skittles and M&Ms!"

At this point both Zander and I had blank looks on our faces, the ruse getting worse with every passing minute.

Grabbing the stack of papers, I risk walking towards the waiting room and peek in to see Celia and Patrick convincingly pretending to flirt while Dana and Randy sat with their arms crossed, their respective body language antagonistic to the other.