Parks and Prejudice (Ben and Leslie | Parks and Rec)

Chapter 4

JJ's Dinner waffles taste better. Hands down.

What I had in front of me is a second rate, trying hard, copycat. But waffles are waffles, I still couldn't resist them. I added double the whip cream toppings to make up for it. I looked at my watch and confirmed that my project partner was five minutes late. My waffles are almost done, if he doesn't appear soon, I'll have to order another. Although, that wasn't a really bad idea.

The door to the café opened and my partner, Tom Haverford, swaggered in. He was my classmate in Business Management 101 and due to some random partner generator that our professor used, we are now assigned to work together on a presentation that is due next week. We had to come up with a business idea and present it to the class.

"Hey beautiful, hope you weren't waiting too long for me." Tom sat down in front of me and looked at the menu. I took this time to assess him as we would be working together for a week and I hoped that he wouldn't cause me to get a bad grade in this class.

Tom was dressed in expensive clothes, I could tell because a famous logo was embroidered on them. He also had a very confident air about him. He looked foreign, though he did speak with a perfect accent. Maybe he was born in Libya and grew up in America. And the fact that he called me beautiful meant that he was a charmer. Not my type though. If I even had a type.

What is my type? Hmmm, I'd have to think about that one.

He called for a waiter, placed his order and turned his attention to me. "Alright, let's talk business. I have a thousand ideas that we can use." And with that, he started shooting off his ideas one by one. Some of them, nay, most of them were very absurd ideas. Online butler, Swaggerbook that was kind of like Facebook but for cool people, gourmet cafeteria food, vending machines that spray you with perfumes, glitter condiments... And he just kept rattling on one after the other.

"Okay, pause!" I gave him a time out gesture.

"Too many to keep up? I'll give you a few minutes to think them over and we can go with the one that speaks out to you." His food arrived and he took a few minutes to capture photos of them. I had to stop him when he wanted to stand on his chair and take a shot from that angle. He was going to break his neck for an Instagram post. He finished posting them online and started eating his food.

"Three questions." Tom said looking seriously at me. "Which idea are we going to present? Are you single? And will you go out with me?"

"I haven't decided yet, yes and no, in that exact order."

"No? But, but can't you feel the chemistry between us?"