And Heaven Too
Chapter Two
Dell waits until she gets back through security and down into the bowels of the NatHist to start her mild freak out. She just ran into Mike Green. Mike Green of all people, here. She’s not even supposed to be here today.
She doesn’t even go to this department.
She tries not to skip, pretty much failing, through the halls on her way back to the fellowship office and bursts through with a mighty yawp. “You are never going to guess who I just met.”
Her two fellows-in-arms today are Gina and James. Gina ignores her immediately because she’s a bio and she hates her cultural ass. James stops his frantic typing at his laptop to give her a questioning glance. Dell almost sails through the room, plopping down across the table.
“Mike Green. I just ran into Mike Green up at the info map, trying to find the horrific snake exhibit. He’s on my NHL13 team. He completes my first line d-man pair. He’s my pro’s soul mate or something. He’s like the Shi huang-di to my Ashoka. Okay, bad analogy-”
Gina cuts her off at that: “It’s the Titanoboa exhibit, Adlai. We’ve already been over this. And we don’t care who Mike Green is.” James looks between the two of them and then shrugs, staying out of it.
Sometimes Dell hates being a free-floater, caught somewhere between three subfields because she belongs nowhere and everywhere all at once. Today she’s stuck in the paleo lab, working on an oldowan assemblage from Africa and she doesn’t particularly like it. Mostly because of these two.
BUT! Mike Green! She does a happy dance in her chair and she’s reprimanded for being so loud. These two are sticks-in-the-mud doctoral students. She never has fun with them.
She should have eaten upstairs, or stalked Green. And by stalk she means help kindly, of course. She wonders if he’ll call. She thinks about her outfit, designed for comfort while digging through the archives and field work boxes. She looks like a total shovel bum and he won’t call but how cool? The kids in arch are never going to believe this.
It nears two, the time ticking down like a sad expiration date on possibly, probably not, talking to Mike Green again when the phone rings. Dell jumps at the noise, dragging a disgruntled squeak from Gina. She practically climbs over the table and wretches the phone out of James’s hand as soon as he’s got it off the cradle.
It isn’t Green though. It’s her advisor. Telling her that she needs to swing by the arch lab before she takes off for the day and she groans but tells him she’ll be there soon. Dr. Anderson is awesome and a great advisor but she-
Fuck it. Green will never call and she’ll just be a strangely dressed blip on his superstar radar. They’ll live their lives, never knowing how incredibly awkward it would be for him when he found out how much she likes his style and her never knowing if he makes that puppy dog face while he’s in the sack.
Let it never be said that anthropologists have dull senses of humor.
At exactly two she’s got her gear packed up. She attempts a good-bye; Gina glares again and James doesn’t even look up from his work. Lame.
If she hurries, maybe it won’t take long over at AmHis. It’s still early in the day; she can get some laundry done and clean her kitchen and catch the latest episode of SOA and-
She stops, right outside the security door, because she feels an unholy tingle. A warning. Someone is watching her. Her eyes lift off her phone and slowly she scans the crowd.
There, by the map once more, is Mike Green. And he’s staring right at her. And sort of smiling. Dell freezes, just stops dead. He’s watching her. Mike Green. Right there. And then he starts walking across the busy room. She admires the way his t-shirt and jeans combo does everything right for all of his parts. Even his pub hat gives her heart palpitations. He’s probably muscle on top of muscle, pure power. It makes her shiver and then blush. Shame on her, thinking naughty things like that about a perfectly good stranger. She has to jerk her eyes back up to his face when he stops in front of her.
It’s rude to ogle people in public. Especially in a work place. Right?
“Hey, thanks for the directions.” He’s got a cute half-smirk and she likes it. It makes him seem improbably younger than he is. She doesn’t actually know his age, now that she thinks about it. Her knowledge of the capitals in general is limited to what she sees in the papers and catches while playing videogames. He should be older than her though, right? Maybe not. She’s gotten to the age where professional athletes might all be younger than her. “Your name is Dell?”
“Yeah. Hi.” She sticks her hand out and she’s pleased that he gives her a strong hand shake in return. “How was the giant, creepy snake?”
She gets a chuckle out of that and it pleases her immensely. “It was creepy, actually. Haven’t you seen it?”
Dell shakes her head and checks her phone. She’s still got to go meet with Dr. Anderson. Ugh.
Mike Green.
Dr. Anderson.
Ugh.
“I have an unholy phobia of snakes. It’s really bad. Like, I specifically picked interests based on the types of dangerous snakes in the area, bad. I don’t even like going in some of the marine exhibits because eels are creepy too.” She shudders, a little violently, just thinking about slithery, awful, slimy-
“I’m Mike.” She snaps back to the present.
“I know.” He looks mildly surprised but she gives him a reassuring smile. “I’m glad I was able to help, but I really have to get to my office. I have to meet-“
Immediately Mike backs away. “Oh, sure. Yeah, sorry to bug you.” It’s kinda cute; he looks flustered, like she’s the one who is totally inconvenienced by his presence. Which, no. Of course not. She’s going to remember this forever and will probably blow off all of her cleaning tonight to play NHL13 and giggle about it. It’s almost 2:30 though and she’s not off the clock yet. Sadly, she turns away, ready to jet, but Mike stops her. “Hey, um, do you want to grab a cup of coffee or something, sometime?”
Time stops once more. Did she just hear right? She slowly pivots to look back at him, her mouth open in shock. His is too, as if he can’t believe he just asked her out. Sort of. She’d think he was fucking with her if he didn’t look so nervous. Her mind screams out Mike Green again but she’s already plotting. If he wants coffee, she can do that.
“Yeah! Sure.” Dell turns away and takes a few steps. She knows Mike isn’t following her so she glances back and tilts her head to the door. “Well, are you coming?”
He jolts forward next to her and she guides them out of the NatHis. The guys are gonna flip their shit. She’s going to be the coolest fellow in the building. She skips down the stairs and onto the walkway over to her building. It’s crisp out today, the bitter winter winds making an early appearance. She tries to hide behind Mike as much as possible because she’s an idiot and left her coat in her office this morning.
He keeps glancing at her and she thinks she’s been busted until he asks her if she works back at the NatHist. She gives him a quick laugh. “Not usually, I was just filling in today.” She’s about to explain more but a group of school kids cut directly infront of them. She stops short, avoiding catastrophy. Mike’s hands grab her upper arms, his hands are warm from his pockets.
His hands are warm and calloused but gentle as they rub absently at her skin, waiting for the kids to pass. When their path is clear once more she laments his grip drifting away but she can’t very well lead him when she’s being steered.
As they climb the steps to the AmHis building, she can’t help but tell him, “I usually work in this building. This is where my office is.” He’s still giving her looks, probably because she’s just leading him blindly around the Mall. He’s probably wondering why there isn’t coffee yet.
The warmth of the building makes her sigh in appreciation and she greets those that she knows on the way back to the offices. She gets him a visitor’s name tag, mostly because she thinks its cute when he gets patted down, and then leads him into the fray.
The Department of History houses most of its administrative offices here, but they also have a few workshops. She knows this walk by heart and soon they’re standing right outside her lab. He looks at the plaque next to the door reading: Excavation. She doesn’t go in quite yet, though. He’s been pretty good about humoring her and she’s about to throw him to the wolves. Also known as the arch department.
“I have to talk with my boss for a few but then we’ll get coffee, I promise.” She puts a hand on his arm and a pleading smile on her face. He shrugs and smiles down at her. He is so fucking hot. She enjoys the contact for just a moment longer before steeling herself and throwing open the double doors of the arch lab.
The hallway erupts in noise as soon as the doors open; she spies her coworkers over in the far corner. Probably laughing about some video on Christian’s laptop. They don’t notice her so she puts on her biggest grin and shouts, “Hey guys, I brought a visitor!”
She doesn’t even go to this department.
She tries not to skip, pretty much failing, through the halls on her way back to the fellowship office and bursts through with a mighty yawp. “You are never going to guess who I just met.”
Her two fellows-in-arms today are Gina and James. Gina ignores her immediately because she’s a bio and she hates her cultural ass. James stops his frantic typing at his laptop to give her a questioning glance. Dell almost sails through the room, plopping down across the table.
“Mike Green. I just ran into Mike Green up at the info map, trying to find the horrific snake exhibit. He’s on my NHL13 team. He completes my first line d-man pair. He’s my pro’s soul mate or something. He’s like the Shi huang-di to my Ashoka. Okay, bad analogy-”
Gina cuts her off at that: “It’s the Titanoboa exhibit, Adlai. We’ve already been over this. And we don’t care who Mike Green is.” James looks between the two of them and then shrugs, staying out of it.
Sometimes Dell hates being a free-floater, caught somewhere between three subfields because she belongs nowhere and everywhere all at once. Today she’s stuck in the paleo lab, working on an oldowan assemblage from Africa and she doesn’t particularly like it. Mostly because of these two.
BUT! Mike Green! She does a happy dance in her chair and she’s reprimanded for being so loud. These two are sticks-in-the-mud doctoral students. She never has fun with them.
She should have eaten upstairs, or stalked Green. And by stalk she means help kindly, of course. She wonders if he’ll call. She thinks about her outfit, designed for comfort while digging through the archives and field work boxes. She looks like a total shovel bum and he won’t call but how cool? The kids in arch are never going to believe this.
It nears two, the time ticking down like a sad expiration date on possibly, probably not, talking to Mike Green again when the phone rings. Dell jumps at the noise, dragging a disgruntled squeak from Gina. She practically climbs over the table and wretches the phone out of James’s hand as soon as he’s got it off the cradle.
It isn’t Green though. It’s her advisor. Telling her that she needs to swing by the arch lab before she takes off for the day and she groans but tells him she’ll be there soon. Dr. Anderson is awesome and a great advisor but she-
Fuck it. Green will never call and she’ll just be a strangely dressed blip on his superstar radar. They’ll live their lives, never knowing how incredibly awkward it would be for him when he found out how much she likes his style and her never knowing if he makes that puppy dog face while he’s in the sack.
Let it never be said that anthropologists have dull senses of humor.
At exactly two she’s got her gear packed up. She attempts a good-bye; Gina glares again and James doesn’t even look up from his work. Lame.
If she hurries, maybe it won’t take long over at AmHis. It’s still early in the day; she can get some laundry done and clean her kitchen and catch the latest episode of SOA and-
She stops, right outside the security door, because she feels an unholy tingle. A warning. Someone is watching her. Her eyes lift off her phone and slowly she scans the crowd.
There, by the map once more, is Mike Green. And he’s staring right at her. And sort of smiling. Dell freezes, just stops dead. He’s watching her. Mike Green. Right there. And then he starts walking across the busy room. She admires the way his t-shirt and jeans combo does everything right for all of his parts. Even his pub hat gives her heart palpitations. He’s probably muscle on top of muscle, pure power. It makes her shiver and then blush. Shame on her, thinking naughty things like that about a perfectly good stranger. She has to jerk her eyes back up to his face when he stops in front of her.
It’s rude to ogle people in public. Especially in a work place. Right?
“Hey, thanks for the directions.” He’s got a cute half-smirk and she likes it. It makes him seem improbably younger than he is. She doesn’t actually know his age, now that she thinks about it. Her knowledge of the capitals in general is limited to what she sees in the papers and catches while playing videogames. He should be older than her though, right? Maybe not. She’s gotten to the age where professional athletes might all be younger than her. “Your name is Dell?”
“Yeah. Hi.” She sticks her hand out and she’s pleased that he gives her a strong hand shake in return. “How was the giant, creepy snake?”
She gets a chuckle out of that and it pleases her immensely. “It was creepy, actually. Haven’t you seen it?”
Dell shakes her head and checks her phone. She’s still got to go meet with Dr. Anderson. Ugh.
Mike Green.
Dr. Anderson.
Ugh.
“I have an unholy phobia of snakes. It’s really bad. Like, I specifically picked interests based on the types of dangerous snakes in the area, bad. I don’t even like going in some of the marine exhibits because eels are creepy too.” She shudders, a little violently, just thinking about slithery, awful, slimy-
“I’m Mike.” She snaps back to the present.
“I know.” He looks mildly surprised but she gives him a reassuring smile. “I’m glad I was able to help, but I really have to get to my office. I have to meet-“
Immediately Mike backs away. “Oh, sure. Yeah, sorry to bug you.” It’s kinda cute; he looks flustered, like she’s the one who is totally inconvenienced by his presence. Which, no. Of course not. She’s going to remember this forever and will probably blow off all of her cleaning tonight to play NHL13 and giggle about it. It’s almost 2:30 though and she’s not off the clock yet. Sadly, she turns away, ready to jet, but Mike stops her. “Hey, um, do you want to grab a cup of coffee or something, sometime?”
Time stops once more. Did she just hear right? She slowly pivots to look back at him, her mouth open in shock. His is too, as if he can’t believe he just asked her out. Sort of. She’d think he was fucking with her if he didn’t look so nervous. Her mind screams out Mike Green again but she’s already plotting. If he wants coffee, she can do that.
“Yeah! Sure.” Dell turns away and takes a few steps. She knows Mike isn’t following her so she glances back and tilts her head to the door. “Well, are you coming?”
He jolts forward next to her and she guides them out of the NatHis. The guys are gonna flip their shit. She’s going to be the coolest fellow in the building. She skips down the stairs and onto the walkway over to her building. It’s crisp out today, the bitter winter winds making an early appearance. She tries to hide behind Mike as much as possible because she’s an idiot and left her coat in her office this morning.
He keeps glancing at her and she thinks she’s been busted until he asks her if she works back at the NatHist. She gives him a quick laugh. “Not usually, I was just filling in today.” She’s about to explain more but a group of school kids cut directly infront of them. She stops short, avoiding catastrophy. Mike’s hands grab her upper arms, his hands are warm from his pockets.
His hands are warm and calloused but gentle as they rub absently at her skin, waiting for the kids to pass. When their path is clear once more she laments his grip drifting away but she can’t very well lead him when she’s being steered.
As they climb the steps to the AmHis building, she can’t help but tell him, “I usually work in this building. This is where my office is.” He’s still giving her looks, probably because she’s just leading him blindly around the Mall. He’s probably wondering why there isn’t coffee yet.
The warmth of the building makes her sigh in appreciation and she greets those that she knows on the way back to the offices. She gets him a visitor’s name tag, mostly because she thinks its cute when he gets patted down, and then leads him into the fray.
The Department of History houses most of its administrative offices here, but they also have a few workshops. She knows this walk by heart and soon they’re standing right outside her lab. He looks at the plaque next to the door reading: Excavation. She doesn’t go in quite yet, though. He’s been pretty good about humoring her and she’s about to throw him to the wolves. Also known as the arch department.
“I have to talk with my boss for a few but then we’ll get coffee, I promise.” She puts a hand on his arm and a pleading smile on her face. He shrugs and smiles down at her. He is so fucking hot. She enjoys the contact for just a moment longer before steeling herself and throwing open the double doors of the arch lab.
The hallway erupts in noise as soon as the doors open; she spies her coworkers over in the far corner. Probably laughing about some video on Christian’s laptop. They don’t notice her so she puts on her biggest grin and shouts, “Hey guys, I brought a visitor!”
9/9/13