Lois picked up her pace as she walked briskly down the corridor towards her office. Hopefully, no one would notice that she had even come in at all, therefore, not knowing that she was as late as she was.
Approaching her office, the secretary behind the desk grinned at her.
"Nice of you to show up, Ms. Lawson." she smiled cheerfully.
"Suck my toe, Crystal." Lois smiled back as she passed the woman and entered her office. Closing the door behind her, she rushed to her desk.
Seconds later, the door opened again, with a none too amused man standing with his hands on his hips.
"Way to go, Lolo." he whined. "You could have dented my face!"
"I didn't? Damn. Ill try harder next time." she replied, snapping her fingers as she sat behind the large desk by the far wall. "Justin," she said, looking up to him as he entered her office and closed the door behind him. "Why did you have to come here with me again?"
"Because," he smiled as he took a seat in the overstuffed couch in the corner. "You took so long hanging out with us that I finished my tracks and didn't feel like hanging out with them all day. So, Ive decided to hang out with you." He smiled broadly as she rolled her eyes as if in pain. "Hey, don't be like that." he said. "I can be useful, you know. Ill be like your assistant or something."
Lois couldn't help but grin. Justin always followed her around like a puppy whenever he was bored. Sure, he was worse than a flared hemorrhoid most of the time, but he had his enchanting moments.
"Why don't you go and hang out with Lauren?" Lois asked, leaning her elbows on her desk to look over at Justin, who was now comparing the size of his hand to that of his foot.
"She had some stuff to clear up at school." he shrugged. "Something about a paper the school wanted to publish or something."
An annoying buzzing sound rang through the room, and Justin jumped at the noise. "What the hell was that?" he asked, his eyes darting around frantically.
Lois laughed, not bothering to answer him. Pushing the button on the phone at her side, she smiled. "Yes, Crystal."
"Is it okay if I come in? I want to go over your schedule for the day." a muffled voice requested.
"Of course. Why would you ask? Just come on in." Lois laughed.
"Well, I saw Mr. Timberlake go in, and I didn't want to interrupt anything." the voice called back sheepishly.
Lois couldn't stop her eyes from popping from her head, and Justin starting laughing hysterically. "Oh Lois, get your hand off of that!" he teased. "No, that's for Lauren only! Lois, stop taking advantage of me!"
Taking her finger off the button, she glared at Justin. "Shut the fuck up, you moron!" she warned.
"Com'on in Crystal." she called.
"You know you want me." Justin shrugged casually.
"Oh yes, Justin, I want you, I need you. Oh baby. Oh baby." Lois sighed emotionlessly.
Seconds later, the door to the office opened, and Crystal walked in cautiously. Smiling over at Justin who was grinning like a fool on the couch, she walked up to take a seat in front of Lois' desk.
"So, what's up for today?" Lois asked, leaning forward on the desk.
Shuffling through papers, Crystal scanned the schedule in her lap. "Actually, not much. You have a pretty slow day." She paused to quickly look over a page before continuing. "You have a meeting after lunch with the contractor for the Liberman building, and Mr. Shultz wants to talk to you about something to do with a renovation on the convention center. You have several messages," handing Lois a small stack of message, she continued. "but other than that, you have most of the day free. You took care of all the important stuff on Saturday."
Lois nodded as she bit her lip and scanned the messages in her hand.
"By the way," Crystal spoke up again. "How's you butt?" she grinned.
"What?" Justin and Lois answered at the same time.
Crystal laughed. "Your butt. Remember? You sat on a staple and had me pull it out with the staple remover."
"Oh, that." Lois sighed. "Its fine. You know my butt, it would take more than a staple to stop it."
"That's for damn sure." Justin called from his place in the corner.
Turning to face him, Lois punched her fists together. Justin shut up immediately.
For years, that had been their way of telling each other off, without having to make a scene and swear or yell at each other. The simple gesture of pounding their fists together said a million things between them, and Justin knew he better shut up before her fists pounded somewhere else.
"Oh, and I called the studio this morning when you said you were going to be late and left a message with Joey that a Mr. Wilson called." Crystal continued. "I didn't know if it was overly important, but since it wasn't work related I figured I would just forward it on to you."
Lois smiled to herself. "That's fine." Placing her messages to her side, she looked up to her secretary. "Did anyone notice I was late?" she asked.
Crystal smiled. "Nope. Mr. Walker asked if you were here about an hour ago, and I told him to were on the phone with an important client, so he never bothered to see if you were really here."
Lois smiled.
"What took you so long?" Crystal asked, leaning back in her chair. "You said you were only going to be fifteen minutes late. That was over an hour and a half ago."
"She was distracted by all the manliness that is Justin." Justin called from his corner. "I tired to ward her off, but my sexiness is too strong." he shook his head. "I'm so sexy, I cant stand myself."
"Well, I already cant stand you, so that makes two of us." Lois yelled, giving him another look of warning.
Crystal could only laugh.
She knew very well that Justin was dating Lois' cousin, Lauren, but still loved to tease Lois about her close friendship with him. They were too much alike sometimes, making it easy to taunt them.
"Hey, C?" Justin called to Crystal.
She turned to look at him.
"You think you could give Lois some advice?" he asked, a serious expression on his face.
"Advice about what?" she asked. Lois turned to give him a questioning look.
"Advice on how to look that good this early in the morning." he grinned. "I mean, here it is eleven in the morning, you've been here since nine, and look at ya!" he said, charm thick in his voice. "And then we have Lois." he motioned towards her with his hand. "Granted, she looks okay, but her eyes are rather puffy, and her hair--" Justin was cut off by a flying object hurtling towards his head.
"LOIS!" he yelled, looking back as the bottle of white out landed on the floor. "That could have hit me!"
"That was the point, jackass." she warned. "You don't look all the hot yourself this morning, J, so I wouldn't be talking."
Justin looked down at himself. "I think I look damn good, thankyouverymuch."
"You would." Lois mumbled.
"Well, is there anything you need me to schedule for you today? Or is that it?" Crystal asked, trying hard not to laugh at the expression on Justin's face.
Looking over the papers on her desk, Lois shook her head. "Nope. I think I'm good."
"You think you are, but I heard otherwise." Justin called.
Again, Lois punched her fists together. She didn't even bother to look over at him.
Standing to leave the room, Crystal looked over at Justin. "Anything you need, J? Food? Water?"
"A life?" Lois finished the sentence.
"Nope, I'm good." Before Lois had a chance to reply, Justin continued. "And I have been told that many many times." he grinned evily.
Crystal laughed as she exited the room. The moment the door was closed, Lois stood and rushed over to Justin, jumping on him.
"You are the biggest pain in my ass since that damn staple!" she yelled as she feebling punched him in the arm. Justin only laughed hysterically in response.
"Lois, stop!" he wheezed. "You're going to make me pee my pants!"
Giving him one last hard punch for good measure, Lois flopped onto the couch beside him.
Chuckling a little more, Justin calmed his laughter before stretching out across the couch to rest his head on her lap.
"Ugh, Justin screw off!" she whined as she pushed on his shoulder. "I don't want your icky head on me!"
Justin rubbed his head against her lap, a look of satisfaction on his face when she whined.
Giving up, Lois leaned her head back against the couch and sighed. "So, I have nothing to do until after lunch. Why did I even bother coming in today?"
"Because." Justin answered as he fiddled with the hem on her sleeve.
"Because why?"
"I don't know. I just thought that I should answer you." he shrugged.
Lois shook her head at his stupidity.
"So, you gonna call him back?" Justin asked, looking up at her.
"Who?"
"Brian."
Lois smiled again.
She couldn't get over the look on Joeys face when he had heard that Brian had called her that morning. He had spent every possible moment since the Friday night fiasco teasing her about her failure with him, and now it looked as if she had gotten in well enough to have him calling her even though he didn't have her number.
And it was driving Joey crazy.
She loved to drive him crazy. Other than picking on Justin, driving Joey crazy was her main pleasure in life. Well, that and Cherry Garcia ice cream. Okay, that and grape jelly.
"So, you gonna?" Justin asked again.
"Probably." she shrugged nonchalantly.
"Do it now." he urged, pushing on her arm. "Just do it, so I can have my couch back."
"This isn't your couch, Justin." she stared at him.
"Is too. I'm the one who helped you pick it out."
"I wouldn't call you falling asleep on it at the couch store 'helping me pick it out', you fool." she laughed.
"What? Its comfy!" he whined as he pushed on her again. "Go call him!"
Groaning, she stood up from the couch, the action causing Justin to spill on to the floor in a heap.
Stepping over his grumbling form, she crossed the floor back to her desk and took her seat. Shuffling through the messages, she found the desired note, and dialed the number at the bottom.
She didn't really know how Brian had gotten her work number. She hadn't given him any numbers the other night, so her only guess was that she had told him where she worked, and he had looked the number up.
That was a good sign. He had taken the time to search for a way to contact her. That was an indication that he really did want to see her again, which meant that she had left a good enough impression on him to make him think about her.
She wished Justin hadn't been in the room, giving her the chance to go over what she was going to say to him. But the last thing she wanted was Justin watching her rehearse her conversation.
On the third ring, a male voice answered the phone. "Hello?"
"Hi, is Brian Wilson there, please?" Lois called back pleasantly.
"Speaking." the voice answered.
Lois smiled to herself again. Why was she always doing that when it came to this man? "Hi, Brian. Its Lois. You called?" Lois did her best to act casual, and not that she had been thinking about little else than his call since finding out that he had left a message for her.
"Oh, hey Lois." he replied. "Yeah, I did."
"How did you know my number?" she asked, her voice coy. "You stalking me now?"
Brian chuckled. "Not exactly. You left your address book at the club the other night."
Lois' face fell. "What?"
"Your address book. It must have fallen out of your purse the other night. I left my jacket in the pool room and when I went back to get it, I noticed your book sitting on the couch. So I called your office to let you know I had it."
Lois' eyes closed painfully. Oh God, here she thought he was looking up her work number and calling her out of interest, and it was because she had left her address book at some stupid club. And to make matters worse, she just asked if he was stalking her!
Hole. That is what she wanted. One of those nice holes to stick her head in.
"Um. Thanks."
"No problem. Do you want me to drop it off at your office?" Brian asked.
Lois couldn't stop the embarrassment from creeping on to her features, and Justin didn't miss it.
His features were questioning her from across the room, and she did everything in her power to ignore him.
"Um, that would be great." she replied, running her hand over her face.
There was a silence on the other end of the line, before Brian spoke up. "Listen, this may be short notice, but do you want to get some lunch? I mean, I gotta bring your address book back to you anyway, so we may as well grab a bite while we're at it."
Lois' eye popped open again. The agonizing embarrassment was gone, and replaced with it was elation. Her eyes darted over to Justin, who was now bouncing on the couch impatiently. He kept mouthing the word 'what?' over and over as he bounced.
"Lois?" Brians voice called out to her.
"What? Oh, yeah. That would be great." she replied, her smiled widening.
"Good. Ill stop by around noon?"
"Sounds good." she grinned.
They exchanged their goodbyes, and Lois hung up the phone.
Justin was bursting across the room, clapping his hands excitedly. "What happened? What did he say! What's going on?" he rambled.
"We're going out to lunch." Lois smiled as she looked at the phone.
"How did he get your number? For a minute there you looked like someone just ate your jelly." Justin noted.
Lois sighed. "I left my address book at the club the other night, and he found it. He left the message to let me know he had it."
Justin laughed. "Ha! And here you thought he was stalking you. Too funny, Lolo."
"Shut up, Justin." she warned. "He's picking me up at noon." Lois started smiling to herself, her eyes glazing over.
Justin grinned. "Whatcha thinkin'?"
"Nothing." she shrugged. "Just thinking about what color I'm going to paint Joeys car when I win."
