Garden Party

I was busy in my plush, windowed cubical today, tapping on my keyboard and humming some nameless tune by Mozart when Ryan ambled up. His hair stood out straight on one side like he'd run his fingers through it. He huffed out a long sigh and slapped down a material discrepancy report.

"Here is the paperwork for what we just shipped out."

I glanced at it and back to my computer screen. "Thanks."

Peck, peck, peck.

Now, most people would take that as a hint that I was either very busy or very rude. Either way it would normally discourage further chatter, but not with Ryan. "Um...I think I might not have told you. I'm having a house warming party on the eleventh."

I stopped typing, jumped up and grinned. "Really? On the eleventh of next month?"

"Yeah." He folded his arms across his chest.

"Swell." I snatched a pen off my desk and leaned over to the wall calendar, flipping it up a month. "Ryan's House Warming" I wrote in big letters across the proper square.

My pen dropped back into the rubble on the desk and I resumed tapping on the keyboard.

"Oh, that is just so cute," came Ryan's amused voice.

My fingers hovered over the keys and I raised my gaze to his. "Cute?"

"You thought I was inviting you?"

I glared at him and he laughed. "Ha. I'm just imitating you. You'd do that sort of thing," he said.

"Would I?" I pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger. "No wonder people hardly ever come back here and talk to me."

He chuckled and sauntered back out into the mainstream of the cubical maze.

He's never forgiven me for that time I invited him to my garden party. When he asked if he could bring a friend, I nodded. "Yes, please do." He got out his little notepad and wrote down the date and time and, being the sweet, polite man that he is, he asked if he could bring anything.

"Yes," I said. "Bring any gardening tools you have and some gardening gloves."

I really do hate gardening.