by Kizzie Hayes
The IT guys stared at her like she was an alien from another planet. She loved the attention, even if they were too scared to say anything to her. Plus, their bathroom was fabulous. It was spotless, never used, and all the small vanity lotions and soaps were always there for the taking, sticking them all in her purse.
Well, there was one cute guy in the IT department. He was also the only black guy. He had light skin and curly hair that he probably should have cut shorter, but it looked good on him. She’d looked at him enough to notice that he had brownish-green eyes behind his nerd glasses from staring at a computer screen too much. She wanted to stick her tongue out at him when she passed but he blushed so much anyway, he might actually have a heart attack.
One morning, after consuming her third iced white mocha, it came to her. This company was boring and they needed something to shake everyone up. They needed to get out of their self-imposed bubbles and learn how to live a little.
That’s when Jasmine came up with the idea to throw a mixer. It would be simple. Happy hour after work at one of the hottest bars in the city that her brother-in-law happened to own.
Of course, he agreed. It meant free publicity for him, being patronized by one of the largest employers in town. He would even throw in drink specials for them.
Jasmine didn’t run it by management. She just let everyone know through a company-wide email.
Of course, management wasn’t very happy about that. But what could they do? The email was out there.
The party was on.
On Thursday, the day of the party, Jasmine made her usual Starbucks run on the sixth floor. Her hair was straight and down to her waist. She saw that one IT guy staring as she walked by him. Instead of continuing, like she usually did, she stopped and shook her head for him, just so she could see his cheeks turn red against his light brown skin..
“Are you coming to my party?” she asked. Her voice traveled. She knew he could hear her, even if he just stared.
“Oh yeah, he’ll be there,” said another IT guy. He was less cute. He had a wide face and ugly glasses but he was always watching her, so she threw him a bone.
“Tell him I’ll be waiting,” Jasmine said. She threw the cute IT guy another look. She knew that he was hanging onto her every word.
This was Jasmine’s definition of fun.
*****
Travis didn’t mean to lose.
He really didn’t, even if Eddie insisted he did. It was just that old Mrs. Teasley really knew how to mess up a computer.
“How did this happen?” Travis asked, standing behind her as she was seated at her desk. He had randomly been assigned ticket #41278.
Her browser was overloading with pop-ups of donuts.
Every time she opened Internet Explorer (the browser of choice for the pharma company, much to every IT guy’s chagrin) small windows would start popping up. They were like pop-up ads, overwhelming and never-ending. But instead of ads, there were pictures of donuts.
Glazed donuts. Cake donuts. Chocolate donuts. Sprinkle donuts. So many donuts. Different kinds of donuts. They would be in singles, pairs, and a baker’s dozen of donuts in a box. Each picture popping up, faster and faster, all over the screen until the whole browser was overwhelmed, the whole screen full of donuts and then the computer would freeze, robbed of its memory, and then it would shut down.
And then everything would be silent.
It was really bizarre.
“When did this start happening?” Travis asked as he tried to assess the situation.
“I don’t know,” Mr. Teasely told him. “It started when I was eating a donut.”
Needless to say, Travis lost.
“Dude, you better look so smoking hot tonight,” Cyrus said. “Did you see the way she was looking at you?”
Travis couldn’t help but notice. Jasmine was on her way to the bathroom, as usual, but that day she stopped. She turned, looked at him, and shook her hair like a prize. Travis’s heart thudded in his chest. He’d never felt it race so hard before. It felt like it was running a marathon he wasn’t invited to.
This wasn’t good.
He couldn’t do this.
“This is going to be so hilarious,” Eddie said. “I bet if I tape this tonight, it’ll go viral. No matter what happens.”
“Shut up,” Travis said, through gritted teeth. He was trying to stay calm at work but it wasn’t easy.
What would happen if he didn’t show up to this party?
Travis took a long swallow of his water. He hadn’t even asked her out yet and Jasmine was going to be the death of him.
“Wow, you look so freaked out right now,” Cyrus said. “You’re not even talking to the chick.”
“I have a lot of work to do,” Travis said.
“Nope, no excuses,” Cyrus said. “We should plan your plan of attack. When is the most humiliating, most public time to ask her?”
“We don’t know,” Eddie said, logically. “We’ve never done this before. Like a company happy hour is unprecedented.”
“Well, if she gets up to give a toast or something. Or make a speech.” Cyrus snapped his fingers, looking Travis in the eye. “Then boom. Bingo. It’s go time, baby.”
Travis gulped.
Cyrus told Travis he was going to pick him up. Travis was certain it was so Cyrus could ensure that he wouldn’t escape, but the joke was on Cyrus. After Travis humiliated himself in front of everyone, he planned to get dead drunk. Cyrus would have to take care of him and carry him home. Ha ha.
It was a win-win situation.
Travis didn’t know what to wear. He was home earlier than usual that Thursday. Usually, he would stay late most nights but today everyone was buzzing and Cyrus insisted he get ready.
Did he have to change?
Travis usually wore jeans and a hoodie every day. If it was hot, he wore jeans and a t-shirt. If it was cold, he wore jeans and two hoodies. So he wasn’t sure if he had anything else to wear.
At least, he could change his jeans. He looked through his drawer and found an old pair that he hadn’t thought about in a while. They were tighter jeans that his sister gave him for Christmas. She said they were stylish. Travis put them on and looked at himself in the mirror. He looked ridiculous. He looked like a douchebag.
He kept the jeans on.
There was a button down shirt hanging in his closet. Travis didn’t know where it came from. It was light blue, a color he’d never pick out for himself. He remembered his sister said that baby blue looked god against his skin. But somehow it looked good with his dark gray washed jeans.
At least he hoped so.
He was putting way too much time and effort into this. What was going on?
Cyrus texted him at exactly 6:30.
Let’s go, dude!
The happy hour started at 7. Travis was pretty sure it would be in poor form to show up right on time. Didn’t parties have a rule where you had to be fashionably late? But Cyrus did not have that in him. He was a punctual person. There was nothing Travis could do.
He felt like he was marching to his own death.
“Wow,” Cyrus said as Travis got in the car. “You are taking this seriously.”
“What do you mean?” Travis looked over as he buckled his seat belt.
“I mean, you changed and everything. I bet you even took a shower, didn’t you? You did. Didn’t you!” Travis winced as Cyrus leaned over and took a big whiff of his hair.
“Cut it out,” Travis said.
“You’re serious about this,” Cyrus said. He started driving. His voice was full of awe. “Like you’re asking her out on an actual date.”
Travis clenched his jaw and didn’t say anything.
“You like her. You like this girl!”
Travis still didn’t say anything. He wasn’t going to admit to anything. Especially not the way his heart squeezed at just the mention of her name.
It didn’t mean anything.
The bar was huge and swanky. It def
initely wasn’t a place that Travis would go to on his own. In fact, he didn’t think it was a place he would be allowed into if it weren’t for this work event.
He was glad he dressed up.
“Maybe we should just skip this,” Cyrus said. Travis almost laughed in his face.
“We’re going in,” Travis said.
*****
Jasmine let herself out early.
There wasn’t even a question about it. She needed to go home and change. She needed to get her game face on.
It was party time.
She had gone through five different outfits before she settled on the perfect one. This was a happy hour so she didn’t want to go over the top but she did want to wear something that would make the boys stare.
They were mostly all white people so it was a no-brainer that she was going to show off her ass. These hip hugging jeans did the trick. Her ass popped out the back like a pair of juicy cantaloupes. If she weren’t the owner of this ass, even she would be staring at it all the way down the street.
They were Jasmine’s favorite pair of jeans.
She paired that with a bright crop top with lots of criss-cross straps in the back and over the top of her cleavage, creating a map of seduction that would be dangerous to cross.
She wondered if anyone would dare.
This time, Jasmine decided to go blonde because blondes have more fun. Especially when they are black girls trying to shock their white co-workers.
She grinned as she fitted the blonde curly wig on her head. The makeup came next. She went with bold and sexy, painting her mouth a deep, sexy blood red.
Perfect.
Jasmine was the first to arrive. Of course, it was her party. She walked into the bar, looking around. Her friend had it reserved so nobody was there. The bar was classy. Inside there was a large wrap around bar with glowing bottles of top shelf liquor settled behind the bar in a big, flashy display.
“What do you think?” Kent said. He was the bartender. She watched him clean a few wine glasses and put them aside. The bar was full of smooth music. The atmosphere was chill and sophisticated. She had to admit that she liked it a lot.
“Just make sure you keep the drinks coming,” Jasmine said.
Seven came and went. Jasmine sat at the bar, her long, shapely legs stretched out in front her, tight and taut with the high heels she was wearing. The heels were bright red, just like her lipstick.
A power color.
Jasmine looked to the left as the door opened. Two people walked in. She recognized one of them immediately. He was one of the nerds in IT. In fact, he hadn’t even bothered to change. He was still wearing the same lame outfit as earlier that day. Jasmine wrinkled her nose a little. But to be fair, she invited everyone. Besides, he invited someone cute. Who was his friend anyway?
Then her jaw dropped.
It was that guy she was always flirting with. Only he didn’t look anything like how he looked in the office.
First of all, he was wearing real clothes. Nice, close-fitting jeans, a shirt that she could just rip open if she wanted. His hair wasn’t flopping everywhere. It seemed to have purpose. Even his sneakers were cool.
Jasmine sat up on her bar stool. Well, this was interesting already.
“Hey boys,” she called. “What brings you over here?”
The IT guys wandered over. The badly dressed one looked nervous.
“Are we early?” he asked, fiddling with the bottom of his shirt.
“Yeah. Everyone knows that the cool people come late. I guess you guys just aren’t that cool.”
“And what does that make you?” the other one asked. The good looking guy that could make her smile.
Jasmine just winked.
About an hour later, even Jasmine was impressed.
Everyone was there. She meant everyone. The president of the company down to the janitors. They were talking, mingling, some people were even dancing. It was interesting seeing her stuffy co-workers out of their natural habitat. Jasmine made the rounds, talking to everyone, touching the men on the chest and giving the women certain looks that they could interpret as they wished. She was honestly surprised at how many people seemed to be having a good time. It looked like Jasmine had just shook up their world, but they were enjoying the ride.
Jasmine loved to do that sort of thing.
But who was going to shake up her world? She wasn’t sure. She scoped out everyone as she talked to them, trying to find one interesting person. Someone who was truly interesting and made her want to think more about them. But those people were in short supply. She needed a challenge. She needed someone who kept her on her toes.
He kept catching her eye.
She didn’t even know why. It wasn’t like that IT guy was the best looking guy in the room. There were the Pharm Bots for that. She’d heard all the nicknames. Those sales guys looked like Ken dolls. If it was about straight sex, she’d go to them.
No, it was more about the challenge. And that's why her eyes kept wandering. She felt a pull there. Something she’d never felt before. But she couldn’t understand it.
Not yet anyway.
The party was still going strong even after eight o’clock. Jasmine hadn’t expected most of them to last that long. After all, they had to work the next day. But no one was making a move to leave. They seemed to be enjoying the drinks and the atmosphere. Jasmine knew she needed to take advantage.
And do something a little crazy.
There wasn’t a stage but there was a DJ booth. Jasmine went there, standing up and getting on the mic.
“Hello?” she said, grinning down at all of them below. She loved being the center of attention. “Thank you for coming tonight. You know, I really didn’t think anyone would show up. You’re all a bunch of stiffs, too caught up in your cliques and your own ass to see what’s going on around you. But everyone here seems to have loosened up some so give yourself a round of applause!”
Jasmine grinned at the smattering of confused applause. She was about to launch into the rest of her speech when there was some confused murmuring. Jasmine looked around, confused. Then she saw it.
The IT guy was coming straight for her.
Literally, he was coming to join her. He climbed up the stairs. He walked up to the DJ podium. He stood next to her, impossibly close. He took the mic.
Jasmine stared at him.
“Hi,” he said. His voice shook and it echoed over the sound system. “I’m… Travis. And…” Travis glanced out over the party with his curly hair and seemed to gulp.
Jasmine continued to stare. Who did he think he was?
“Well,” Travis continued. “I have had… my eye on you for a long time, Jasmine. I think you’re… gorgeous and different. I want to get to know you better. So I was wondering if…” Travis paused to take a deep breath. “If you… would consider… going out on a date with me.”
Jasmine coughed. The crowd around them seemed to go instantly silent.
And he was staring at her. Travis. Staring and waiting with thinly veiled terror behind his eyes.
What was he so afraid of, anyway?
So she did what any one in her situation would do.
Anyone who was her, at least.
She grabbed him. And she kissed him.
*****
Travis definitely wasn’t expecting this. First, her mouth against his. And then her tongue in his mouth.
He didn’t know what to think.
They were kissing. In front of everyone.
Her hand gripped his bicep and her other hand was on the back of his head, pulling him into her. He was taller than her, but only by a little bit and she closed the gap all by herself.
He dropped the mic as she pressed her body against him. It got trapped between them, the hard butt of it digging into his thigh. Her tongue forced its way inside his mouth, parting his lips and assaulting his tongue with a force he thought was reserved for hurricanes. Travis thought she might choke him with this kiss. S
uffocate him until there was nothing left. Suck him dry and leave his body in a dried husk, right on that stage.
For some reason, that made him so hot.
He could feel it rising, unbidden, right there. Jasmine’s mouth was all over his. She was kissing him in a way he had never experienced before. So feral, so raw, right there in front of everyone, clutching at him, bumping her hips against him, her breasts pressing against his chest.
Oh yeah, this was not a good situation.
Then, just as abruptly as it started, Jasmine pulled away. Travis stumbled back, the mic continuing its descent to the floor in a whine of feedback. Everyone wince and gasped, stepping back. Jasmine bent over, picking up the mic calmly and bringing it to her lips. She stared Travis straight in the eyes.
“Yes,” she said.
That’s when he knew he was in a world of trouble.
And he liked it.
###
“Wow,” Cyrus said.
Cyrus and Eddie had just been standing at his desk for the past thirty minutes, simply staring at him. Travis wondered if this was what it was like to be famous. He couldn’t get any work done. They were staring and his mouth sort of hurt.
He kept replaying the kiss in his mind over and over again.
He couldn’t stop it from running like a movie. It was like something he’d recorded and it cut off half-way through the film.
He wanted to know what happened next.
“So… did you plan this date?” Eddie asked. He’d been there but he didn’t seem to believe it happened either. “Have there been any developments?”
“It happened ten hours ago,” Cyrus said. “Chill, Eddie. But… have there been any developments?”
Travis was about to shake his head. Then he noticed Jasmine out of the corner of his eye.
Last night she had been in super tight jeans, this top that made her breasts pop and she had this curly blonde wig that was more Beyoncé than Dolly Parton. Today she was wearing a pant suit that made her seem even more intimidating than usual. Her hair was a short cut, lying flat against her head, dark with red highlights. But her lipstick was the same. Bright red lipstick.
