It was a cold sunny day and the clocks were striking thirteen as Jordan jogged breathlessly along the street. He could feel the phone in his ruffled white shirt pocket buzzing like the smug, annoying little fuck it was, the alarm he set being left unanswered. He already knew he was late to work, and did not feel the need to have that fact rubbed in. He could already feel the air in the office clogging up with the miasma of amusement mixed with awkwardness with a generous dollop of condescension dripping off that his colleagues would have - like the mental equivalent of putting a cake in the oven and then ignoring it for ten minutes too long.
Almost going past the back entrance to his work, Jordan snapped out of his morbid reverie and paused a moment to catch his breath. Quickly running a comb through his thick, wavy brown locks, he straightened his lopsided tie and pulled his pants up, the old leather belt groaning as it was forced back into place under his portly belly.
Almost hitting his head on the top of the door, Jordan ducked his head and wove between the two others trying to slip in. Whose fantastic idea was it to have the fucking hobbits measuring the height of the doors in Wellington, anyways? He'd only been back in the New Zealand capital for a month, and he was already missing America.
He took a moment to share a wry glance and a quick grin with the other two, as they embraced a solemn moment of camaraderie, three fallen men, defeated by time and their inability to manage it. The moment quickly ended, as Jordan strode to the quartet of elevators, drawing upon the probably-faster-but-fuck-stairs training he had been perfecting for most of his adult life.
The elevators, of course, took the longest thirty seconds of his life to crawl down to him, as he jogged impatiently on the spot like a 12 year old told he isn't allowed to go to the bathroom until the bell goes. The elevator area smelled vaguely of citrus, undoubtedly some cleaner's attempt to change it up. He could appreciate that. Gotta make the best of a bad situation, right? Jordan shook his head - he could hardly imagine anything worse than cleaning up after an entire building of entitled fucking bureaucrats like him.
The bell finally tolled as the door ground open excruciatingly slowly in front of him. He half dived into the metal box of death, and impatiently jabbed a button until a faded "three" lit up with a dull blue glow.
Gripping the swipe card around his neck like a holy talisman, Jordan zipped out of the elevator and swiped through the two security doors to his floor. The scratched black lettering on the wall read Level 3, Operations Support and Improvement.
Making the decision to rush to his desk to verify that he was only a couple of minutes late, Jordan zig-zagged through the various teams on the floor, occasionally absently nodding or waving to colleagues he knew.
His target in sight, Jordan halted his speedy entrance and adopted a casual stroll the remainder of the way - the goal of seeming like he wasn't worried about being late already half defeated by the redness lining his cheeks and the slight puffing of his complaining lungs.
He checked his phone. 8:04. DAMMIT. That means...
Of the six computer stations, two were already occupied by the early starters in his team. Kayla, the bouncy young 22 year old, fresh out of law school, poked her head up from the middle of the pod as Jordan collapsed in his chair, the groan of the overworked chair a sure sign of his arrival.
As usual, Kayla was impeccably dressed, her bright green eyes accentuated slightly with a slight tinge of golden eye shadow. She had gone with a fusion of modern and ancient clothes today, with a white Victorian shirt, patterns of white lace placing coy emphasis around her slim hips, hinting at the buried treasure of an impressively proportioned chest. He knew that this meant she was also wearing the blue "toy" skirt (her words), a long, azure number that came down to her calves, but with a long slit down one side that revealed a hint of shapely, tanned thighs, and the tantalizing hint of what he thought was a Dragon tattoo, winding its way up her thigh toward her stomach.
"Oh, thanks for getting me that file, Jordan. I'm snowed up to my tits over here!" she sang in the exaggeratedly casual sounding "kiwi" drawl.
The sense of palpable appreciation radiating from Jordan's face was clearly not lost on her, as she smiled a conspiratorial smile and winked as her face disappeared back down behind her computer screen, her shoulder-length golden-brown locks swaying behind her.
He heard a voice like the sound of hard leather hitting a loosely gravelly pavement behind him.
"Morning Jordan. Is that krampkeper file ready for review yet?"
Jordan rolled his eyes. "Yes, Graham, it's drafted and ready for proofing, but you said you wanted it peer reviewed first, remember?"
The fossil of a team manager grunted, the frown lines on his forehead reluctantly receding, allowing the bushy white eyebrows time to return to their rightful position.
No reaction to Jordan's lateness meant that the ploy worked. He rejoiced inside. He'd have to buy Kayla a coffee later.
The clatter of typing and mouse clicks was soon shattered by the hustle of the one person he knew he could rely on to be later than him - Lorelai. Jordan's eyes flicked to his screen. 8:22. Wow. Not quite the lorelai record, but a pretty good effort.
Soft blue eyes agape like they had just seen the end of days, and that end was now, because of the sheer inconvenience caused to her team by her tardiness, a frantic, gorgeous creature filled Jordan's vision for a moment. A thin grey blouse cut low enough to tiptoe the line between barely appropriate and lascivious, showing off the most perfect DD breasts Jordan had seen, combined with a freshly pressed pair of blue jeans that hugged her buxom waist and half-moon shaped booty.
Strawberry blonde hair untied, full lips coated with perfectly applied poison purple lipstick, Lorelai swept past Jordan to swoop onto the seat next to him.
"I'm so bus I'm late the sorry was delayed!" she cried, not noticing the word salad as multiple sentences came out where there could be only one.
Panicked eyes cutting back and forth between him, Kayla and quite clearly avoiding papa gram (the nickname that Kayla had worked oh so hard to make stick to Graham that one day, thus cementing The Law Of Kayla in the office), Lorelai was so fucking cute. But, at times like this, he had learned that it was better to ignore the word salad and move to reassure her.
"Hi, Lorelai. Yeah, these buses are shit. Stupid bus driver's strike; how dare those pricks and their desire for equal pay get in our way!" Jordan offered.
Clearly about to continue her panicked tirade, the words nonetheless caused lorelai's eyes to flash with anger. She was not difficult to read, as she wore her heart on her sleeve most of the time, and he knew full well the reaction his words would receive.
As she opened her mouth, a snippy reply on her lips, she saw the ironic smirk spreading across his face, and rolled her eyes at him, his barely suppressed mirth winning her over.
"Yeah, those workers that dare want enough money to feed their kids each week, how dare they?" she said, poking her tongue out at him.
The conversation earned a titter of amusement from across the pod, as Kayla tried to hide her amusement - and the fact that she was eavesdropping - and failed as usual.
Pretending not to hear, Jordan reluctantly tore his attention from lorelai. With a final scan around the pod, a quick glance enough to notice the evils that fossil gram was giving her, he popped in his phone earbuds, letting the smooth doof-doof of the vocal trance zone him out as he found the next file to work on.
At damn near the exact stroke of 9am, like clockwork, Jordan barely registered as the final member of the team drifted in. The latest starter, Bonny was by far the quietest and most reserved member of OSI.
"Oh! Bunny! I love your hair! Where did you get it done?" Jordan removed one bud as he glanced over. His turn to eavesdrop. Here we go.
Kayla was standing up, her elbows on the desk, as she looked the shy girl up and down, approval evident on her face.
Bonny (hereafter forever known as "Bunny" per the Law of Kayla) looked down, a demure smile on her face.
"Thanks Kayla, I did it myself over the weekend..." Bunny replied, her quiet voice a stark contrast to Kayla's enthusiasm.
Her normally dark brown hair, which normally hung from her hair in lazy ringlets, was shock pink today. She was wearing the typical Bunny mode of dress, with a cute white woollen sweater, neat dress jeans and red striped sneakers. Not exactly appropriate footwear for a government department, but nobody really seemed to mind.
