Paul hated Sharon. She was the bane of his existence in this office, the person who caused him more trouble than the rest of the company combined. She always thought she was right and was never shy about letting him know. Whenever she had a problem with his team, she came straight to him and complained. Then she would pull at him constantly like a mad dog, until the issue was resolved. Through experience, Paul knew she was wrong a lot more than she was right, but explaining numbers and justifying where they came from could be a time-consuming and painful process, which made every problem Sharon reported torturous. The fact that she was wrong so often did nothing to ease Paul's pain.
Today she stood in front of his desk and complained about a series of errors in a report she was waving at him. She was tall and slim with a figure that she kept hidden in airy business suits with dull colors. Her face, while not at all ugly, was nearly always framed in a stressed and disgruntled look that encouraged everyone to look away, lest they encounter her wrath.
There seemed nothing to Sharon but her job and Paul was not interested in finding out if that was indeed the case. He saw her from behind one day when they were having an office move. She wore tight jeans that showed off her attractive rear and her flowing brown hair was loose around her shoulders, rather than tied up and pulled away from her face. For a few seconds Paul wondered who the attractive new addition to staff was... a few seconds that were promptly forgotten when he saw who the figure actually belonged to.
"There have been at least twelve errors reported with this in the last month." Sharon barked at him. There was a seat in front of his desk she could've taken, but she chose to stand and look down at him.
"You're exaggerating again." Paul shook his head and sighed, this was entirely normal for her. ""There can't have been more than three."
"Bet you anything you like there are more than ten." She was defiant. "I placed calls on every one of them. Check your system."
"Bet you anything you like there are less than five." Paul just wanted to be rid of her. "Name your bet." He started to tap at his keyboard to check.
"You can buy me dinner."
The words hung out in the air for several seconds while Paul typed. He didn't comprehend them at first, but as they seeped through his brain he looked up at her in amazement. "That's a no-win bet for me." His brow furrowed and he exhaled. "Whatever." He already intended this bet to be one he didn't collect on when he won it.
His own system betrayed him. He looked at the list on the screen, counting the lines with a growing dread. "Fourteen."
"You owe me dinner." Sharon smirked, already leaving the office as though she sensed he might throw something at her. "And Paul, get those errors fixed, will you?"
*****
He thought she had forgotten. He wanted to forget, but the awful prospect of sitting across the dinner table from Sharon haunted him. After a couple of months without a mention of the bet Paul was feeling at least a little better about it. Mmaybe Sharon really had let it slip from her mind? He should have known though—she never forgot anything.
In the end, she called in the bet when they were at a week-long offsite strategy session. They were representing their division at the session, held at a hotel downtown. The schedule was punishing, long days, pre-arranged dinner and bed. For three days Paul hadn't been outside the hotel.
"Thank God that day's over." Paul closed his notebook and sighed.
"You joining us tonight Paul?" A colleague from the West Coast asked.
"Not tonight." He rubbed his tired face with his hands. "I can't face hotel food again, and I'm worn out from all the shop-talk. Thought I might just take a walk and have an early night,"
As the others wandered off Paul packed away his laptop and papers and sensed the arrival of someone else at his side. "If you're not eating in the hotel tonight I guess that means you could buy me the dinner you owe me."
He looked up to see a familiar smirk on Sharon's face. His mind spun with reasons to get out of it, but in the end he reasoned that he might as well get it over with. After all, at least he could put dinner tonight down to a business expense, sweetening the prospect just a little. He responded, "Sure." trying not to sound as grudging as the concession was.
*****
It surprised him when she chose only a moderately expensive Italian restaurant as he was sure it was her intention to extract every ounce of pain she could from the evening. They walked from the hotel and talked a little about the content of the week's meetings.
"No more business, okay?" Sharon insisted as she raised her wine glass to her lips for the first time. "I think we could both use an hour or two off this week."
Paul wasn't about to disagree with that sentiment. He tried hard to keep the conversation going but that was a tough task considering how much he disliked Sharon. As she talked, he did take a few moments to notice her casual appearance—her hair down and features softer than they were in the office. It wasn't like she was unattractive. She just had an annoying habit of rubbing people up the wrong way with her abrasive manner.
As she told him about her last vacation to Aruba, Paul found himself not really listening, but watching her lips move sensuously, exposing her teeth as she smiled. He noticed that she had boobs for the first time. They weren't large by any means, but they did look inviting as they pressed against her shirt. He thought back to the day she had been in the office wearing jeans and wondered why he hadn't noticed more good things about her before now.
Sharon's voice was softer than he was used to as she described some of the books she'd read on the beach, the sunset photographs she'd taken and how she'd learned to scuba dive. It was something he'd never seen in her before now, and helped him start to actually enjoy the evening.
"So," Sharon smiled knowingly at Paul, "how bad has losing your bet with me been?"
