"Skittle-toes? SKITTLE-TOES?" Katie stood at the entrance to my cubicle, indignant.
It was my own fault. At the office happy hour last Friday, I had one beer too many, and jokingly told "Loose-Cannon Ken" about my secret nickname for Katie. I had no-one to blame but myself for saying something like that to a blabbermouth like Ken.
It was next Monday evening, and the office was almost empty, except for me, and apparently, Katie. "Um. You see," I tried to explain. I was flustered. I had spent the day hoping that perhaps Ken hadn't said anything, but obviously he had.
"I didn't mean," I babbled, pausing to stare at my office-renowned jar full of Skittles, "... Well, you call me Skittle-man, right? Skittle-toes was just a term of endearment! Skittles are great, right?" People really did call me the Skittle-man. Sometimes I even thought people only talked to me because they wanted Skittles.
Katie was a petite natural blonde, five feet tall, with adorably tiny feet. And most days, she wore the cutest strappy-style mule shoes, four straps covering just the bridge of her foot, leaving her slender ankles and toes fully exposed. And her nail polish colors always matched up with a Skittles color. Red most of the time, but sometimes purple, and occasionally playful shades of green, orange, or even yellow to match her outfit. This week had been red, and I involuntarily glanced at her feet and toes for a moment.
I had also been in love with her from the moment we started working together two years ago, but the circumstances were never right. Plus, our relationship based on constant good-natured bickering was so perfect, I didn't want to ruin it either.
It was several awkward seconds of glaring, before I noticed a smirk forming at the side of her mouth. She said, as she often did with pauses between each syllable, "You're dis-gus-ting!"
I shrugged in agreement. Relieved and emboldened, I looked over to my jar of Skittles, reached out and opened it, and pulled out four or five red ones. I took one skittle, leaned down and forward to her foot, and put it next to her middle toe. The nail was almost the exact same size as the skittle, and the colors matched perfectly too.
"Skittle... Toe...." I added my own inter-syllabic pause for effect, as I jokingly glared back at her.