The Plan, of course, was perfect. Sometimes, though, things just work out better in your head. Really, thinking about what she was going to do was proving to be vastly different than actually doing it. Now that it was time to actually go through with it, Elly was having second thoughts. Well, not so much second thoughts as much as just plain chickening out.
The first part of The Plan was simple. Dial the phone. No problem. She had Connor's four-digit extension posted on her wall. The first snag occurred when he actually answered the call.
"Conner," he said. That was the first flaw in The Plan. She had expected to get voice mail. The Plan included voicemail. Not an actual person. "Hello?" he said after a moment when Elly froze and forgot momentarily how to speak.
"Hey, it's Elly," she said finally in what she hoped was the super casual, relaxed voice that she was going for. "Do you mind hanging with me after work one day this week to go through this new spreadsheet that we're supposed to be filling out for our expenses? I'm just really not getting it." The words were perfectly scripted. Elly had practiced them. Connor paused a moment before he answered.
"Yeah, sure, no problem," he said finally. "How about tonight?"
"Um... tonight?" She asked. Ok. Not part of The Plan.
"Yeah, I've got some other things happening this week. Tonight works best for me."
"Um, ok, yeah. Tonight works."
"Ok, great. Just come to my office whenever you can."
"Great! See you in a bit." Elly hung up the phone. The Plan was to meet in her office. But she supposed that it was an insignificant detail in the grand scheme of things.
So, three hours later, Elly was in Connor's office, leaning over him while he was explaining each spreadsheet cell one at a time. It was time for Step 2 of The Plan. And she didn't have a lot of time. Because really, it wasn't going to take that long for Connor to explain something that she actually already knew.
"I really appreciate you helping me with this," she told him. Her hands moved to his shoulders massaging firmly at the noticeably tense muscles.
"That feels nice," he said.
"Good," she answered lightly. She continued to rub upward on his neck as he proceeded with his spreadsheet lesson, while she made interested verbals like, "uh-huh" and "ok". Her fingers circled upward, into his hairline. And then suddenly Connor stood up.
"So, you give it a try," he told her.
"Pardon?" she asked, momentarily taken aback, since she hadn't precisely been paying attention.
"Let's just make sure that you understand. You give it a try," he suggested, his hand on his shoulder, pushing her gently into the chair. His other hand pointed to the screen and he said, "So start with entering your name there..." Elly typed her own name wrong four times as his hands started to rub her shoulders. She made a lame joke about not being able to type when other people were watching her, and she really hoped that it didn't sound as stupid out loud as it did when she repeated it in her head.
Connor's hand began to move further upward, and she could feel the hairs in the small in her neck slide through his fingers.
"That feels nice," she said, repeating his words from earlier.
"Good," he told her, continuing to caress the back of her neck. And suddenly his fingers knotted her hair in his hand and he pulled her neck sharply back. It didn't hurt, but it was surprising. And weirdly, crazily, erotic.
"Did you think I wouldn't know?" he whispered, directly in her ear.