Throwing Shade: A Romantic Holiday Story Read online

Throwing Shade:

  A Romantic Short Story

  By Rusty Fischer, author of Christmas in Snowflake

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  Throwing Shade

  Rusty Fischer

  Copyright 2015 by Rusty Fischer

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  This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Cover credit: © ysbrandcosijn – Fotolia.com

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  Author’s Note:

  The following is a FREE short story edited by the author himself. If you see any glaring mistakes, I apologize in advance and hope you don’t take it out on my poor characters, who had nothing to do with their author’s bad grammar!

  Happy reading… and Happy Holidays!

  Enjoy!

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  Throwing Shade:

  A Romantic Short Story

  I stumble into the copy room, nostrils flaring. No one is ever in the copy room. My face is flushed, my knuckles white around the handle of my stupid retro boom box.

  I want to throw it at someone – or, better yet, conk Larry Sinclair over the head with it. But it looks so good with my sexy 80s costume, and cost so much, it’s just not worth it.

  Especially now.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  There’s a guy sitting at the work station between the copy machine and the supply closet. He’s wearing an ill-fitting tuxedo shirt under a white sports coat, the collar popped, and black sunglasses. Very retro, very cheesy, very Miami Vice.

  He must be new; I’ve never seen him before.

  “And a Merry Christmas to you, too,” he says, hoisting a bottle of something neon green. I peer more closely at the stick-on label and it says “80s Gravy” on the side.

  Cute; real cute.

  “Sorry,” I grunt, leaning against the giant copy machine. It takes up half the room and is nearly as big as my couch back home. “I just…”

  I sigh, looking into the bottom of my red party cup. “Can I…” I whine, holding it out to him.

  He grins beneath his big black retro sunglasses, and clutches the bottle to his stupid vest T-shirt.

  “Come on,” I whine some more; it usually does the trick. “Just a little. You’ve got half a bottle there.”

  He grins and pours a few fingers inside my cup before topping off his own. I hold mine up to toast and, begrudgingly, he clinks his plastic cup with mine. “Happy Holidays,” he mutters.

  “Yeah, right,” I murmur back, taking a sip. I smile. His stupid “80s Gravy” is just pre-made margarita, store bought. Still, it’s pretty good.

  We sit, hearing “Jingle Bells” on repeat as the office Christmas party rages on outside. Because sexy elf and Mrs. Santa Claus costumes apparently aren’t good enough for Holiday Hannah’s, we have a theme every year. This year? It’s “An 80s Retro New Wave Holiday.”

  I look across the table at him, admiring his getup. “Are you… wearing your girlfriend’s shirt?”

  He snorts, nearly spitting up his margarita mix. “No, no,” he murmurs, looking down at himself. “I… I kind of didn’t realize the office Christmas party would be such a big deal.”

  Now it’s my turn to snort. “You work in the corporate offices of Holiday Hannah’s Themed Fun Time Emporium and you didn’t think the office Christmas party would be ‘such a big deal’?”

  “Okay, okay,” he shrugs, tugging down on his ridiculous shirt even as a blush rises to his young cheeks. “I’m just saying, I showed up this morning and saw all the elaborate 80s costumes and figured it was just the usual butt kissers who went all out. But by lunchtime when I saw everybody decked out in their 80s finest, I figured I better get with the program. So instead of eating I ran to the nearest thrift store and bought the first 80s stuff I could find…”

  His voice trails off and he tugs at his medium-size shirt and readjusts his sunglasses. “Unless I wanted to wear a leotard and leg warmers over my slacks, this was pretty much it.”

  I chuckle. “I just thought maybe you were one of those dudes who still shops in the Boys’ Department.”

  He shakes his head, but says no more on the subject. I don’t, either. After all, I have bigger fish to fry.

  “Who are you hiding from, anyway?” I ask, setting my plastic boom box on top of the giant copier.

  He shrugs, the movement dragging his too-small T-shirt up above the waist of his pleated khaki slacks. I arch one eyebrow appreciatively at the flat, hairless tummy beneath.

  “No one in particular,” he sighs, avoiding my eyes.

  “Consider yourself lucky,” I harrumph. “At least your boyfriend didn’t just embarrass you in front of the whole office.”

  “Your boyfriend?” he harrumphs back, adjusting the shoulder pads in his rumpled jacket. “Didn’t you two just start dating?”

  I put my cup down and stare back at him. He’s tall, even sitting down, lean and wiry in the too-tight shirt. Behind those stupid glasses it’s hard to see if he’s young or old, and in the bright copy room light they throw a shadow over most of his face. I can’t tell if he works here in some department I just never deal with, or if he’s somebody’s date, or what.

  “Do I… know you?”

  He makes a clucking sound and reaches for his glass, drinking instead of answering. When he goes to refill it, he tops off both our plastic cups without being asked.

  So there’s that.

  “I guess not,” he sighs, taking a long, slow sip. His fingers are long and pale around the cup, the kind of fingers I like clasped inside my own. “I mean, we’ve only worked on, like, six seasonal menus together.”

  I rack my brain. There are so many designers here now, but surely not that many. “Cal?” I ask, already shaking my head before he does. “No, he’s the fat one.”

  He makes another “pfft” noise and says, “Before you go through the whole Art department, I’m Hardy. Hardy Fink.”

  “Hfink!” I cry, slamming my cup down so that some 80s Gravy sloshes over the top. “I know you now.”

  “What?” he asks, looking slightly confused.

  “Your email address, here at work,” I explain. “It starts with ‘Hfink’. It always makes me smile every time I see it.”

  He frowns beneath his sunglasses. “I’m glad my misfortunate name can bring you such glee,” he sighs.

  I snort a little. “I just think it’s funny,” I say.

  “So did all the girls in high school,” he admits, tugging uncomfortably on the collar of his tuxedo T-shirt, Rodney Dangerfield style. “And in college. And, apparently, here at work, too.”

  I lean back in my chair, the party soundtrack drifting from “Jingle Bells” to “White Christmas” in the distant background. “Not much luck with the ladies, huh?”

  He shrugs. “Enough,” he sighs. “I guess.”

  I look him over again. Tall and on the thin side, cute in a geeky kind of way, especially with the shirt hugging his broad shoulders and narrow waist, like a big kid who’s outgrown his little kid clothes.

  “How come we’ve never met before?” I ask him, sipping more of his watered down margarita.

  “Oh my God,” he grunts, putting his cup down, considering it, then picking it up and taking a swig before slamming it back down. “We’ve met, like… nine times.”

  “Where?”

  “You really want to know?” he asks, waving his hands in the air dramatically. When I nod he says, tapping his finger on the table for emphasis with each meeting, “The first time was in your cubicle, on that fall dessert menu. The second time
was down in the break room, but you were busy flirting with Chuck Grossman—”

  “From Accounting?” I interrupt, doing an internal groan. What a creep that guy turned out to be!

  “The third time was in your cubicle,” he goes on, ignoring me, “but you were talking to Sally Jensen about what a creep Chuck Grossman turned out to be. The fourth time was… need I go on?”

  I nod, emphatically. This is kind of exciting, like solving a mystery I didn’t even know I was reading.

  “Yeah,” I say, crossing my legs and leaning forward like I do when I get a little turned on. “I’m kind of liking this.”

  “Oh God,” he groans before continuing. “The fifth time was in the employee parking lot last winter, when your windshield got frosted over but you didn’t have an ice scraper. The sixth was when you missed the deadline editing that special holiday menu insert and I had to wait until midnight to convert the files, the seventh was on Valentine’s Day, the eighth was during the employee picnic this summer and the ninth was in the elevator just before Thanksgiving weekend.”

  My heart is pounding a little and, with a hoarse throat I croak, “Harvey, I’m sorry. I just…