In the Flesh

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“Graham, I’d like to introduce you to Tracey, she’s the new Andrew,” Malcolm, Graham’s boss smiled.

Graham looked at the woman with a perfect nose and a small crescent moon tattoo on her arm.
“Tracey with an ‘e’” Tracey said, holding out her hand out and smiling.
Graham knew full well it was Tracey with an ‘e’, He also knew that she liked horses, liked dancing and didn’t like short, middle-aged men call Graham.
He knew all this because he’d sent a message to Tracey with an ‘e’ on Match.com just three days ago, and had got a rather snotty, you are not what I am looking for reply.
If Tracey recognised him, then she was not showing it. He took her hand and shook it lightly and then returned to his computer screen showing her the kind of interest she’d shown him online.  Malcolm whisked Tracey away for the rest of her guided tour.  As she walked away Graham noticed she had a star tattoo behind her ear. The stupid cow was like a walking baby mobile. As he watch her shapely figure walk away, he hoped he’d have little to do with Tracey with an ‘e’.

But Malcolm had other ideas.

“Graham, I thought as you’re our best senior forecast analyst you could show Tracey her the ropes,” Malcolm said, just after lunch. Graham had no choice.
Graham wanted to hate Tracey, he really wanted to, but it was impossible. She was exactly what her online profile described her as; bubbly, friend, funny, cute.

She brought colour to the office. But most of all she was flirtatious. She touched his arm when she said thanks, she kept eye contact for just a moment too long and she started calling him Grey. I bet there’s fifty shades of you, she’d joked.  He wanted to hate her but instead he was kind of falling for her. Why had she rejected him? Had they met on a date, they could have had this kind of fun in life and not just work.

Graham looked at his watch. Still only four pm. It was one of those days that was dragging by. He looked up at Tracey; she was lost in a thought, her hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun, her glasses slipping off her nose and a pen in her mouth. She looked adorable. Adorable, but not interested in short middle-aged men called Graham.

She looked up and smiled. Damn, she’d caught him staring at him.

“Hey,” she said. He was worried she was going tell him off. “Why don’t me and you go for a drink this evening.” She pushed her glasses up her nose.

Graham’s head went spinning. Now was his chance for revenge.
You are not what I am looking for, he thought. “I’d love to,” he said. But now he had one problem, should he tell her she’d rejected him on the dating website.