“Hmmm.” Tian nodded, not sure what that had to do with anything.
Seeing her incredibly calm was unnerving, and he realized she had a different kind of beauty when she wasn’t on the defensive. Like this, she seemed somehow approachable without her pinched and hostile aura of scary.
“You’re a weirdo.” Ling ruined the moment with the sudden statement, matter-of-factly tilting her head, and then went back to typing.
Tian genuinely laughed at how it came out of nowhere after her seemingly so serious and shook his head at her. He had expected any other kind of response and not that.
There was a moment of silence as Tian stared at her, a weird, long, strange, sudden quiet that stretched into an uncomfortable pause. Ling lifted both brows in question, wondering why he was stalling, and he finally frowned at her.
Tian dodged it, opening his mouth in a chuckle of disbelief that she would do something like that to her boss, and met an unimpressed glare of a woman as she slid her hands to her hips.
“My face seemed pretty enticing to you for other reasons that night.”
She almost dropped her bag in stunned shock at him saying these words aloud. Incensed.
“So help me god, I will maim you,” Ling warned him, hating the obvious amusement twinkling in his eye, and she was starting to think this man had a serious devil side to him. Under all that cool and statuelike blankness was a mischievous shithead who wanted to stoke her anger fire.
“Oh my fucking god, what is wrong with you.” Ling ran around the table, charging at him to get him to lower his voice, and Tian had a moment of ‘I think I should run for cover.” That crazy little hellcat coming at him made him doubt his mortality for a second, but he stood his ground.
Ling rounded on him, punching him in the shoulder with a feeble attack that Tian didn’t dodge even though he flinched away from her and covered his family jewels instead. He had expected more of a kick to the balls than an outright hit. It wasn’t hard enough to maim, and he was sure she had been rougher on him during sex.
“Fucked?” he asked in deadpan seriousness, and she slapped him in the shoulder even harder. Rage engulfed her that he would be this brazen.
“Why are you like this? What is wrong with you?” She was truly gobsmacked.
Tian peeled her claw-like grip from his jacket with an indulgent smirk and smoothly tucked her hands back down to calm the crazy wench who looked ready to murder him, yet he only found amusement in it. She was all worked up and breathless, a little wild-eyed and seething, yet he found it strangely sexy.
“The blinds are open.” He gave a wry chuckle and chin gestured to the far wall, raising a brow with a smirk, and motioned to the gawping, shocked, and immobile faces of staff standing outside staring their way, and all the blood drained from her face.
Staring back at the sea of faces that immediately jumped into action to go back to their duties, having been caught, Ling wanted the ground to open up and die. She just physically attacked her boss in front of everyone. In full view of half the temp pool and receptionists on the floor.
“I hate you.” She uttered in defeat, knowing this would spread like wildfire around the entire building in no time, and it hadn’t exactly looked like a nothing interaction between them. She had already stoked the fire with her dragging him out of the mixer that night and had heard tiny whiffs of rumors they were getting too buddy.
“If I’m going to get fired for assaulting my boss, I may as well make it worth it.” Ling turned and shoved him in the shoulder away from her with as much strength as she could muster, so he took two stumbling steps back and had to grab a chair to right himself. “I’m not even sorry.”
She stuck her tongue out in a juvenile manner and flicked her hair at him before hauling her bag back off the table in passing and storming out the door like a Queen. Sticking her chin in the air as she entered the corridor where staff were still milling, she gave him a parting glare through the glass as she marched on.
Tian watched her storm off like a madwoman, shaking his head at this crazy, annoying woman, and broke into an unguarded smile.
Qian was half staring into space as he walked back to OTS, carrying a cardboard cup carrier with four coffees in one hand and a sandwich bag in the other with various fillings. He had used collecting lunch as an excuse to get out and get some air to try and lift his funk of the past few days, but it wasn’t helping. He was listless and couldn’t focus on work this past week.