Laura waited her turn on the queue, slowly getting irritated.

This queue is so slow. Damn I hate banks. I wish I could do everything online. Now I am going to be wasting precious time waiting. Waiting to change my damn Internet password. That old lady has been at the counter for so long. What the hell does she want? And anyway, how come they only have one person working the inquiries counter at this time? Ehm, I guess there is nothing I can do except wait. It does not help that this lady behind me thinks I’m her therapist. I wish she could shut up. Maybe I should take out my phone and pretend to be busy. What a chatterbox!

“You see dear, I really don’t know what to do with him anymore,” the chatterbox behind her continued. Laura was not sure who she was talking about anymore. And she did not care. She just wanted to be over and done with this, so that she could be able to go back to work.

“What do you think I should do, I mean if you were in my position,” continued the chatterbox.

“Oh, that’s a tough one. I wouldn’t know what to do,” Laura answered back. She thought it was a generic enough answer, whatever the lady was talking about, it would be applicable.

“You see. Now my son thinks…” the chatterbox continued but Laura switched off. She looked over at the other queue, which at least looked like it was moving. A tall, dark and good looking gentleman caught her eye. Oh, look at that. He looks so handsome. I wonder if he is married or in a committed relationship, she was thinking to herself. The gentleman turned, and her eyes locked with Laura’s. Laura was about to divert her eyes in embarrassment. She had been caught drooling.

“Oh God,” she said out loud. The chatterbox assumed Laura was responding to her story.

“Exactly, I also thought oh God not again,” she said and continued talking.

Laura was not listening to her. She was busy flirting with her new discovery on the other queue. The gentleman smiled at her. She smiled back and looked down, blushing.

Oh God, this is so embarrassing. He caught me staring! Oh well, whatever. With the way he looks I am sure he is used to women throwing themselves at him all the time, she consoled herself.

She tried to turn her attention to the chatterbox, who was still going on and on about her alcoholic husband, or was it an alcoholic son? It did not matter to Laura.

The queue moved a few more inches. The old lady who was being helped at the counter had finished. About time! thought Laura. Hopefully that young man will not take the whole morning! In the meantime, I will keep myself busy with the Mr Eye Candy over there.

Laura’s focus shifted to the other queue again. But this time, it was Mr Eye Candy who was caught in the act. He had been checking Laura out. He did not try to look away, but rather, his mouth formed a slight smile as his eyes met Laura’s. His queue had moved, but he was still rooted in the same spot, gazing at Laura. The matronly-looking woman behind him poked him in the ribs to move forward. He in turn gave Laura a huge smile, raising his eye-brow and his shoulder as if to say “I don’t know what’s happening to me.” As he did Laura couldn’t help but chuckle.

“I’m glad you find this funny, but I don’t,” said the chatterbox. She was still under the impression that she had Laura’s attention.

Laura couldn’t help wondering, what is his name? Where does he work? Married? Children? Maybe he is single, and is looking for a serious relationship. He wouldn’t be flirting with me if he was happily married would he? I wonder how his voice sounds.

She started analysing his clothes. One of her friends had once told her that “If you want to know if a man has style, check his shoes and his belt my friend. You will never go wrong!” So Laura checked the shoes and the belt, mhh, not bad, she thought to herself. She could not tell if they were expensive or not, but they definitely did not look cheap.

“Now tell me, do you think I am being unfair doing that?” asked the chatterbox. Laura has no idea where the chatter box was at with her story, but she felt the appropriate thing would be to agree with her, so she said “I totally agree with you”. The chatterbox was pleased.

“Thank you! So how come nobody sees that? I mean they all…,” she went on, but Laura’s attention was gone.

The queue moved a little bit more. Two more people had already been helped, and Laura did not even notice. Hmm, staring is rude, but in this case it is definitely helping. Watching that hot guy sure makes the queue move faster.

Her eyes went back to the object of her affection. He reminds me of Taye Diggs. Yeah, he really does. Look at those biceps. And that shirt, I am sure underneath it is a well toned, well defined six pack. How come I have never gone out with a man who has a six pack?

“Wow,” she said out loud as Mr Eye Candy looked at her and flashed her smile.

“I’m telling you, I am not lying. His whole salary gone, on booze.” The chatterbox thought Laura’s “wow” was her disbelief at her irresponsible son.

Laura mind shifted to her past relationships. She did not consider herself a perfectionist, but like everybody else, she had her peeves. She absolutely hated people who had no respect for time. Like Steve. God that relationship was a drag. I spent most of the time practically waiting for him. He would be like, babe, I’ll be there in five minutes, and an hour later I would still be waiting for him. Actually, it was a miracle that relationship lasted as long as it did. I wonder if Mr Eye Candy over there treats time like a precious commodity that it is.

The straw that broke the camel’s back in her and Steve’s relationship, was when Laura had invited him to go with her to her cousin’s wedding. He knew how important it was to Laura that they should be there and seated for the start of the wedding ceremony. Laura had even asked him to sleep over so that he did not have to drive over from his place in the morning. He had refused, and as he left, he had kissed her on the cheek and assured her that he will be there first thing in the morning. The following morning, Laura was ready to go and there was no Steve. Laura spent exactly thirty minutes, asking herself if she was prepared to share her life with someone who would be late for the most important moments in her life. It did not take her long to know that it was not what she wanted. She immediately left and made it just in time for the wedding ceremony.

“Are you even listening to me?” said the chatterbox, poking Laura on the side.

“Oh I’m sorry; I was just thinking that I have wasted the whole morning standing on a queue!” She sounded apologetic but she really was in no mood to listen to the family saga about people she did not even know.

“I was saying…,” continued the chatterbox, as Laura’s mind drifted away again.

She checked over at Mr Eye Candy, trying to avoid being noticed. It did not work as their eyes met, as if on cue, and they both looked away, pretending they were not checking each other out again. Laura could feel a warm and fuzzy feeling inside, something she had not felt in a while. The last time she felt like that was when she was first introduced to John by one of her friends. John was an environmentalist. He believed in recycling and conservation and all that stuff that the greenies believed in. Charmed by what she thought was John’s caring nature, she had fell for him. She was touched when he talked passionately about “thinking of the future generation and make sure we leave something for them”.

Only Laura did not know that his conservation ideas extended to bath time. She found out by chance when they spent their first weekend together. John had arrived on Friday smelling all clean and fresh.

Saturday morning, Laura announced that she was going to take a shower, hoping John would join her. John just pulled her into his arms and said that showering could wait. Laura thought he was being romantic. But when the morning extended to afternoon, Laura, the neat freak she was, began feeling uncomfortable. Her skin began to itch as she imagined germs and all crawling on her skin. She jumped into the shower immediately after they had their lunch, without a word to John.

They had stayed in-doors the whole day, and when evening came and John still hadn’t showered, Laura assumed he would do so before bedtime. Bedtime came and, as John got ready for bed, Laura could not keep quite any longer. “Aren’t you going to shower?” she asked.

“Reuse, REDUCE, recycle, remember?” John said, stressing “reduce”.

“What?” Laura was shocked.

“Now dear, you really don’t need to shower every day, you know. In fact research done by…” John continued to quote some obscure research about why bathing every day was not good for the skin. To Laura, cleanliness was next to godliness, so that was the end of John.

“Go on honey, move,” said the chatterbox, as the queue shifted again. Laura had not noticed that the chatterbox had stopped talking about her family issues. Her attention had been shifting between her past love life and Mr Eye Candy. She checked the Eye Candy and saw that his queue seemed to have slowed down. Good, more time for me to ogle, she thought.

“He is quite good looking isn’t he?” began the chatter box. She had noticed that Laura’s eyes had been repeatedly focusing in his direction.

“Yes I guess so,” said Laura. She felt annoyed that she could now not indulge herself because the chatter box was watching her. She decided not to stare anymore and her attention went back to her love life.

Her friends always laughed at Laura about this one, but she did not care. She couldn’t stand people “who did not speak properly,” as she liked to put it. Her friends said she was a snob since she went to a private school. “My friend if you are going to be that picky, you will stay single for the rest of your life. You are not getting any younger, you know?”

But she stood her ground. At that time, she had just told them she was breaking up with Ray. The reason? “I can’t stand the way he talks. It’s ‘Lend me a pen’, not ‘borrow me a pen’” she said.

“You are kidding right? How can you want to end a relationship because the guy does not know the difference between borrow and lend,” they laughed. But Laura was not amused.

“That’s not the only thing. He says things like ‘come wif me’. WIF!”

They all laughed. “Come on Laura. There is no master of pronunciation, right?”

“Wrong! Master or no master, it’s thirty, not fatty!” she emphasized.

“Fatty, really! Now you are exaggerating!” They had laughed some more about it.

“Did you tell him that it bothers you?” they had asked.

“Where do I start? I can’t just say hey honey, please say ‘with’ and not ‘wif’, it annoys me. I can’t do that,” she said. Nevertheless she had ended the relationship.

She was still lost in her thoughts when the chatterbox nudged her forward. “Come on now, what’s wrong? Move. You are the one who said you don’t have the whole morning.”

As she moved forward she quickly looked over at Mr Eye Candy. He was smiling at her, silently laughing at her, that she had also been caught napping on the queue. They shared a tender moment, just with their eyes, and their smiles.

Oh he has beautiful eyes. And beautiful lips. He is probably a good kisser. Oh damn, he is at the front. He will probably finish before me and then he will be gone. I will never see him again. This sucks. Let me take one last good look, she thought.

“Oh my!” she said.

“I’m telling you, you don’t want to be caught in that situation.” It was the chatter box. She had ventured on to another family saga, and was sure Laura was responding to her.

“Next,” said the teller, and Mr Eye Candy was at the teller’s counter. Laura sighed, and closed her eyes. She wanted to make sure the image of him had been burned in her memory. That she will be able to recall it later and reminisce. The eyes, the smile, the biceps, the six pack, Okay I have not seen the six pack, but I can only imagine, she smiled.

“Hi,” said a voice next to her. She opened her eyes. Her knees went weak. It was him. She tried to answer back. Her throat was dry, so she cleared it twice, and then said “Hi”. Her voice hoarse, she found herself lost in those gorgeous brown eyes. She could smell his cologne, and had to look up as he was taller than her.

He is perfect, everything that I have been looking for all my life, Laura thought.

“Look, I need to rush off somewhere, but I was wondering if you would like to, you know, have coffee sometime,” he said. Laura thought his voice was like music, some heavenly music.

“Coffee? Oh yes of course.” Laura said, her eyes locked by his, like a buck in the car’s headlight.

“I will phone you then?” He said, taking out his cell phone to take Laura’s numbers.

“Yes, that would be great”, said Laura. She was thinking he looks even better close up. And he is asking me out.

He cleared his throat, breaking Laura’s train of thought. “You are going to give me your number right?” he smiled, giving Laura the phone to enter her numbers.

Laura thought she was going to melt from the sheer heat emanating from him. She took his phone and began entering her phone numbers.

“You are quite somfing!” he said, as Laura was about to punch “Save” to save the numbers.

She paused. “Pardon?”

“Fanks for the numbers. And it’s Kennef by the way” he said looking at Laura and giving her the killer smile again.

“Laura,” and without missing a beat, Laura’s fingers started moving as she cleared the last four numbers, and replaced them with random ones.

“Will look forward to your call then,” she said giving him back the phone and smiling sweetly at him. Inside she was screaming Nooooo!

“What a good looking young man! I wish I was younger and …,” the chatterbox started. Laura was not listening. She kept thinking Why!

“Next,” said the lady at the counter, and it was Laura’s turn.

*Inspired by Poppy’s FB status!