#also i claim godparent dibs this is non-negotiable

[hailqiqi]

Sunshine and Phone Lines

I’m not dead!  I wasn’t going to write anything for Valentine’s this year (apart from a gift fic from last year) but then someone was talking about a real life situation and...tada! My first AU was born.

1,291 words of pointless fluff.

Dedicated to @cgf-kat. She knows why.

BTW, this is what my fics and titles look like when I’ve had no beta help or title help whatsoever, and only a vague notion of a fic with no ending in mind. Just a warning.

One…

Was the drumming of her fingertips on her desk bothering Nadia? A quick peek showed it wasn’t. Good. Then she could focus on trying not to bite her lip and being, y’know, normal.

Two…

For crying out loud. Her breath was in her throat, her heart was racing, and her deodorant was fighting a losing battle as the seconds dragged on. Why?!

Three…

What was taking him so long?

At twenty-five, she was way too old for this. All this heart-pounding, weak-kneed, teenage bull could go back to high school where it belonged. Katie was a professional, dammit.

Four…

She’d never even met the guy. All she had to go on was his stupid voice and it wasn’t like it was particularly sexy. Now, if he’d sounded more like Matt Mercer, Katie would be more okay with it, and at least—

“Good afternoon, Precision Assay, Accounts Division. Lance speaking.”

She did not squeak, though Nadia raised an eyebrow at the sound of her chair hitting the desk.

“Good afternoon! This is Katie from Altea R&D, how are you?”

“Katie!” The professionalism in his tone melted immediately into something that warmed her cheeks and had her sitting up straighter. “I’m doing great! Better now I’ve heard your lovely voice. How are things with you?”

“Good, good!” she replied, leaning back as the butterflies cartwheeled through her stomach. “It’s uh…—” her eyes flicked to the window across the room— “it’s nice weather we’ve been having!”

A snort from her deskmate, and Katie wanted to die. Nice weather? What the heck am I, fifty? No, even fifty-year-olds have more game than that.

Lance chuckled. “Yeah, it’s nice not to be freezing to death in February for once.”

“Right!” she agreed, much too enthusiastically, then immediately lowered her forehead to her desk as quietly as she could. What the heck was she doing?

An awkward silence followed, and Katie prayed briefly for the weather to turn so she could freeze to death on the walk home. Anything to help her forget this stupid, stupid—

“So, uh, how can I help you? Not that I don’t mind you calling to talk about the weather, but…”

“Oh! Oh, right!” Right, she was a research lead with a schedule and requirements and was calling for a reason other than talking to the stupid friendly guy from accounts. Lance waited patiently as she took a deep breath to centre herself (he was probably used to it. Ugh. He must have thought she was the world’s biggest airhead), and Katie was impressed with her professional tone when she finally spoke.

“I was just calling to inquire about our last order for the radiation chromometer. Do you have a confirmed dispatch date that you can give me?”

See? I’m an adult. Look at me being all business and not a stupid teenager with a crush.

Lance’s reply was equally business-like.

“I believe we do, but I’ll need to double-check. Hold on a moment…” The sound of tapping travelled down the line. “Ah, here we go! Everything’s confirmed on our end; you’re scheduled to receive it on the 14th February. Valentine’s Day!” He laughed, and Katie smiled weakly, even though he wouldn’t see it. “I’ll put a note for the delivery driver to call you once they’ve left the depot, so we won’t have a repeat of last time. Unless you’re taking that day off...?”

“No, no, I’ll be here,” she answered quickly, waving a hand at the phone. “It’s not like I have anything better to do.”

There was that blind date Hunk had set her up on with one of his friends, but she had half a mind to cancel anyway. He was probably some buff guy in a suit who sounded like Matt Mercer and Katie apparently only liked ridiculously hot men who were way too old for her (and gay) or faceless phone guys who used emojis in their business emails and sounded like they huffed helium on a daily basis.

(Apart from that one time in the morning where his voice had been all gruff and husky and oh my God—)

“So, uh,” Lance started, thankfully cutting in before she could go too far down memory lane, “I know it’s really unprofessional, and please don’t feel like you have any obligation to say yes, but, um, if you’re not doing anything that night, would you mind, uh…”

He trailed off, voice hesitant, and the realisation hit Katie like a tonne of bricks.

“Are you asking me out on a date?”

Her stunned whisper was met with a shriek from across the table.

“Oh my God, is your phone crush asking you out on a date?! No way!”

Her gaze whipped up, cheeks burning, only to find her co-worker leaning across her desk, screen pushed aside and eyes bright with glee as she unashamedly focused all of her attention on Katie’s conversation.

“Phone crush, huh?” Lance chuckled low, drawing her attention back to the phone. There was an unfamiliar smoothness to his tone, and Katie frowned. “Well if that’s the case, shouldn’t you be asking me?”

She really wanted to throttle Nadia. “I will hang up on you, Lance.”

“No! No, don’t do that!” Panic shot through his voice and she had to bite back a laugh. “But does that mean you’ll say yes? Because I gotta admit I’d really like to get to know the woman behind the snarky wit and clever e-mails.”

“Snarky wit and clever e-mails, huh?” Katie repeated, unable to keep the smile from her features. “I mean, I was meant to go out on a blind date—”

“—Oh, me too—”

“—but if it’s between a guy I don’t know or a guy I’ve never met but who’s e-mails always make me smile, I’d rather take the latter.”

“Yeah?”

Katie could hear the smile in his voice and it made her duck her head, cheeks warming. “Yeah.”

“Great! Great! So um, I guess I better give you my actual number…”

 -----

 Twenty minutes later and it turned out that Lance used more emojis in his text than in his emails and was, in fact, a decently buff guy in a suit (helium-huffing notwithstanding). Even Nadia had approved, and had taken it upon herself to help Katie pick a decent photo to send back when Katie’s phone buzzed again.

Nadia made a sound of delight and Katie lunged for the phone, swearing when the older woman side-stepped just out of her reach. “Ah-hah-hah, let’s see what Loverboy has sent… Aww, it’s from some guy named Hunk.”

Katie blinked. “Hunk? What does he say?”

“Sorry Pidge — who the heck is Pidge? — but my friend just cancelled for V-Day. I’ll see if I can set you guys up next time, and if you don’t have a date I’ll make you dinner for Galentine’s Day, ok?”

“Oh,” Katie said, letting out a sigh of relief. “Good, that means I don’t have to think of an excuse to cancel.”

She gestured for the phone and Nadia handed it over, rolling her eyes as she said, “Still. Don’t you feel like you got dumped?”

“By a guy I haven’t even met?” she asked, tabbing back to Lance’s texts, selecting the photo and hitting ‘Send’.

“Yeah! You should be cancelling on him, not the other way round.”

“It doesn’t bother me.” Her phone buzzed with his reply: can’t decide if u’re cute or beautiful or sexy or all 3. Can’t wait to meet u, either way.

Lance was cheesy, dorky and was definitely not a master of written communication, but none of that could stop the smile from stealing across her face as she re-read their short conversation. “I like the one I’ve got.”