Alex & Jason Ch. 01

"Hello, this is Jason."

"Hey, its me," her voice greeted him from across the wire. Light and lilting, cool and comforting, soft and seductive, and a thousand other things besides, the voice on the other end of the phone was, as clichéd as it might be, the music that could soothe his savage beast.

Cradling the phone against his shoulder, Jason continued on his quest for that elusive file folder buried somewhere in the pile of a hundred identical file folders on his desk.

"Hey me," Jason said into the phone, his voice taking on that special tone that guys only used when talking to women, the same tone that Dave, Jason's best friend and cubicle-mate, liked to call "Chick Voice". Dave had long-since lost interest in teasing his friend about it - he needed more of a challenge. Sitting with his feet propped up on his own desk, directly behind Jason's, Dave peered over the sports page and just shook his head.

"Hey you," she almost purred back, completing the long-standing joke between them.

"Hey Allie," Dave called from behind the sports page, an almost-but-not-quite-there note of exasperate distaste in his voice.

"Dave says hi," Jason said, dutifully relaying the message.

"Hi David," she replied in that sickeningly sweet, flirty 12 year old schoolgirl kind of voice that women reserved for friends of their mothers, little babies, dogs, and guys they really really really didn't like. While David had never met Alexandra's mother, nor was he a little child (at least not technically), that still left two rather plausible explanations for her tone.

"Hi David," said Jason, turning to his friend and mimicking the voice to the best of his abilities, knowing how it bothered him so. David just "harrumphed" and snapped the paper in front of him.

Turning back to his desk, a smile creeping across his face, Jason began restacking the folders into tidy little piles that utterly lacked any sense of order or organization.

"What's up?" Jason asked the phone.

"You feel like seeing a movie tonight?" Allie asked.

"Sure... no, wait... what's today?"

"Thursday," she replied indulgently with a little laugh.

Tap, tap, tap went his fingers on the computer's keyboard, pulling up his schedule. Jason was notorious for a good many things, one of them being that he was incredibly disorganized, but in annoyingly neat and tidy sort of way. His disorganization, in turn, manifested itself in many different ways, one of them being an almost biblically proportioned ability to double and, at times, triple book. The fact that he was still alive was testament enough to how much his friends liked him, or at least tolerated him. Alexandra, too, took it in stride these days, but not before she had tried to "modify" his behavior by buying Jason a Palm Pilot which he, of course, promptly lost.

Even before his calendar appeared on the screen, Jason could feel David's eyes boring a hole through the back of his head, reinforcing the nagging suspicion that he had something else planned for the evening. Yup, there it was: "Thursday, 7pm, watch game with D".

"Um, actually, Dave and I were gonna go watch the game at McDougal's tonight." Without even looking, Jason could tell Dave was nodding his head in that "damn right we are" sort of way.

"Oh, OK," was Alexandra's reply. One of the things that Jason loved about her was that she wasn't the sort of woman to come between a guy and his friends. She wasn't the sort of woman that would demand that her boyfriend blow off his friends for her. She wasn't the sort of woman that would get jealous or pout if her boyfriend chose to go out with his friends instead of her.

It just wasn't in her to be that direct about it.

"Rain check?" Jason asked.

"Sure, no problem. Maybe tomorrow night," she replied in a matter of fact sort of way.

"So, what ARE you gonna do tonight?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'll find something to do. It might be nice to have this place to myself tonight."

"Wait... you're at home?" Jason asked, a little stunned.

"Yeah," she answered breezily.

"What time is it?" he asked, looking around for a clock.

"Four."

"Oh."

"I just felt like coming home early."

"OK. So what're you doing?"

"You know, just laying around, watching TV."

"Ask her what she's wearing," Dave called from behind the paper.

"Dave wants to know what you're wearing," Jason dutifully repeated into the phone.

"Oh, just one of your white dress shirts."

"Really?" Jason asked, a tone of surprise in his voice. At this Dave looked over the top of the paper and directly through the back of his friend's head. He had a sinking suspicion he knew where this was going.

"And those black strappy heels you like so much," Alexandra purred.

"Uh huh," said Jason, trying to sound relaxed, a task at which he was failing miserably.

"And nothing else."

It took Jason a second to recover from this last little revelation. When he finally did, all he could muster was "Hmmm..." and a nod of his head.

"So?" Dave asked from behind him.

"Huh? What? Oh, sweats. Gray ones. Big, baggy gray sweats," Jason said to his friend without looking at him. Dave, not believing him but knowing that this wasn't the time to press, shook his head and went back to the paper.

"I guess I'll just have to find... something to do... to myself tonight," she said in that seductive sort of way that could only mean one thing.

"Well, hang on, let me call you back," said Jason.

"OK." He could almost hear the smile break out across her face before the line went dead.

Crap! Jason thought as he hung up the phone. For a second he just sat there, hand still on the receiver, staring blankly ahead. It only took a second for Dave to catch onto what was happening.

"Dude," was all Dave said.

Spinning around in his chair, Jason looked at his friend, his face a mixture of sheepish guilt and fleeting resolve. It only took one glance for Dave to confirm what he already knew: he was about to get blown off.

"Dude," was still all that Dave had to say.

"Dave..." Jason started tentatively.

"No, don't 'Dave' me. You live with the girl, for Christ's sake. You see her every single day." Dave said, drawing out the last three words for dramatic effect.

"I see you every single day, too."

"That's not the point."

"Well, what IS the point?"

"The point is, when's the last time we went out, got a couple beers, and watched the game?"

"Monday."

"Huh?"

"Monday. McDougal's? Steelers/Jets? Remember?"

"Oh, yeah, right."

"Yeah, right."

Undaunted, Dave continued, "I can't believe you're blowing me off for a girl! I'm your best friend, for God's sake!"

"Dave..." Jason said, trying to prevent the imminent rant. Oddly enough, he didn't have a lot of success with it.

"No, our whole lives we've known each other. Since we were babies we've known each other," Dave cut him off, starting to build up a head of steam, "Tell me: what does she have that I don't?"

Jason just sat there and blinked.

With a heavy sigh of defeat, Dave said, "Better yet, don't. At least give me a reason. Make one up if you have to, but I think you owe me that much."

"Dave, my boy," Jason said as he hurriedly gathered his belonging and stuffed them into his bag, "I got three words for you."

"Yeah, what's that?" Dave asked sardonically.

Jason stopped what he was doing, turned around, looked his friend directly in the eye, and counted off the three words on his fingers, "White. Dress. Shirt."

A moment passed between the two before Dave spoke. With a slight shake of his head and a shrug of his shoulders, Dave's tone lightened and he said, "See ya tomorrow, buddy."

"Thanks Dave, you're the best," Jason clapped his friend on the shoulder and started stuffing things into his bag again. When he had finished packing up for the night, Jason turned and started walking towards the door. "We still on for golf on Saturday?" he called at Dave over his shoulder.

"Yeah, sure. I'll call your secretary." Dave deadpanned.

"I thought YOU were my secretary," Jason called back, the elevator doors opening in front of him.

"Well, I do have the legs for it," were the last words Jason heard from Dave as the elevator doors slid shut.