I Hope He Is A Gentleman

I didn't throw away the note Geno wrote me. I didn't hang it up above my computer, either. Instead, I tucked it neatly away in the thin drawer where I kept pencils, pens and other supplies of that nature. Every time I opened the drawer throughout the day to grab a paperclip, I would see the note and either grin softly to myself, or want to vomit everywhere. It was a completely polarizing experience.

We had a marketing meeting later that day where Toby lectured the entire team, and made it a point to mention how hard Henry and I had been working. I looked down with a blush, but Henry seemed completely reenergized and refocused by the comment. When we sat back down at our desks after the meeting, he seemed to fly through papers like they didn't even matter.

I watched the clock tick by, every hour that Geno didn't show up making me a little more nervous. One, two, three, four, finally it was five o'clock, and I knew the Penguins were playing Montreal tonight in Pittsburgh. Because we worked for the Penguins organization, we were allowed to attend a certain number of games. Because we were only interns, we didn't get that many tickets, and I certainly wasn't going to waste my few games on this one. I wasn't a terribly knowledgable hockey fan or anything, but I did know that the Penguins had stronger rivalries with other teams. Still, some of the interns were, in fact, going this game.

Henry left the building a couple hours ago, as did most of the members of the marketing team. Still, I sat quietly at my desk, working on a hand-sketched mockup for a presentation Henry and I were going to be giving in a couple of weeks. I kept my eye on the clock, knowing that I had a class in a couple of hours, but still feeling no sense of urgency. My hand moved lazily over the paper, and I listened for even the smallest bit of noise.

"Remy?" A voice came from down the hall, and I swiveled in my chair as Geno approached the desk. "Why you still here?"

"I have class at 8," I responded in Russian.

"Not coming to game then?" He questioned, pulling Henry's chair from his desk and sitting down next to me. I could feel the heat from his body radiating from out of his mesh shorts and spandex shirt, coming straight towards me. My cubicle suddenly felt ten times smaller and stuffier.

"No, not tonight."

Geno suddenly switched to impossibly fast Russian, and my head started to spin just keeping up with it. "We have a game in a couple of days against the Flyers. It's a home game, same time as always. Do you want to come? I can get you better seats than the tickets the organization will give you."

It took me a couple of seconds to respond, both because I was floored by his generosity (and still confused about it) and also because I struggled to get all my verbs in the proper tense, and nouns and adjectives in the proper case. "I have class every night. Not come to games. I will try to attend a game on Saturday, maybe." Geno was silent, his eyes casting over the floor and small tufts of hair falling over his face. I wanted desperately to reach up and push them away. "Thank for you the cookies," I added quietly in English. "I love prynaki."

"I leave now. Game in one hour." Geno suddenly stood up and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

"Good luck," I encouraged, forcing a smile to my face as if this entire conversation hadn't been incredibly strange and uncomfortable. "Score many goals." Evgeni blinked, and without saying a word, turned and walked down the hallway, leaving me alone in my cubicle with Henry's empty black chair.