The Perfect Fan

Paige was sitting at her desk watching her pen swirl around in her notebook while she waited on hold for the publisher. She sighed and shook her head. She hated being on hold. She had seven other orders to call in then she had to call every one on the pre-order list to tell them when their books would be in. She hated days like that, days were she was going to have to spend on the phone.

" Hey." Norman's voice startled her, making her looked to her left at the door. She frowned and looked back to her phone. She switched it to speaker then hung the cradle up before looking back at him.

" What are you doing here?" She asked him.

" Well, I thought about what you said about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and I thought, what the hell kind of lunch is that for the busy day you said you were going to have? Plus, I owed you for getting me the book." He said as music floated up from the speaker phone.

" No, you don't. You paid for the book." She said, noticing the bag he was holding in his hand had the name Dante's on it.

" Yeah but you got it to me fast. I feel like a simple ' Thank you' wasn't enough." Norman said with a smile.

" But you bought me coffee." Paige said. " That should have evened us out."

" Right, and now I brought you lunch so I guess you will have to owe me one than." He said.

" Paige?" A man's voice suddenly came over the loudspeaker. She jumped and grabbed the phone. She picked it up, turning off the speaker.

" One second." She whispered to Norman who smiled and sat down in the chair that was on the side of her desk. " Hey John......yeah......so I'm going to need 60 of the Patteson book......Yeah, I have 30 pre-orders for it......" She started to make swirls with her pen again while she stared at the paper. Norman was smiling as he watched her. " Oh really? That's great.....my readers are going to be so excited......Thanks, John. I'll talk to you later." She giggled at something the other man said. " Bye." She said as she hung up the phone. She quickly wrote a date down, ripped the paper from the notebook then taped it to her computer before she looked back at him. " I'm sorry, what were we talking about?"

" We were talking about you now oweing me dinner. So I went to Dante's, Leo said to tell you hi, and I ordered us lunch." He set the bag down on the floor in between his legs and started looking through it.

" You saw Leo?" Paige asked in disbelief.

" Yeah. He told me what you liked to eat and helped me pick something out for you." Norman said, taking things out of the bag and setting them on the desk.

" He did?" She asked, making a mental note to kill her friend for not warning her that Norman had been there.

" You know, you and I like a lot of the same things." He nudged a container towards her. " That's yours, a chicken caesar salad." He bent down and pulled something else out of the bag.

' What is going on here?' She asked herself.

" Do we?" She heard herself asking.

" Yeah, according to what Leo told me you liked to eat." Norman sat back with plastic silverware and napkins. He smiled at her. " Eat, Paige. I know you have a busy day today."

' This isn't real. This isn't real. He isn't really here, wanting to have lunch with me.' She silently repeated to herself.

She reached forward and opened the container he had pushed over to her. He picked up another one and opened it then brought it up to his chest as he stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed his ankles together. He smiled at her then turned his attention to his lunch. Paige felt like she was a stranger in her own body. How the hell did she end up having lunch with Norman Reedus.

" Did you get all your book orders placed?" He asked as he stirred his soup. Paige shook her head.

" No. One publisher has to call me back and another wasn't at work yet. Plus, I still have to call every one who placed a pre-order and tell them when they can pick them up." She said, make a stab into her salad.

" Do you like doing phone work?" Norman asked.

" No. I don't like these days but lucky I only have to do this once every two weeks." She said.

" Well, that's nice then." He said.

They talked and ate together. He asked her more questions about herself. Paige wasn't sure what to ask him. She knew things about him but didn't want to come off as a crazy fan or like she was interviewing him. But it didn't take long before she found him very easy to laugh with and he liked making her laugh. A few times he winked at her or said something that made her wonder if he was flirting with her but she wouldn't let herself think that. There was no way he would be flirting with her. After lunch they cleaned up together then he stood up and put his hands in his pockets with another stunning smile.

" Thanks for having lunch with me." He said.

" You brought it to me so thanks for that." Paige said, standing up. To her surprise, he came forward and hugged her. Paige's arms came up and took a hold of his sides but didn't hardly hug him back. He squeezed her then pulled away and patted her arms.

" I will see you later." Then he winked at her and pulled completely away. He grabbed their lunch pack and smiled before he walked out. Paige sat down like a stone and stared out of her office door. Suddenly her phone went off in a text message. She picked it up off the desk and touched the screen.

' How was your lunch you lucky bitch!' Leo sent her.

' I'm going to kill you! You couldn't have given me a heads up!' Paige sent back.

' Heads up.' Leo texted.

' Very fucking funny, jackass!' She said.

' What the hell is going on? Well did he buy your lunch?'

' I have no idea.'

XXXXXX

Norman had no idea what he was doing. Bring her coffee was one thing but the lunch, why did he do that? He knew why. He was interested in Paige. The fact that they kept running into each other was drawing him into her more. Why was someone throwing her in his path? Just when he had told himself he wasn't going to date anyone for a while this beautiful, sweet girl popped up. What could he say? He was a sucker for girls like Paige. She was just up his alley. She was funny in a quiet sort of way. Her smile was stunning and her eyes sparkled when she talked. She was smaller than most girls he dated but he like how tiny she was.

Norman laughed to himself as he rubbed the back of his head. He wasn't dating her so he needed to not be thinking that way. He didn't even know if she would consider going out with him but he did know he wanted to get to know her better. His mind was made up. He would return to the book store the next morning and ask her for her number. If nothing else, at least he would make a new friend and have someone cool to hang with.