Bug Boy

My own personal romance novel...

A few weeks ago, as I was innocently sitting at my desk, Internet sleuthing (as usual) for snake bites and shark attacks, I heard footsteps on the carpet in the hall. I glanced up to see who was coming in, and for the first time in my life, I actually swooned. Cue jaw drop. No joke. My breath actually caught in my throat and my hand went instinctively to my hair, smoothing it out as I blinked and asked, "Can I help you?" The person to whom I addressed this stellar opening line was a Greek God. Tall, dark and handsome in all its cliche. Dark hair, bronzed skin, toned body, killer smile, and GORGEOUS eyes. Here I am wondering what the heck this Abercrombie model is doing in my office. (And as it turns out, he actually does work for Abercrombie...) Well, he's there to meet with the head honcho (husband), who soon arrives and selfishly steals this beauty from my sight.

While I attempt to regain my composure and focus on actually working, Head Honcho 2, the wife of the team, arrives, and I can't help but gush to her about the incredibly good looking man/boy who just came in. She laughs, thinking, "Oh this poor girl is just not used to LA yet." I sense her skepticism and tell her to just wait until she sees him. I've seen my fair share of actor/models...

A little later she comes back, having stopped in on the interview with the guy, who's name I discover is Phillip. Sigh. Anyway, in a rush of excited girl-talk, she readily agrees that Phil is strikingly handsome. Told-ya-so. Apparently, when he turned to introduce himself, and locked his piercing eyes with hers, she too had a swoon-like moment. And keep in mind, her husband, Head Honcho 1 in our little story, used to be a model and is a looker himself!

So, I inquire, why is this eye candy here? What could he possibly want with us? Here's the kicker. Turns out, he's an ENTOMOLOGIST. Graduated early from Cornell. Beauty and brains? I swoon again. Incredibly smart and wants to host a bug show. I'd watch it.

So now, my boss has made said bug show, and "Bug Boy" as we lovingly refer to him, my pet project. Every time he comes to the office, someone re-introduces him to me. "Oh have you met M?" Um, yes. He has. But I continue to smile, bat my eyelashes and say, "Oh hi..." When he bought the pet tarantula for our office, somehow the task landed on me to call him to find out if she was being fed enough. Any excuse for me to talk to him. No matter what I am up to or if they even need the help, I am always somehow involved in the demo shoots we have done with him, which has led to me basically standing on the side, watching, and of course flirting whenever possible. At one point, he changed shirts in front of me... deep breaths. And just last week, I interviewed him for one of our shows, which meant I spent two whole hours talking to him (granted it was about bugs) and gazing into his eyes (granted, I told him he had to look at me to maintain eye-line). Wife Honcho passes all the Bug Boy stuff on to me and has since told me to "take advantage of the casting couch" and ask him out! It's kind of become an office joke, or rather a favorite topic to tease me about. "He may be smart, but you know he couldn't get into Harvard..." I almost made a dirty comment at this point, but thankfully refrained.

Oh, and to clarify, he only works at Abercrombie to pay the bills, and well, because he can. Once he gets his giant check from Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader, he'll have more financial freedom. I'm not kidding.