Natalie makes a snap judgement

Dan began to speak, but Nat held up a hand to stop him and walked away to talk to one of the execs who had just entered. He was sharp and smart in an Armani suit with cuffs and well groomed black hair and deep blue eyes. Nat walked up and introduced herself in a serious fashion.

            “Hi, I am Natalie Bryant, Junior Partner.” She held out her hand which he took in his own firm cool grasp.

            “Mark Maxwell, VP of Marketing and Development.” He smiled his perfectly even pearly whites. “I see that you’ve met our poster boy for gay rights.”

            “Dan?”

            He laughed a deep musical laugh and Nat warmed to him immediately.

            “No Jonathon.” He replied looking over at Dan and John talking quietly.

            “Oh, well yes, he’s a bit much to take.”

            “Yes, well, John just came out and he’s trying to find his zone. And we all are having to adjust with him.”

            “Dan Myers Esquire seems to have it well in hand.” As soon as she said it she wished she had counted to ten first. She bit her lip to stopped from screaming in terror at her mistake. Mark just grinned and shook his head.

            “Dan is cool, I don’t know about the Esquire part, sounds like a Jonathan embellishment- Dan is the one who got John to come out anyway- so he’s the only one who didn’t need to adjust.”

            Nat looked from Dan to Mark and back to Dan in shock.

            “Dan is of course our best investigator, so I guess it goes to reason that he would figure it out first.” Mark continued not seeing her expression.

            Well that poor man, Nat thought, Dan had obviously outed him and he was struggling to cope. The room began to fill for the meeting and they took their places. As Irony would have it, Nat ended up sitting across from Dan.

            He sat easily in his chair with a semi slouch, grinning as if still laughing at the earlier joke which she obviously was intended to get but didn’t. That made her mad, what was so funny anyway? She looked at the table in front of him; Dan had brought a cup of something brown- hot chocolate over with a doughnut and a napkin. No notepad, laptop, PDA or anything.

            Adversely, Nat had a cup of coffee which was placed next to a legal pad and two pens. She had her tape recorder ready to go next to it. On the other side her Blackberry awaited her with its calendar ready. She looked from her space around the table only to observe that Dan was the only one with nothing but his refreshments in front. Her opinion of him dropped another notch, even John had a laptop open in prep for the meeting on the coming merger.