What's Up Doc? || Freddie and Reina
Call it the hopeless romantic in her, but Reina knew that he wouldn’t leave her. She would not believe that Jayden would have left without at least saying goodbye. He was far too much of a gentleman for that. He had simply gone somewhere for a few days and now is was back. Reina could resume her routine with her favorite doctor. As upset as she was with him, she would still bring him a coffee. It had become part of her daily routine. She would tease him about leaving on such short notice. She would flirt with him, and everything would go back to normal. It had been such a comfort to hear sound coming from his office. She was worried that she would have to take care of fashion week alone. Things had been a bit awkward between the two of them since she had gotten drunk. Thankfully, Jayden had been a gentleman about the whole ordeal. It only made Reina that much more confused as to why he would leave without notice. Reina smiled hearing him shuffle around the office. Normally, Jayden had his things in order, but perhaps with his increase in clients he was doing some rearranging. Reina knocked on the door walking in without waiting for him to answer. She hoped that he didn’t have a client right now. If he did, Reina would simply hand him his coffee and come back in a little while. She waltzed in the door finding a man who she had never seen before. “You aren’t Charming.” Reina blushed a bit realizing what she had just said. It had been a private joke that Reina would refer to Jayden as Charming. “Sorry, that came out wrong. Is Dr. Grey here? Are you one of his new patients?” Whoever this man was looked to be making himself a bit too comfortable in Jayden’s office. Reina still refused to believe that Jayden had left the magazine. While he had complained about his clients, she was under the impression that he liked working at Annie’s at least a little. She furrowed her brow looking around the office wondering why everything looked so different. All of Jayden’s things had been removed and were no replaced by the most odd assortment of belongings that Reina had ever seen in a fashion office. Realizing that the man had yet to talk, she turned to him and raised an eyebrow.
Freddie was nervous. Fine, he would admit it. Moving into a new office, in a new building, for a new job, was a bit much all at once. He was already missing the predictable stress of being a grad student, nostalgic (if you could be after only a few months since walking the stage) for being able to roll out of bed in the morning and tugging on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt and heading off to class, or holing himself up in the library for five hours, typing away furiously on his thesis. This was real life and it was sudden. Maybe by twenty-five he should have been more prepared for entering the work force and finally growing up, but being a student for so long definitely had a way of skewing your mindset. And no matter what his professors said, three hour long inquiry based lectures and day long seminars did not prepare you for getting dressed up in a fancy suit and riding twenty floors up in an elevator to an office with your name over the door. That was weird. And shocking. And Freddie was still reeling from the view out of the huge window by his desk. Whistling low, he pressed a hand to the glass, regretting it immediately, but still enthralled by the spread of the landscape in front of him. I could get used to this.
It took a while before he begrudgingly left his vantage point and hauled his boxes up on top of his desk, feeling the twinge in his knee from his injury as he torqued his body to heave them up. Why did I bring so much crap? The office was big and disturbingly empty, stripped clean of whoever came before him, and he felt the need to fill the bare spaces and claim it somehow, make it his own. It was a stupidly territorial of him and he could practically hear his psychology teachers prattling on about male instinct and all the rest, but he pushed that firmly from his mind as he began to undo the bubble wrap from his belongings and discarded the packing newspaper onto the floor. The first thing he placed up on his bookshelf was the trophy from Duke, the one that was supposed to be his shoo-in for the major leagues...at least, until the tore his ACL during a critical game and missed out on the scouting rounds. In retrospect, it was probably the best thing to ever happen to him, but sometimes he still hated that he got ripped off and never had his shot to joining the NBA. His coaches all told him he had what it took and every now and again, especially when he was frustrated with his courses...or right now...he would daydream a bit to what his life would be like if he hadn’t taken that fall.
He didn’t even hear the knock on the door and it wasn’t until the woman spoke that he turned around with a start, holding his perpetual motion mobile awkwardly in his grasp and gaping at her. Now, Annie’s was full of gorgeous women...and men, for what it was worth. They wandered the halls, the appeared and disappeared sporadically from the lunch room, the lobby, and when Freddie had stepped into the photo studios, they were strutting around in various states of undress. It would take him a while to get used to it all, without a doubt, but most of them did tend to have an air about them, as if they knew how beautiful they were. Probably wasn’t that difficult with photographers and makeup artists and agents constantly reminding them of their looks - plus, how could you not see it when you looked into a mirror and saw a freaking model staring back at you. But Freddie had always been more attracted to the down-to-earth, girl next door type, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. Attractiveness was a necessity on some level, but he preferred girls who were more natural and easygoing. High strung wasn’t his style.
And the woman who walked into his office, holding a cup of coffee and looking thoroughly confused was just as beautiful as any of the models, but he could instinctively tell that she was much more grounded. A little perplexed, he put the motion mobile down on the edge of his desk and shrugged. “Well, I actually am pretty charming, but I guess you wouldn’t know that just by looking at me.” He grinned widely and wiped his hand on his pale grey slacks before extending it out to her cordially. “Not sure who Doctor Grey is but I’m Doctor Woodall. Um....Freddie,” he corrected himself awkardly, crossing the floor between them and just praying that he wasn’t coming across to eager or amateurish. The etiquette of professional workplace interactions wasn’t something that had been included in the handbook, and he still felt desperately out of place in this highly modernized office. “I’m the new mental health consultant. Just started today, actually. That’s why everything’s such a mess.” He gestured around the office apologetically, trying to casually kick away some of the newspaper he’d carelessly thrown to the floor. “Definitely....definitely not a patient. Tragically and sorta pathetically out of my element, but believe it or not, a certified psychiatrist.” Smiling again, he settled back against the edge of his desk and looked pointedly at the styrofoam coffee cup she was holding. “Is that for me?”
