Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was only a few days later when someone else came knocking at Wakefield's door. Dressed in tan slacks and a light tweed jacket with a plain white shirt, he stared at the house with frank admiration and rang the buzzer at the gate. There was a tiny crackle and a voice rang out: "May I help you?"

The stranger straightened for the invisible speaker and said in a clear voice, "I'm looking for a Miss Rose Lukas-Hein?"

There was a pause. "May I ask who is calling?"

"Kevin Peterson?" said the man, as if he doubted his own identity.

"One moment."

Kevin Peterson bit his lip and looked at the speaker box with faint distrust. He tugged at the fabric of his jacket and checked his clothes for spots for what seemed like an eternity. (Forty seconds, tops.)

"Hi, Miss Hein," said Peterson, caught unawares. In his surprise, he left off the Lukas from her name. "I'm here to see you, may I come in?" Well, that was a familiar setup.

Kevin ran his fingers through his light brown hair and double-checked his cuffs for at least the tenth time today. Satisfied he was at his best, he proceeded through the gate, up the drive, around the fountain, and up the flat steps onto the stoop. He checked his reflection in the window as he waited at the door.

Kevin glanced her down, trying not to get overly distracted by the color of her hair. "Sure," he said, and there did seem to be something vaguely British about his accent. Just enough to suggest he might have spent time in England. Then he quickly amended himself: "No, I couldn't impose." He stepped through the door, reaching up to remove a hat he wasn't wearing and hastily withdrawing his hand.

"Fleet?" said Kevin innocently, shifting in his seat. "I'm not from any shop. I'm, uh, in human resources at TelCorp. I'll take some milk, please." The way he gave the company name, it sounded like it was fairly big, but Rose had never heard of it. Kevin made only fleeting eye contact, alternately looking down at his tea and around at the room, in awe of the furnishings. He gulped noticeably.

"Oh, no!" said Kevin in startled horror. "I'm not a salesman. I'm with human resources." He repeated this with mild desparation, offering up his cup to Rose for tea withotu ever having answered her question.

Kevin withdrew the cup, too embarrassed to mention he was more of a coffee drinker in spite of his roots. "It's a job," he said mildly, sipping at the milky, sugary liquid. For him, his work was nothing more than that, just a paycheck and a desk in a big building with lots of paperwork and boring hours. He looked up at Rose with strangely familiar soft brown eyes. "What do you do?"

Kevin nodded. "I had no idea Wakefield was this huge. I couldn't ever keep up with a place like this. I guess it's more interesting for a professor?" He seemed to have bought into the stereotype of college professors as living in historic houses with shelves and shelves of books and old maps and globes scattered about, sitting in their desk chairs and writing intellectual discourse.

So far as the books and globes and history were concerned, Wakefield was a good match to Kevin's romantic notions. Just on the large and pretentious side, even for the wealthiest professor, and it was tailored to Djerod's tastes and not Rose's. It was hardly a fitting reflection of the petite ex-senshi.