A New Kind of Science / Holtzbert

Communication

Holtzmann had finished her descriptions showing off the ghost pagers to everyone present before handing each of the females in the building their own beeper. "There. Now if any of us are out for lunch or gone gallivanting through the city for some reason and we get a call....BOOM!" She loudly clapped. "We'll all know about it."

"Well, uh...not me." Kevin raised his pencil in the air, pointing out that he didn't have one.

The blonde looked over her shoulder at the receptionist behind her. "That's because I may have something else planned for you, my dear Kev." 

"Oh." The man smiled. "Is it something cooler?" He basically tried to wink, but failed.

"Uh, yes." She lied. "Something much, much cooler."

"Awesome." He bit the center of his pencil. "What is it?"

"It's a surprise." She faked a grin before turning to look back at Abby, Patty, and Erin fussing with their pagers. 

"Nice work, Jillian." Yates nodded, clipping the device to her pants. 

"Yeah. Great job!" Patty gave her an encouraging touch on the arm before heading back to her desk to finish reading a book on all the first manufacturing companies of New York City. 

"I'm impressed, Holtz Machine....As always." Abby also returned to the chair behind her desk.

"Thanks, Abster." Holtzmann placed her ghost pager inside her pants pocket. She didn't even hesitate to walk over to the lined up massage chairs and sat down in the farthest one from the group. Putting the feet up and leaning the head back just a bit, she closed her eyes, loving the fact that she could relax now. Normally she would move on right to the next project, but for some reason she felt that she didn't need to and she told herself that for the rest of today, she would just chill. Once she felt the total sense of relaxation, she let out one of her loud groans with  a smile.

"So, what were you doing up there for over an hour?" Abigail quietly asked Erin while she typed and the particle physicist stood by her desk with her arms folded across her chest. Yates teased her. "Were you up there smooching?" A small chuckle escaped the woman's lips.

"No." Gilbert's arms unfolded and she fixed her posture a bit, feeling annoyed at everything today. "I was just-" Suddenly she remembered that Holtzmann's sofa was supposed to be kept a secret and she attempted to lie. "We were talking, that's all. And I took a shower after the coffee incident."

"So, which is it? Were you talking or did you take a shower?" 

"Both." Erin raised her eyebrows.

"Really? You take pretty long showers." Yates continued to pester her long time friend. "If you did take a shower, you probably wouldn't have gotten out until about fifteen minutes ago or so. Your hair would still be wet." She never stopped typing. "What were you two love birds really doing?"

"Nothing!" She snapped. "Alright?! We weren't doing anything." Everyone in the room, beside Holtzy, turned to look at Erin. "And would you please stop calling us love birds?" Jillian's eyes opened and she slowly lifted her head, turning to look at the bunch. 

Kevin's pencil was in between his teeth and his hand was midair as if he were about to remove the utensil from his mouth just before Erin snapped. Patricia's eyes were wide and looking just over the book she was reading as she held it up over her nose, wishing the others could not tell she was looking at the annoyed physicist. Abby sat at her desk, looking up at the woman in front of it with her mouth slightly open and her hands stopped mid-sentence on her keyboard.

"Erin?" Holtzy broke the awkward silence and oddly enough, the only one to look to the blonde was Dr. Gilbert. 

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Embarrassed by her sudden outburst, she uncomfortably looked around at the other ghostbusters who finally averted their eyes from her. Each continued with what they were doing and pretended nothing had happened. Feeling the warmth in her cheeks, Gilbert tried to speak. "I just...I need a min-" Before even finishing her sentence, the heated woman ran up the stairs as fast as possible.