Hey There Little Darlin

Shenanigans.

For reals. Not even just for reals, but for reals for reals.

I worked at a mental hospital, and we had a new addition built to expand our emergency department. We were one of the few psychiatric hospitals that offered emergency services, so we got a lot of traffic, and to "continue to provide excellent care and customer service" our VP got the go ahead for a multi-million dollar project that had taken years to complete.

Once it was finished, everyone's office had moved and I could barely find the mailroom without getting lost. The iron in my blood was mixed up and I had no more magnets in my nose to help guide the way. Last coffee run I made ended me up in the secure adult ward where my buddy Nate works. I kidded with him that if anyone came in there with any money to let me know and I'd sell them the code. I thought I was kidding, anyway.

So I was en route to the mailroom again, this time with a sense of direction, and as I turned a corner I ran smack into a ladder. Really, I mean I ran into it. Literally. My face, the ladder, they have direct contact. There was a noise, the ladder shuddered a bit, and I heard some non-English from the head that I assumed was attached to the pair of legs that were standing on the ladder. I rubbed my forehead and nose while I shook my head.

"Are you okay?" I called up to the man in the ceiling. I certainly didn't want the death of an HVAC boy on my soul.

"Yeah, yeah... fine. The real question is are YOU okay?" he answered, while climbing down the ladder.

There he stood - curly brown hair, hazel eyes, covered in duct seal and dirt. I read the nametag on his shirt while trying to control the butterflies in my stomach. It read "Ace." Ace?

"Ace?" I asked.

Disbelief coated the word as it came out of my mouth. He met my eyes and smiled. Sidenote - he had an amazing smile, the kind where the corners of his eyes crinkle up and his whole face gets brighter... but that's beside the point.

"Yes... Lucy?" he had read my nametag.

At mental health, we are forced to wear nametags. We are also forced to wear lab coats, in spite of the fact that my office is in a room where there is no face to face patient contact. Good times.

"Sorry, I just haven't met anyone whose real name is Ace. It's like a card playing name, or gunslinger, or... mechanic. Or something," I finished.

Thank God he laughed, because I was standing there with my hands at my sides and I had just used the word gunslinger . It's 2008. Really, Lucy? Really?

"No, I understand. I get that a lot, not the gunslinger part but the whole Ace thing. My real name is Aleksei, but in English it's girly sounding so my brothers started calling me Ace when I was about 6. It stuck, now that's what I've got to work with," he said.

"So what language were you speaking when you were in the ceiling?" I asked.

"Oh, you heard me? Oh man! It was, uh, Russian... but it wasn't Russian I would repeat," he said with a smile. I smiled back, suddenly quite comfortable with Ace the duct worker.

"Right, because I would be able to repeat Russian after hearing it once through a ceiling," I said.

We both laughed, that nervous laugh that means that there's some type of chemistry there. I hadn't seen this guy before, but I knew that there had been construction guys and air conditioning guys and electricians all over the building. They all disappeared when the new addition was finished, though. I realized that while I was lost in thought as to why Ace the HVAC boy was still here, he was still there in front of me. I shook myself back to reality, smiled again, and started to head down the hallway.

"Well Ace, be careful on that ladder," I said.

"Okay, but maybe you're the one who should be careful of my ladder?" he replied.

I turned and smiled, he grinned back. I really hoped this wasn't going to be the last of Ace.