There were things he wanted to say to her but couldn't. He could feel the wooliness of his tongue filling his mouth when they stood there together in the office kitchenette with nothing left to say. Her eyes were brown and sparkly, appealing as pretty buttons. He cleared his throat. She smoothed her skirt. The cooler gurgled.

One day she wore a sleeveless shirt to work and as he watched her reach for the sugar on the top shelf he thought, You are beautiful. As she put her arm down, he caught a flash of something on the soft bit of skin connecting arm and armpit.

"What's that?" he asked.

She looked down. "What?"

He reached out and pointed, his finger barely grazing her skin. She lifted her arm and there it was: You are beautiful, typed into her skin. She touched it. "Feel it. It's so strange," she said.

The words were slightly sunken, exactly as if the metal teeth of a typewriter had bitten in, and the ink was bluish, like an aging tattoo. The surrounding skin was perfectly pale and whole. His exploring fingertip stayed there a moment longer than it should have.

"This is so odd," she said and looked up at him. His throat bobbed under his tight collar, but held steady.

"Yeah."

The next day they ran into each other at the copy machine and she lifted her hair up to show him what was on the back of her neck: You are softer than the softest thing. Her neck was warm and vibrant under his hand, buzzing like a live wire.

The day after that: I want to wake up with you in the middle of the night, circling one of her ankles.

And: This is true, on the tender bottom of her foot. She had to balance on one teetering shoe to show him and she laughed when he touched her foot. "So ticklish," she said, and he had to fight the urge to tackle her and tickle her for hours right there on the floor of the conference room.

"It's like a secret message every day," she said. "I can’t wait to wake up in the morning, to see what it will be."

Her foot was still in his hand and she was smiling at him, but his throat was packed tight as a roll of pennies and there was nothing he could do to shake them loose.

---

He waited for her to lift up a bit of her clothing and show him the latest find, but she just stapled her papers with her back to him. "Nothing for three days," she said finally.

"Oh," he said and was surprised at his own disappointment.

"It was this amazing thing and now it's gone, maybe for good."

He didn't say anything. She kept stapling, not looking at him.

---

He knew where she lived because of that one time he drove her home after the office Christmas party. She lived in a little house by herself, behind a bigger house. He stood on the porch in the morning light, wondering if this was the creepiest thing he had ever done and feeling the Sharpie cap press into the skin of his sweaty hand.

She looked confused when she opened the door. "Oh. Hi."

He took her hand and held it palm up as he uncapped the marker with his teeth. She watched him write, her expression impossible to read.

I love you.

She took the Sharpie from him and pulled his hand close. Pushing up his sleeve, she wrote, And I fucking love you, all the way up his inner arm.

"Finally," she said. "I thought I was going to burst."

He looked at her and suddenly he saw all the things that crowded her throat, that were spilling out of her eyes. She was smiling at him and he started laughing – it felt like a gushing fountain, like an explosion of new pennies, like a handful of wishes tossed, glinting in the light of this new and perfect sun.