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It's a day like any other; it's noon, and at Smosh that means the crew goes on lunch break.
Today isn't any different. Angela and Amanda are eating lunch together, Amanda enjoying her salad and Angela scrolling on her phone while snacking on some chips, sitting in a comfortable silence while still enjoying each other's company.
Amanda tries to jab at a cherry tomato with her fork but misses, her momentum leading her into accidentally coating her hand in ranch dressing.
"Hey, can you pass me a napkin?" Amanda asks with a grimace, trying her best to ignore the feeling of the condiment on her skin, the urge to just shake her hand and fling ranch onto everything in a 3 foot vicinity quickly becoming more and more enticing.
Angela, sitting across the table directly next to the napkin holder, hunched over her phone in a way that Amanda can't imagine is possibly comfortable, was too engrossed in her scrolling to hear her.
"Angela." Amanda tries again, a little louder.
Angela still shows no sign of having heard her, she just continues swiping her finger down her twitter timeline.
"Ange!"
Angela jumps in her seat, dropping her phone. "Shit, sorry, did you say something?" She asks honestly, quickly bending over and grabbing her phone off of the linoleum floor.
Amanda rolls her eyes playfully, watching Angela carefully inspect her phone for any damage. "Yeah, like 18 times, man."
"Oh, sorry, I wasn't- I got distracted." Angela gestures with her phone, and in the process almost drops it again. Scrambling to grab it, she accidentally slams it onto the table with a clunk, glancing at it nervously for a moment before looking back to Amanda.
"It's fine, don't worry about it." Amanda chuckles, cautiously bemused. She points with a ranch covered finger to the napkins sitting just to the right of Angela. "Can you pass me a napkin?"
Angela makes the same face Amanda did at the ranch fingers. "Yeah, yeah, of course," Angela hands over a napkin, and sinks back into her uncomfortable looking posture with her phone as Amanda carefully cleans her hand off.
As a silence falls over them once again, a seed of curiosity is planted in Amanda's mind. In Angela's three months of working at Smosh so far, she's never called her 'Ang' before, hasn't heard anyone else call her it either, but it managed to get her attention quicker than her actual name did. She taps her hand on the table to regrasp Angela's focus. "I only got your attention after calling you 'Ange', are you, like, a sleeper agent and that's your activation phrase or something?"
Angela shakes her head with a laugh, eyes still on her phone. "No, I was just zoned out and that's when I zoned back in."
"Got it, so, I can call you Ange?" Amanda asks, taking a swig of her water.
"Oh, yeah, you can call me whatever you want." Angela shrugs casually, the rasp in her voice extra present.
Amanda almost spits out her drink, managing to choke it down at the last second instead. Angela's eyes go wide in realization at the implication of her words, and she looks up to meet Amanda's amused gaze like a deer caught in headlights.
"That came out wrong."
"Oh yeah?" Amanda raises her eyebrows, grinning. "I can call you whatever I like, huh?"
"Shut up!" Angela practically squeaks, a blush quickly rising to her cheeks.
"No, you said I can call you whatever I want, honey. Or baby, or sweetie." Amanda says, pretending to count off pet names on her fingers.
Angela's eyebrows shoot up for a moment, and she crosses her arms across her chest defensively, her jacket falling a bit off her shoulder. "Hey! That's not what I meant!"
"It's what you said though."
"I-I know that's what I said, I just- you- it's-" Angela stumbles over her words, slumping in her seat a bit as her face grew redder. Amanda lets up on the teasing for a moment, giving Angela time to think, using the time to just now notice a mole on Angela's throat. Suddenly, Angela sits up quickly, practically standing if the table wasn't in the way. Determined, she points at Amanda, and declares, "You- you had ranch fingers!"
Amanda blinks at her, then chokes out a laugh that Angela quickly joins in on. "That's really what you're going with here? Ranch fingers?"
"I saw it, we all saw it." Angela circles her finger around, a gesture completely unnoticed by the same people who definitely did not notice or care that Amanda, for a brief minute, had ranch on her fingers.
Amanda loves this type of banter on and off shoot with anybody, but especially Angela. It comes easier and more naturally to her with Angela than anyone else, and Angela plays off her in ways she never expects but always ends up delighted by. It's playful, it's fun. They're both having fun.
It's probably a bit weird how much Amanda's having fun.
Angela would probably have the same type of reaction if she had accidentally said an innuendo to anyone else and they teased her about it, Amanda knows that. But Amanda likes that it's only her who gets to tease Angela with this tiny little thing in this tiny little moment. She doesn't know why, but the thought of sharing this joke with anyone else brings a sour taste to her mouth. Amanda considers herself a fair, mature person, but there's just something about Angela that makes her not want to share.
So, she could just let the whole thing go…
But Amanda's known Angela long enough now to know she's having fun, too, or she wouldn't have been playing along for this long.
And Amanda doesn't want this little bubble they're existing in to end just yet.
In one smooth motion, Amanda pulls her own phone out of her pocket, and quickly snaps a picture of Angela before she could even have a chance to process it.
"Woah, woah, hey!" Angela exclaims as she blinks the flash from her eyes.
Amanda looks down at the picture and grins- the camera picked up the red of her cheeks so well, and the light reflecting on Angela's eyes made it look like she was about to burst into tears. It was equally hilarious as it was absolutely adorable. Amanda turns the phone around to show Angela.
Angela burst into laughter at the sight, swiping for the phone playfully but missing as Amanda pulls her hand back. "What the hell, is that really how I look right now?!"
Amanda nods enthusiastically in agreement, and Angela stands up so fast her chair noisily scrapes across the ground, before rushing toward Amanda. Amanda raises her phone high above her head just as Angela rounds the table, leaping for the phone, but she only manages to get Amanda to laugh even harder when she misses. Always competitive, Angela reorients herself and puts a jeaned leg on Amanda's lap to hoist herself up, using the temporary height advantage to barely brush her fingertips against the phone, Amanda having flailed her arm around in a successful attempt to throw off Angela's hand eye coordination. Angela repeats what she did with her other leg so she's kneeling on top of Amanda, and tries for the phone again as Amanda leans even farther away. Gravity almost gets the best of them as the chair begins to tip backwards. Amanda wraps an arm around Angela's waist as she rights the two of them, keeping Angela from falling.
"Babe, get off, you're going to break something!" Amanda laughs, nudging Angela in the stomach.
Finally, Angela relents, climbing off of Amanda and returning to her seat, making a show of dusting herself off. "Don't post that anywhere!"
Amanda let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, a bubble of warmth in her chest spreading down her arms and into her fingertips. "I won't, I won't, this is just for me." Amanda says genuinely, a small smile on her face widening as she double checks the picture saved to her camera roll.
When Amanda turns off her phone and returns her focus to the woman sitting in front of her, Angela is giving her a look she's never seen Angela make- or a real person make, for that matter. Her mouth is open slightly, like she got caught off guard, like she's processing something major. Angela, who's always moving, always filled with so much energy she has to get it out by talking a bit loud or gesturing a bit much, is for once perfectly still. It's like Angela was remote controlled and Amanda accidentally hit pause. Her brown eyes are sparkling in the artificial light of the Smosh lunch room, and Amanda thinks, for a brief moment, that Angela's eyes are prettier than any sunset she's ever seen, more filling than any chocolate she's ever eaten. Angela looks as if she's in utter awe.
But she's only looking at her.
Amanda checks behind her, trying to gauge what's causing this type of reaction from Angela, because it can't be her. It just can't be. Behind her are her coworkers, enjoying their lunches as usual, talking amongst themselves. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to make Angela look like she just saw the moon for the first time.
Turning back around, Amanda asks with a little worry starting to seep into her voice, "What is it, hun?"
Angela seems to snap out of whatever haze she had fallen under, blinking at Amanda for several moments before seemingly remembering where she was and what she was doing. "Um…" Her eyes flit around the room, as if searching for something, before landing on something underneath the table. Before Amanda can ask what she is looking at or even take a look for herself, Angela suddenly kicks the table's center leg, sending it wobbling toward Amanda.
Amanda, thrown off, still manages to grab the edge of the table to hold it steady. "Dude, what the hell?!" Amanda looks at Angela, who's grinning at her like a mouse who got the cheese. There's something slightly off about the expression that Amanda can't quite place, something almost defensive, but Amanda disregards it, not thinking anything of it. It doesn't stop her from wanting to wipe the shit eating grin from Angela's face. "Come on, love, there's no need for violence."
Angela's grin turns almost bashful, her voice still coming out a bit high and squeaky despite the natural rasp of her voice. "You- that's not- it came out wrong and you know it."
"I don't know, beautiful..." Amanda draws out, teasingly. "I think it came out just right, exactly as you intended."
Angela opens and closes her mouth looking for words that wouldn't come, Amanda watching her with delight at how flustered she's made her. Eventaully Angela lands on a not exactly lethal, "Fuck you."
Amanda, too caught up in the bit, doesn't think before replying, "Oh, but I can call you whatever I want during, right darling?"
Angela processes the statement, and actually whines in embarrassment at that, covering her face in her hands as she squirms a bit in her seat, but she can't block Amanda from seeing the way her face is beet red.
With Angela not looking at her, Amanda finds herself admiring her without discretion. Sure, she can't see her face, but she gets to admire her hair, her hands, her fingers. Her eyes start to travel downwards admiring her neck, her shoulders, her-
Amanda looks away, cheeks getting hot. This bit is clearly getting to her. It's going too far, she has to reel it in.
"Okay, okay, sorry, Ange."
Angela takes a moment, then another, before gliding her hands from her face to her hair, smoothing it back. The blush already starting to fade. "You better be."
Amanda just shrugs, and Angela sighs, relaxing in her seat again. Amanda watches her for a moment, already missing the rosy color of her cheeks, and she can't stop herself from murmuring one more, "Okay, sweetheart."
Angela immediately goes red again, her shoulders shooting up to her ears. "You're never going to let me live this down, are you?"
Amanda smiles. "Not a chance, angel." Amanda answers with a laugh.