Vanished

St. Louis

"Wow, there's actually a lot of nice looking men around here," Linda commented and smiled appreciatively at an attractive man we passed on the way to the table. "I think I might actually enjoy this conference."

I chuckled because it was so typical of Linda. We hadn't worked together that long, less than a year, in fact, but I already knew her to be a big flirt and a bit of a social butterfly. Attending boring quarterly conferences was part of our job, but Linda usually made them a lot more interesting.

"Like him," Linda said and nodded her head to a tall buff looking guy in khaki pants and a button-up shirt. "I wouldn't mind spending some time with him."

"Mm hm," I agreed. He was attractive in an "I-go-to-the-gym-and-lift-very-heavy-things kind of way." But not really my type.

"Or what about him?" She asked and grabbed on to my arm, while waving her other one towards a group in the back of the room.

"Which one?" I asked because there were three men there, and the two I had a full view of didn't do it for me either. The third one, however, had potential, but I only saw him from the back. He was tall with an athletic build and short, wavy, dark hair. If his butt was any indication of what he looked like from the front, he was definitely something worth looking at.

"Blue shirt."

So the nice butt guy. I stared at him a bit longer, but he didn't turn around even though I tried to will him to. He appeared to be listening to whatever the woman in the group was talking about.

"Hello there," Linda said, and I reluctantly turned back to see her greet a couple of women already seated at a table.

"Good afternoon," the one responded, while the other one just gave us a courteous smile. I nodded my head with a quick "hello."

"I'm telling you," Linda continued, her focus back on me, "this is gonna be the best conference so far."

"I hope you're right." I was pretty sure they couldn't get any more boring than the last one we attended.

Linda turned back to me and grinned. "Jerry said that the bar around the corner from here is awesome. We should go once this is over. Maybe some of the hotties from here will join us."

"Okay."

Jerry was one of the sales representatives in our office. He was a bit of a beer snob and preferred local craft beers to the popular brands. I'd been to a few after work get together's with him and the places he picked were usually fun.

"They sometimes have a local band, but I'm not sure if that's only on the weekends or not. I guess we'll find out. And..."

I half listened to Linda as she babbled on about all the fun we were going to have at this three-day convention while I continued to check out the space. We were in a reception hall in a hotel in downtown St Louis, which was crowded with people - mostly middle-aged professionals, but some younger, like us - all dressed business casual. Not that we were that young. I had just turned twenty-eight and Linda was pushing thirty.