"You have a date? With a girl?"

Melvin leaned back into his leather office chair, the swooning weight of exhaustion making his arms feel like dead weight. It took a major effort for him to lift them enough to type on his keyboard. Not that Melvin felt like typing much of anything; for once, his mind was not on his work. While his conversation with Bridget had made him feel somewhat better about this situation and he was happy that he'd have some back-up during his meeting tonight with the witch, he still felt physically drained. Could it be a side effect of the love juice? Melvin believed so. This meant that he'd have to refrain from any more sexual contact until his date tonight with Courtney the cute waitress. He needed to have some energy stored up. As long as he could avoid Olivia Crabapple for the rest of the day, he had a chance.

Without knocking, Richie Golding popped into Melvin's office, a wide grin splashed on his face. He wore a crisp new suit and flipped his thumbs up at Melvin as he entered the room.

"Mel, it's a great day, buddy! I just got a hot date with Brenda Briswell, the hot lawyer from upstairs. Know her?"

"Not personally," Melvin replied. "Her sister on the other hand..."

Richie interrupted with an indifferent sweep of his hands. "Right, right. Well, Brenda is known as kinda a firecracker if you know what I mean, and what I mean is in bed. So I am thinking, let's go celebrate the inevitable sex I am going to be getting tonight from one of the richest babes in the city."

Melvin sat and waited for Richie to finish. He knew Richie just wanted him to open his mouth so that he could interrupt. Interruptions were a kind of Richie Golding trademark.

"Lunch on me!" Richie finally said when he realized that Melvin had no plan to respond. "We can even go to that one damn cafe you love. Let's go. Grab your coat and let's go."

Richie grabbed Melvin's coat for him and started to help Melvin into it. Richie apparently wasn't going to take no for an answer. Melvin took the coat from Richie and put it on himself, waving Richie away with his hands.

"Fine, fine. Maybe Courtney's working today," Melvin said. Richie's eyes widened in mock surprise.

"You on a first name basis now?" he said.

"Actually, I have a date with her tonight."

The mock surprise and grin dropped off Richie's face in an instant. He eyed Melvin with a look of distrust and said, "You have a date? With a girl?"

"Ask her when we get there," Melvin responded, smiled, and led the way out of his office, a shocked Richie two steps behind.