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For weeks now, in addition to my omnipresent and completely unrequited crush on Hot Intern, there has been a new satellite whizzing around in my particular orbit of Crushdom & Potential Boyfriendhood.

We'll call him Orange Crush.

It all started when a production assistant from a certain show that comes on after Jeopardy! was delivering something as Orange Crush was returning from lunch. He did a little double-take and mouthed "who's that?" to me. I gave him the helpless smile of what-the-fuck-do-you-want-me-to-say-when-she's-standing-right-in-front-of-me, and he went back to his office, calling me a few minutes later.

Orange Crush: Hey, who was that up there with you?

Me: You mean the PA from Peel of Mortune? She left.

OC: She did? Damn. Well, what's her story?

Me: Well, it all started back in 1987, when she was born. Back slowly away from the jailbait there, champ.

OC: How old is she?

Me: I don't know, 12?

OC: Hmm... Think she has a boyfriend?

Me: I know she has one, and he's probably also 12.

OC: I... Am a perve.

Me: You are, in fact. And I refuse to enable you. This cycle of perviness must end.

OC: But she's cute!

Me: And you're another one of those guys that likes the tiny, petite variety, I see.

OC: Well, normally I would go for the gorgeous, long-legged variety, but I refuse to entertain the notion that you don't have a boyfriend.

Me: Start entertaining it, my friend. The history of my singledom is long, well-documented and tragic.

OC: I'm intrigued.

Me: I'm... finding my switchboard lighting up. I gotta go.

As the weeks progressed, our flirting did as well. My lust for the Hot Intern still smoldered, but didn't burn as brightly, and I found myself missing OC's banter and compliments when he was out of the office on business. I also started dressing cuter than I had since I found out Hot Intern had a girlfriend. And of course, it didn't even occur to me until roughly a month in that I was developing a fairly weighty crush on Orange Crush.

And it wasn't until after that, when I really started thinking about it, that I came to the conclusion that he did as well. He started doing things he'd never done before, like call the front desk when it was completely unneccessary, and coming by to ask me questions I knew he already knew the answers to. Last week, during the Piston's awesome, awesome run for World Championship, he even invited me to the bar to watch the championship game. I went. We didn't get to hang out much, as there was absolutely nowhere to sit, and me and the friend I brought ended up standing at the bar to watch. But, we did chat a little after the game, and he mentioned to me several times how glad he was that I came throughout the rest of the week. And then yesterday, the cutest thing happened. I was walking by his office and he happened to be on his way out, so we walked together toward the elevators and talked. As we got there, one of his coworkers gets off the elevator, sees us walking together and shoots OC that look. You know the one I mean. The big smile with the eye contact that would be followed by a nudge and a wink if I hadn't been standing there. The one that if you get, you just smile and walk up to the person later and deck them for giving it to you. So, he's obviously mentioned something to the coworkers in his department (there are only three of them).

And now we come back to the advice about the heart of the mystery and the mystery of the heart.

Ever since I got that little niggling of intrigue, I constantly debated with myself and two friends(Kylee and Rave) whether I began to like him because I liked him or whether I was only liking the attention and the flirtation. I never brought it up with anyone else or posted about it here, which is uncharacteristic, as it was always on my mind. I deliberated, I rehashed, I reflected. OC is shorter than me and doesn't have the ass the Hot Intern has (who has, hands down the best ass I've ever seen), and I am both self-conscious about my height and shallow. I nitpicked everything he said, everything I said, my varying moods and the waxing and waning of my affections. In short, I was obsessing over the heart of the mystery.

Kylee finally sat me down electronically (I'd been emailing her for hours debating everything from our age difference to the likelihood of Heath Ledger knocking on my door with a dozen roses and a diamond ring) and said "at the end of the day, when you think about That Look that his coworker gave him when she saw the two of you together, do you feel mild satisfaction or are you wearing a big dopey grin?" I hit reply and typed "A big dopey grin." "You have your answer," she typed back.

And I do. The mystery of the heart?

I want my Orange Crush.