I had to look back at my phone again so he wouldn’t catch me watching him.
“Here you go, ma’am. Decaf peach tea and a cranberry scone.” I took the tea and sipped it, burning my tongue.
“Thanks, Fin.”
“My pleasure.”
Enter awkward silence.
We both just sort of sat there, neither of us knowing where to start.
“So. This is terribly awkward.” Thank you, Fin. We both laughed and I shook my head.
“So don’t feel any pressure for this at all. I’m not expecting anything, if you were worried.” Well, I wasn’t until now. Why hadn’t that occurred to me? He must have seen my look of horror.
“And I did that thing I do and made this already awkward situation even worse. I’m going for the record today.” He shook his head at himself.
“Well, how about we move onto less awkward ground. How’s your job going?”
He mimed shooting himself in the head.
“That good?’
“It’s not the job, exactly. I enjoy it, and I like traveling, but I feel like it’s time to stay in one place. I know that’s odd for a guy to say, but I just wish I could stop living out of a suitcase and getting an email with a plane ticket and an order to be here or there in two weeks. Most of the time I don’t even get to see anything, except from afar.” He kept going and it was like I’d unleashed something that had been pent up inside him for a long time and he just needed someone to talk to about it.
When he finally took a breath, I realized we’d been talking for almost a half hour.
“Wow, I am not normally this much of a talkaholic. I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to lay that on you.” He stuck his scone in his mouth as if to stop any more words from coming out of it.
“No, it’s fine. Really. Everyone needs to bitch every now and then. I feel honored that you chose me.”
“Anything you want to talk about? Lay it on me.” He finished the scone and sat back and I felt like this was some sort of date-slash-therapy session.
“Well, work is going well, I’m living with my best friend and I don’t have much to bitch about.” Something told me that he wouldn’t really want to hear all the sordid details of my relationship, or whatever it was, with Lucas. Mr. Blaine.
He stared at me for a minute and then shook his head.
“You almost had me there. I almost believed you. But it’s been my experience that when someone says everything is going great, it means the opposite, and when people say that things are terrible, it’s the opposite. Not in every case, but in most cases. So, what is it that’s got you down?”
He leaned forward and propped his head on his fists and gave me a sweet puppy dog face that made me burst out laughing, startling the people at the next table who glared at me as if my laughter had somehow disturbed their enjoyment of their double tall half-caff soy mocha whatevers.
“Come on, lay it on me.” I took a deep breath.
“Okay. I’m about to share some very personal stuff with you, but sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone you don’t know very well than a best friend. So there’s this guy in my office and we’ve been flirting back and forth and I’ve told him to stop, but he won’t. It’s not entirely his fault because I keep saying no, but then telling him yes in other ways.”
I stopped for a moment to see if he was following me.
“Did you sleep with him?” Well, be blunt, why don’t you?
“Yes. Twice. Once before we worked together and once in the office.”
“Wow, bravo. I feel like I should be giving you a round of applause for that.”
“No! What I need is advice on how to stop letting this happen. I’ve never let my personal life get in the way of my work life. I mean, I found out my fucking boyfriend cheated on me and the same day I had to make this huge presentation that millions of dollars rode on and I nailed it. When I’m at work, all that stuff goes away, but now that stuff is at my work and things are getting mixed together and I don’t like it and I don’t know what to do about it.”
I put my head down on the cool table and then realized how many germs were probably now on my face, so I sat up.
“That is a conundrum. Have you thought about letting it happen?”