GABRIELLA
The GPS in my Lambo brought me to the new soup and sandwich restaurant Donna had invited me to on Saturday afternoon. The sun was shining, and the external temperature indicator on my dash said it was a comfortable sixty-five degrees. I loved that the heat never got too intense here and it stayed a comfortable sixty or so degrees all year round, but I did sometimes long for hot beach weather. Nevertheless, it was the perfect sunny day for soup and sandwiches on a patio.
I parked the car a block away. I didn’t need Donna seeing me pull up. She’d have a thousand questions I wasn’t prepared to answer.
My head had been spinning since last night.
I wasn’t entirely sure what came over me. One minute I was pulling out of my parents’ driveway after dinner, and the next I was parking in the lot of Jake’s office building. As if on autopilot, I went inside and rode the elevator up. Suddenly finding myself in his office, I knew then and there that it was too late for me to go back.
Too late to stop what felt destined to happen between us.
Thinking about him made my knees ache.
I pulled my visor mirror down and slapped my cheeks. “Get it together, Gabi. It was just sex. You needed to blow off steam. So did he. Now you can move forward without all the sexual tension.”
My reflection blinked slowly back at me. How dumb are you, girl?
I slapped the visor closed. “I’m not dumb. I’m optimistic that we can be professional after last night.”
After he was nine inches deep in you?
I let out an irritated growl at my own thought process, grabbed my purse from the passenger seat, and got out of the car before my mind had any other chances to run away with my thoughts. I marched up the sidewalk, a gentle breeze tugging at my hair as my sandals slapped across the pavement. Donna was up ahead, taking a seat at one of the patio tables. She looked cute in a pair of cut-off jeans and a white T-shirt. Her aviator sunglasses made it hard to tell if she was looking at me when she looked up, so I waved. She grinned, waved back, and got up to give me a hug when I made it to the patio.
“You’ve got a pep in your step this morning,” she said as she sat back down and sipped the waters a server brought out for us. “What’s the occasion?”
She knows.
“No occasion.” I opened my menu and focused all my energy on looking totally absorbed in reading it. “Have you eaten here before? What’s good?”
“Well.” Donna shimmied her butt side to side in her chair. “I’m partial to the cranberry and brie turkey sandwich. It’s literally divine. But I’m also a big fan of the ham and cheese croissant. Oh. And soup wise, there is no better choice than the curried yam. It’s a bit spicy, but trust me, it’s delicious.”
I pursed my lips and tapped them with one finger, thinking. “That was a good pitch.”
“Honestly you can’t go wrong with anything. This place knows their way around good lunch food.”
When the server came to our table, we put in our orders. I opted for the soup because not doing so seemed unwise based on Donna’s enthusiasm. I paired it with the ham and cheese croissant. The server, a young teenage boy with a head of blue-gray hair and a pierced eyebrow, assured me I’d made the right decision before collecting our menus and disappearing among the other tables.
“So, what’s new?” Donna asked. “You and Jake working well together? It seems better from where I sit all day.”
I averted my gaze and hoped my cheeks weren’t turning too pink. “Yeah, it’s been way better. He’s sticking to his word and trying to meet me halfway. At this rate, I think I’ll stay.”
Donna studied me.
“What?” I asked.
“Something happened, didn’t it?”
“No.”
“Yes,” she insisted. “You won’t look me in the eye. Why not?”
I licked my lips. “No reason.”
“Liar.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. Donna was a close and trusted friend, but she was also one of Jake’s employees. Could I trust her with this information? Did I want to burden her with it? What if it put her in a bad spot, having to keep my secret from other colleagues? What if she slipped up by accident and spilled the beans? Would there be repercussions? What would Jake think if people found out he’d hooked up with his assistant?
“Oh. My. God.” Donna smacked her hand on the table, making me jump. “You are hiding something! I can see it all over your face. Tell me, Gabi. Tell me!”