JAKE
Every hour of Tuesday passed with tedious slowness. Up in my office, it seemed as though the clock was taunting me. Every minute around its face felt like eternity as I sat and waited for the end of the day so I could meet up with Gabi.
I still couldn’t believe she’d agreed to meet up with me. When I’d asked, I was convinced she’d shoot me down. But she hadn’t. Since running into her yesterday, I’d considered messaging her and canceling our meetup multiple times. Not because I didn’t want to see her—I definitely wanted to see her—but because I knew in my gut that I would try to get her back, and I knew with even more resounding clarity that I didn’t deserve her.
My counselor—God, that’s something I never thought I’d say—had been helping me work through intense feelings of guilt I had about Gabi and how I’d treated her. He had shed some light on why I reacted so strongly and why my gut reflex was defensiveness.
According to him, I’d been living in survival mode for a long, long time.
Funny how a guy with more money than he knew what to do with could be classified as surviving instead of living. And by funny, I meant not funny at all. This past month of weekly appointments with my counselor had sucked, to put it lightly. I didn’t enjoy my time with him. I didn’t like the self-reflecting. It was uncomfortable, sometimes embarrassing, and almost always chock full of shit that made me feel like garbage that stewed around my head until the next weekly appointment.
But he’d also been giving me some tools to cope, and they were helping, slowly but surely.
At five o’clock I left the office. Several of my employees watched me go, no doubt curious as to where I was off to at such a reasonable hour. I wished them all a good night and told them not to stay too late. I was trying to get better at making sure I voiced that I didn’t expect them to stay late every day, or ever. If they could get their work done in their eight hours here, who was I to make them feel they had to stay later and overperform?
It took about twenty-five minutes to drive to the café Gabi had agreed to meet me at. She’d texted me this morning and told me we would not be doing dinner or drinks but would keep it simple with coffees.
Probably for the best.
When I strolled into the café, Gabi was nowhere to be seen. I picked a corner booth out of the sun blasting through the windows and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
No Gabi.
Had she gotten cold feet and decided this meeting wasn’t in her best interest? I wouldn’t blame her if she had. I’d given her every reason not to want to see me. But that wouldn’t be like her. If she said she was going to do something, she would follow through. She always did.
So where was she?
I began to worry that something might have happened to hold her up and I tried not to let my mind go there. Chances were she’d either gotten stuck in traffic or held up a little later at work. There had to be a reasonable explanation for this.
As I waited, the café staff grew impatient that I hadn’t ordered anything. I assured them I would once my companion arrived, and if she didn’t, I’d order something to go for myself. That got them off my back for another ten minutes or so. I was about to go to the counter and order something when a very flustered Gabi came through the front door. She looked wildly about until she spotted me and hurried over, already spewing apologies.
“I’m sorry I’m late. The traffic was brutal, and I didn’t get out of the office on time. I had to make like a thousand copies in the last ten minutes of my shift and our copy machine is a hunk of junk.” She pushed her bangs out of her eyes and winced. “Sorry, I’m rambling about the most boring stuff ever. I hope you weren’t waiting too long.”
“Not at all. I was about to order a drink. What can I get you?”
“I can get it.”
I didn’t argue. We moved up to the counter together. She ordered an iced coffee with a splash of milk and vanilla, and I opted for my usual, an Americano with an extra shot. The barista set to fixing our drinks, and we inched down the lane to the hand-off counter.
I looked down at her. Her haircut looked cute as hell on her. I hadn’t said so when I first ran into her on the sidewalk yesterday because I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to comment on her looks. It probably wasn’t. Not at this stage of the game. But nevertheless, the bangs and the shorter style suited her. It showed off her slender neck and delicate décolletage, as well as her shoulders and her straight posture. She looked like a ballerina in denim.
She caught me staring and offered me a crooked smile before messing with her bangs, straightening them out and smoothing them down with her fingers. “I know it’s a drastic change. I’m not sold on it yet.”
This was my window to say something. “I think it suits you better than the old cut. It’s fresh and youthful, and it frames your face.”
There,I thought, compliments that aren’t come-ons.
I hoped I didn’t miss the mark.
She smiled more brightly. “Thanks.”
The barista called our drinks and handed them off. We brought them back to our table, where Gabi took her time getting comfortable as she shed her lightweight cardigan and draped it over the back of her chair. She leaned back, crossed one leg over the other, and sipped her iced coffee.
Her eyes closed briefly. “I needed this.”