Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75640 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75640 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Just like staying late to evaluate the information rather than looking for solace in a bottle of tequila regarding the Slater situation was also the right call.
Well.
Probably.
After putting the tackily decorated item back where it belongs, I log out of both my desktop and laptop, put the latter away in my flip flop pattern shoulder bag, and prepare to kill my light when my cell vibrates itself into view.
One quick password type later I’m revealing an unexpected message.
Harv: Got your email.
Of course, he did.
He’s married to his phone.
Harv: I’ll review it after this conference call.
Seeing no need to respond has me resuming my packing yet before the phone can dim itself, I receive another text.
Harv: Headed home?
Me: You frown upon me sleeping here.
I picture the smirk he’s probably making.
Unlike Slater who lives to flash a toothy grin, Harv has always been more a smirker.
Which fits his personality to a tee.
Man is a control freak.
Only he gets to decide how many of his teeth you do or do not see.
Or whether those teeth get used on a begging woman’s neck during foreplay.
Harv: Can I walk you down?
Caught slightly off guard by the request has me hesitating to reply.
Um…well that’s…new.
He’s always been one of those “independence is why I like you” people. From opening my own car door to picking up takeout tabs. “Taking care of me” wasn’t something he seemed interested in doing, which was fine. I mean…I can and do know how to handle myself.
I’ve had to do it in some capacity for most of my life.
It’s just nice when someone you love wants to do it too.
Harv: I just need five minutes to wrap this up.
Giving my bright red painted lip the tiniest bite is done in contemplation.
Maybe this is a sign?
Maybe just him making the effort to show he’s changed or willing to change is a good motive to give us another go?
Or maybe I’m just being uncharacteristically hopeful because it beats the alternative of being predictively bitter?
Predictively bitter and sober are a terrible combination.
On a small shrug to myself, I swiftly reply.
Me: Five minutes it is.
Unfortunately for me – as I should’ve anticipated given what I’ve come to know about the man – five minutes easily turns into ten. And ten minutes quickly turns into twelve. And twelve becomes twenty-two before I realize I definitely made a mistake.
An all too familiar mistake.
God, I swear I’m like that kid who can never remember not to touch a hot stove because the pretty colors of fire are just so alluring.
Tossing my bag over my shoulder is followed by exiting my secure office for the elevators at the opposite end of the hall. Melisent Consuelos, the nightguard that works my executive floor over the weekend, offers me a respectful nod during her passing that I politely return.
Contrary, to her smaller build the woman is a weapon of mass destruction. She moonlights as a stunt double for action films, and once parkoured her way to the lobby to takedown an employee who was trying to steal office supplies. To this day, I can still remember watching the footage with Slater when he swung by to bring me lunch. We shared an order of shrimp fried rice – of course by share I mean I ate the shrimp while he ate the rice – and gawked at my computer screen in tandem, equally mesmerized by the scene. He spent the next ten minutes explaining to me why size isn’t everything – even in the security field – and then the next twenty recalling female soldiers who put many men he had come across to shame.
I also learned how many of those women he slept with.
And how many had slept with each other.
Interestingly enough sex has always been a rather easy topic with him.
Actually…everything is an easy topic with him.
Everything except confessing the whole secretly in love with him bit.
That one has never quite managed to get discussed over hockey reels or takeout.
Everything else?
Without a single doubt.
From the moment we met on the elevator – where we then got trapped together for three hours – talking to one another has always been the most natural thing.
Again.
Except for confessing that I wish he would’ve just asked me out that day rather than where my office was to chat in the future.
I’m pretty fluent in rejection – call it the gift with no receipt courtesy of being uncomfortably awkward in social situations since the age of four when I realized not everyone saw the alphabet the same way I did – so I knew his choice of phrasing that day wasn’t a flirty attempt to ask me on a date in the future.
And obviously I was right since it’s never happened in our six years of friendship.
On my way down to the main floor, I anxiously check my cell, once more wishing to be wrong about Harv.