by Lynn Galli
“Oh.” Now she sounded disappointed. “The employer I just finished working for gave me tickets to the Mariners game on Monday.”
“Lane has Mondays off.” Like she didn’t already know that, but I was struggling for something to say.
“I’ve got three tickets.”
Oh, she’d planned for us all to go together. Prior to last night, I might have changed my plans to go with them. “Sorry. Work, you know?”
“Sure.” Silence ensued for longer than I liked on phone calls. “I wanted a chance to talk last night.”
Then you shouldn’t have gone off to have sex with someone before I left the bar, I thought. Bitter because I hadn’t had enough time to get to the cavalier point yet. “That couple moved up their interview to last night.” And you were busy anyway.
“Can we talk when you get back?” She abandoned her trademark cockiness.
“Sure.” Was there any other answer I could give her? Even if it was one of the worst questions someone can ask another person in any kind of relationship. Nothing good ever came from a “Can we talk?” talk.
“Okay. I just, we should have, but we got sidetracked and now it’s awkward. I don’t want it to be awkward.”
Neither did I. As much as I wished it could be more because, dammit, I liked her, I’d rather it not be awkward than tension-filled with the potential to accidently find ourselves smashed up against a wall with our hands shoved down each other’s pants and lips locked. Awkward-free, amazing friendship like no other, or occasional, partially-clothed, upright sex that led to confused feelings?
No contest.
* * *
This article was shredding every writing attempt I made. None of the right words fell into place, making it too obvious which couple was which. I’d been trying all morning to generalize it and still make the love stories compelling. Been at it since six to meet a one o’clock deadline. I’d let writing slide for more than a week, thinking I could bang this one out easily. After that, I could start building another cache of completed articles in case I had to go out of town for more interviews later. I’d stayed in Boise one day too long, and now I was in deadline mode.
The front door buzzed. My eyes jerked up from the screen. She cannot be early. Not today. She wasn’t due till lunch. It was going to be a reward for getting this article sent in. Work past the awkwardness to our friendly banter and maybe convince her to hang out for the rest of the day. But I had to get this done first.
When she appeared at the top of the stairs, my heart set out on an obstacle course. Tripping, clenching, tumbling, swinging, it went through every movement, matching each of the emotions at seeing her. Usually it just broke into a happy dance to be with my friend, but this morning, it also faced trepidation, embarrassment, dread, and fear. That last one because I was in danger of missing this deadline, and she was so early.
“Hi.” I waved to have something to do with my hands. “You’re early.”
She’d been smiling and moving toward me, but she frowned as her eyes dropped to her watch. “No.”
“Huh?” Then her response registered. Panic took over everything in my heart. “Are you saying it’s noon?”
She took a step back at my panicked tone. Whatever greeting she’d planned to give got ditched when she saw how freaked I was. “Yeah. What’s wrong?”
“Dammit! Sorry, I have an hour till deadline. I thought I’d be done by now.”
Her hand reached out and rested on my shoulder. “But you’re not?”
“I don’t know what happened. The morning slipped away.”
“Okay.” Comforting but distracting hand squeeze. “I can come back later or go get us some lunch to kill time.” The two options were too plentiful for me to contemplate when I only had an hour to work on this frustrating article. We stared at each other until she made the decision for us. “Go finish. I’ll come back later.”
My hand reached out on its own and clamped onto her arm. “You can stay. I just can’t talk until I finish.”
She weighed my invitation. “Get in there. I’ll go get my laptop and do some background checks while you’re working.”
I watched her disappear down the stairs and felt both relief and anxiety. I should have just let her go get us lunch or something to kill an hour. I’d never written with anyone around before. Even at a newspaper office, I did most of my writing at home.
Before I could text her to say I’d changed my mind, she was bounding up the last flight of stairs. Jeez, she was fast. And hot. She couldn’t have toned that down today? Damn those well fitted jeans, sexy cowboy boots, and green check shirt. This was the first outfit I’d seen her in. Dammit, I shouldn’t remember that. Friends didn’t remember first outfits.
“You’re not working,” she chided and pushed me back inside. “Just one thing before I shut up till you’re done.”
I watched with wide eyes as hers slipped down to my mouth. No, no, can’t happen. I’ll never get this article done, and we hadn’t settled on what we were yet, and no, just no.
“Key in your Wi-Fi password for me, will you?”
The question didn’t make sense given what I’d been thinking about. “What?”
She shoved her laptop into my hands. “Type, and I’ll leave you alone.”
My eyes flicked down to the screen where it showed the available Wi-Fi networks and the space for my password. I would have appreciated that she didn’t just ask me for it if I weren’t so hung up on meeting my deadline and willingly submitting myself to writing in front of another person. With several keyboard clicks, I’d entered my password and connected her.
“Thanks, now get to work.”
Like a zombie, I went back to my desk and read through the last several lines before starting to type again. Four paragraphs later, I got up and walked into the kitchen for a drink of water and came back to sit again. Two more paragraphs, I took my laptop and set it on the standing portion of my desk and did another circuit into the kitchen and back. It’s how I work. Don’t judge.
My cell beeped. I glanced at the display as I was typing the third to last paragraph. “I’m going to make it. I’ve got forty-five minutes. Stop bothering me,” I told my editor as soon as I picked up the phone.
“Just making sure.” And she clicked off. That’s how we work. Don’t judge.
Another paragraph, and I was feeling less panicky. Making the circuit again, I sat back at my desk to pound out the last two paragraphs. One spell check and word count later, a few descriptive adjectives were added here and there to make up the count requirement. I sent the draft to the printer and read through the pages as I walked the circuit all over. Every once in a while, I’d stop, grab a pen from the nearest surface, scribble a correction, and continue walking. After my proof circuit, I sat to make the corrections and gave it a final read-through on screen. Two changes, and finally, I attached it to an email and sent it off. I reached for my phone to text my editor, who snark-texted a warning not to leave it to the last minute ever again. No duh, lady. This was too stressful.
My head fell back. I let out a relieved sigh and threw my hands up in the air. I would have started singing if I didn’t feel singing was the worst talent I possessed. For a while there, singing and kissing were neck and neck. Oh, yeah, kissing. I turned and saw Iris leaning back on my couch, her twinkling eyes giving away her delight.
“That was quite possibly the most interesting work routine I’ve ever witnessed.”
I blushed, my whole face, not just heated cheeks or ears, whole face and probably neck and onto my chest. One paragraph in, I’d completely forgotten she was there. She would have been in my periphery vision as I made my desk, kitchen, and back hallway circuit, but I didn’t hear her. When I had to work in those awful cubicles at the paper, I could hear every little sound. See anyone who moved. Awareness was my thing. So she’d sat quietly and worked or watched me work and didn’t draw attention to herself or bug me in any way. No one did that. Everyone bugs me. Everyone. I didn�
��t get upset or angry about it. It was simply a fact. People make noise or movements or whatever when I need complete silence, so they bug. Nothing against them. They just do. She hadn’t.
“I have to apologize again. Time got away from me. I should have texted to push back the time. And I’m such a jerk; I didn’t even offer you coffee or water or anything.”
“I helped myself. I didn’t want to bother you.” She lifted her water glass.
She’d moved and I hadn’t noticed? “Good, yes, and in case this ever happens again, just know to make yourself at home.” I walked the path from the couch to the kitchen with my eyes and still couldn’t get over how I’d missed her making that trip. “You must be starving. We were supposed to go to lunch.” And talk without me thinking about her hands and mouth and body on mine. Or about her leaving the bar with another woman the next night.
She stood from the couch and came toward me. I felt my heart thud with each step. Now that the article deadline panic was over, I was free to feel the other kind of panic. Other than a couple of texts, we hadn’t spoken since our phone call. Our short phone call after we’d had sex in this very apartment not far from where we were standing now.
“Lunch can wait a minute.” She stopped in front of me. And damn she smelled good. Looked good, too. Criminally good. “I missed you. I’m sorry we didn’t get to see each other before you had to leave.”
We did. We saw each other at the bar. Before she went off with another woman. When I was still feeling how her hands felt making love to me, she was using those hands on someone else. I could still feel them.
“Yeah.”
She waited for more but I didn’t know what to say. “See? This was the awkward I wanted to avoid.”
I let out a laugh, forced, but a laugh. “You’re right. My head’s still recovering from the whole almost missed my deadline thing.”
“Never happened before?” she teased and looked even sexier.
“Never. It was a bad move to put off writing last week to focus on getting interviews.”
“I could tell by the way you took it out on your keyboard. It never did anything to you.”
Yeah, I press hard on the keys. It’s how I work. Judge that one if you want.
“Did you get any work done, or just stare at me the whole time,” I teased back but warmed at the thought of her staring at me.
“Little bit. You were more entertaining.” She stepped closer and raised her hand to cup my cheek. “I’m glad you’re back.”
I swallowed, trying to get some moisture back in my mouth. She tilted toward me. Uncertainty overwhelmed me, and I stepped back. She blinked and dropped her hand. Dread gnawed at my gut, but I had to get this out. “I probably should have told you that I’m past the point in my life where casual works for me.”
Confusion dotted her expression. “What are you saying? Because the last time we kissed was anything but casual. It seemed like you enjoyed it.”
“I did. It was…”
“Amazing,” she supplied, and my heart squeezed at her awe-filled tone.
“I like you too much to lose you as a friend just so we can have casual sex occasionally.” There, I said it. “Totally old fashioned and completely cliché, I know. I listen to these stories every day and think that nothing is ever original. I want to be original, but I have old fashioned ideas about seeing only one person at a time.”
“I’m not sure I understand your objection.” She searched my eyes. “You want to keep our friendship as is because you think this would be casual? Or you want exclusivity and originality?”
“Both, all, I don’t know what I’m saying.” I stepped toward the kitchen, but her hand clutched my arm to stop me.
“I like you, too. Let me just say that first. We got over the bad kissing hump together. I don’t know about you, but I lost my confidence there for a minute. Then we shared an amazing afternoon together. I’ve never been with anyone like you. I think we’re good together. That’s all the originality I need.”
That sounded so promising. If only she thought about relationships the way I did. “Like I said, I’m too old and there are too many diseases out there to be in an open relationship. Sorry, that’s just not me.”
“Okay.” She raised her hand up to my cheek again.
“Okay?” I took another step away before her hand landed. “How could that be okay with you?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” She was the one who stepped back this time.
“Are we going to pretend that you didn’t take a woman home from the bar the other night?” My hands came up. “This isn’t about jealousy. We weren’t…hadn’t defined what we were. You were free to see anyone you wanted. I just don’t work that way.”
Hurt spiked on her features. My stomach knotted at the sight. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. I was trying to be open about what I could and couldn’t handle in an intimate relationship. I wanted a one and only, and she wanted to be free to take women home from the bar.
“I see.” Her head nodded repeatedly. “You think I’m a slut.”
My mouth popped open. “No, I don’t. I didn’t say anything like that.”
“Fine, a player, which is just a more polite name for a slut.”
“No, I don’t.” I didn’t think she was slutty. I didn’t think people who had multiple sex partners were slutty. I wasn’t a prude about sexuality. People could sleep around all they wanted. I just didn’t want to be with someone who wanted that. “I’m just trying to tell you what I need from a relationship.”
“And it’s not me, obviously,” she said, turning and walking back to the couch where she scooped up her laptop and slipped it into her bag.
“Iris, please don’t be like this.” I moved to stand in front of her. “You want one thing, and I want something else. Can’t we just recognize that and not completely ruin our friendship?”
Her eyes closed slowly, and she let out a long breath. “Yeah, we can.”
“Good,” I said and breathed out my own relieved sigh. “I feel at home here because of you, Iris. You’re the best friend I’ve made in years. I don’t want to screw that up.” By thinking what we’d shared was special and something she would cherish as much as I had. Stupidly outdated ideals, but still.
She slung her bag over her shoulder. “Me, neither.” She walked to the door, ending what should have been an afternoon together. I couldn’t blame her. This conversation was going to be awkward no matter the outcome. In the open doorway, she turned and gave me a long look. “Just so it’s been said, I didn’t sleep with Kaylee last Friday. She was about to walk home without the friends she came in with. I wanted to make sure she got home safely. Just because we got one guy doesn’t mean there aren’t other predators out there. I thought you were still going to be at the bar by the time I got back so we could talk.”
I opened my mouth but nothing came out. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway because she’d already walked out the door. A second later I heard her footfalls on the stairs. Each sound like a punch to my stomach.
41 | Alice & Neil
As a professor of literature, the woman chatting with me knew far more about writing than I did. I was a little surprised she’d agree to be one of my subjects when my writing couldn’t hold a candle to some of the classics she taught every semester. I was an okay writer. I knew how to tell a story. My strength was making complex subjects relatable and understandable. They weren’t always lyrical or prophetic. Memorable, sure, but no one would ever accuse me of being Brontë or Woolf. I could only imagine the critique she’d apply when she recognized her story in one of my future articles.
Her husband, an equally smart guy as a philosophy professor, probably wouldn’t be as harsh a critic. He’d complimented me on the articles he’d read so far and told me how much fun they were having registering their votes every week.
“The best lesson I learned in grad school?” Neil looked first to me, and then with a kind smile at his wife. “Don’t treat your grad assista
nt like a gofer.”
I flicked my eyes between them. This was my fourth couple with an age difference of twenty-plus years. Unlike the others, these two were now at the point where that age difference was very, very noticeable. Alice was about to retire this year, and he’d still have another couple of decades working at that university. What I liked most was that they’d been together more than twenty years already. Also, she didn’t color her hair and didn’t look like she’d gone through any cosmetic surgery to suspend aging. She looked like a sixty-seven year old woman. The new sixty-seven, still very active and as fresh faced as someone on the planet almost seven decades can be. Neil looked like a guy my age. They would be mistaken for mother and son at times, I was sure of it. Yet, because they’d made it twenty plus years, they knew what they had and who they were. It still wouldn’t work for me, but of the age difference couples I’d interviewed, this one was the most solid.
“Wait, you were her grad assistant?” I asked because all they’d said so far was that they met at their employing university.
“Oh, heavens no,” Alice interjected. “That wouldn’t have been right. It was bad enough as it was.”
“As it was?” I prompted.
Her cheeks colored. “He was the grad assistant for another professor on our office floor. I’d see him running back and forth carrying coffee, dry cleaning, walking the guy’s dog, picking up the guy’s kids. He was being treated like a lackey. My colleagues and I kept trying to encourage him to apply for a different position. He wasn’t getting what he needed from that professor.”
“The guy was a complete gasbag.” Neil chuckled like it never bothered him to be the errand boy of some gasbag professor.
“You stayed as his grad assistant for how long?”
“A year. I was going to stay on, but Alice was pretty convincing. Grad students should help with research or grading. She was right. He wouldn’t further my academic career.”
“Did your relationship start then?”