by Frey Ortega
“I certainly wouldn’t have guessed, but then again it’s not as though he had many dates. I’m definitely reading that piece on The Stylish, by the way. I want to know more about our chubby-chasing Casanova. When’s the article coming out?” Talia turned to look at me and smiled.
“I have to write it first. I have a first draft ready since it’s been a day and work on editing has been light, but it’s not the final product yet,” I answered. In addition to the night we were having now, I didn’t exactly have time to poop words onto paper and expect for there to be something gold in there. This wasn’t a college thesis.
“Well, we want to get to know more about Joe. Or at least I do,” Talia said. “Like why chubby guys?”
“Perhaps I can answer that.” Ysa smiled. “Well, I can try, at least. Sexual deviance research isn’t where I’d like it to be, but there’s been promising research in the field of body preferences and poverty levels as it pertained to some historical data—“
Suddenly there was a knock on the door.
Talia suddenly stood up and rolled her eyes heavenward. “Oh, thank God. Someone get that get our food before Ysa goes off into a tangent.”
“That should be our pizza,” Rye said. “We’ll get it.”
I shook my head, but smiled at Ysa, who sat there a little flabbergasted. A tangent about sexual deviance and four-cheese pizza?
That sounded about as perfect of a night as there would ever be.
Chapter Eight
The very next day, Dale asked me to come into the office as a way for him to catch up with what had happened during the interview. It was also a way for me to show where I was with my first draft, and maybe get a couple of points and pointers from Dale. It usually wasn’t like this, since usually I just submitted whatever work I had to Dale’s email and just saw an edited and cleaned up article on the website a few hours later, but with this piece in particular, I surmised that upper management probably wanted to scrutinize every little detail.
The Stylish was getting an exclusive, after all, and this was ex-football superstar, Joe Kaminski. I don’t think I could emphasize any more how much pressure this was for someone who was just supposed to be doing a couple of fluff pieces every so often to supplement his income.
Still, the very thought of his name still made me crack a grin. Everything about what had happened felt like a good memory—something to cherish forever. It was like just the merest thought of Joe Kaminski put a sigh to my lips and a glimmer in my eyes, or so Talia told me the morning after our little soiree.
It was a good look on me, or so she said. I trusted her to know what looked good and what didn’t, considering she was the most fabulous of all of us.
Dale looked as chipper and happy as usual, with a glimmer in his eyes and an undeniable spring in his step. For someone who woke up at five in the morning every day to get a workout in before he went to work, he was incredibly chipper. A tiny little part of me wanted to know if Dale ever got angry, or if he ever got bitter or sad about anything because he was just like those pictures of Sweden or the Netherlands or maybe even Switzerland, with the sunny, golden-haired girls in lederhosen dresses—not that those were what they were called, but the actual term escaped me—and he was just always smiling and upbeat and positive.
Maybe it was all the endorphins in the exercise he got. Either way, he looked good. He was dressed well, his hair was perfectly coiffed, and considering I waltzed into the office in a pair of shorts and a flannel, I looked more like I was about to hang out with friends than going to the place I actually worked at.
Dale’s office was nice, too. Glass doors made it seem like he was an approachable guy, who you could talk to about whatever issue you had. And to be sure, he actually was, so I kind of thought that his office kind of fit his personality. It was all sleek and modern and recently renovated to the tastes of the people who now worked there, which was obviously quite a number of millennials who were enjoying their fair-trade coffees pumped with…I don’t know, ginseng and agave nectar, or something?
That certainly seemed like something Dale would be interested in, especially as he sipped his warm kombucha.
“So, how was the interview?” Dale asked. “Joe apparently couldn’t say enough nice things about you when we caught up with him last night.”
I gave a noncommittal shrug. “I was as punctual as I could be, given that I overslept. Thank you for covering my ass, by the way.”
Dale shrugged. “I figured I’d give you every chance to succeed. What are friends and good bosses for, right?”
He was just so eternally optimistic and cheerful and sometimes I couldn’t believe how friendly he was. Maybe he was a clone, or a Stepford Wife, something. That certainly seemed more feasible.
We got into talking about the interview for a little bit, sorted through the proofs of pictures and figured out which ones worked with what we were going to write. I’d been happily taking down notes, listening intently to Dale’s comments through the draft so that I had a better idea of what the head honchos wanted.
Work was fun, sometimes. When I wasn’t staring about twenty deadlines in the face, I knew that work could definitely be a fun distraction from my lack of social and/or love life.
Dale was in the middle of explaining something about how the layout was going to be in the print magazine and how they were going to do a digital deluxe exclusive sort of promo, with a different article for the site and the magazine for people to read both and maybe get more ad revenue that way, when he paused and turned to look up out of the glass doors of his office just behind me.
And being as though he was mid-sentence when he did this, I turned to look when it was obvious he had his attentions elsewhere.
Joe walked into the room looking like he owned the place. He had a confidence in his expression that made any person weak in the knees, but just as I was inappropriately dressed for the office, Joe looked like he’d come straight from the gym. He was wearing men’s yoga pants that clung to his thighs but were baggy in the crotch area, and ended right below his knee. The worst thing about it too was that he was wearing a tank top that did nothing to conceal how good his body looked underneath.
“How did you get in here?”
“I strode in and asked for you, and they just kind of let me,” Joe answered.
The amount of privilege in that sentence baffled me.
“Oh, you asked for me?” Dale was giggling like a schoolgirl. “I didn’t know we were introduced—“
“I, uh, I actually asked for Emmett,” Joe explained. He leaned forward. “But you must be Emmett’s boss. It’s nice to meet you.”
Dale looked embarrassed and crestfallen. “Right, uh—right! That makes a lot more sense.” He brushed it off with an awkward peal of laughter, but I could tell the faux pas got to Dale in some small way. The way he extended his hand felt just a little bit more mechanical than it should have been. “I’m Dale Brunson, editor at The Stylish.”
“Cool,” Joe replied. “I’m Joe.”
“Right. I knew that,” Dale replied, awkwardly. He shot me a look, bit down on his lower lip, and cleared his throat. “Anyway, I’ll get out of your hair and let the two of you talk.” Dale strode out of the door with a little smile and a shrug.
“You know, you really don’t need to do that. This is your office and we could just go to the pantry or something—" I said, but Dale was already out of his doors and heading straight God-knows-where.
As soon as Dale stepped out of the glass doors of his office and closed it shut, it was just Joe and I there.
In close proximity with one another, yet again.
Alone.
And the fantasy of being with Joe felt a hell of a lot safer than the reality, when Joe’s eyes were scanning over me like I was some kind of…I don’t know. I guess a slab of chocolate, to a chocoholic? Or a glass of whiskey to an alcoholic? Basically, Joe was looking at me with such emotion, biting down on his lower lip, it was clear that his expressio
n was either designed to completely faze me, turn me on, scare me away, or some eldritch combination of the three.
“Why are you even here?” I asked.
“My gym has a branch in the lobby of your building and I thought I’d get a good workout in before I realized I was in close proximity to your office,” Joe said, almost as though he’d practiced the explanation beforehand. “And I figured I’d come up and ask you out. So…”
He brushed a hand over his shirt, removing some made-up particle of dust there even though he was glistening in sweat, looking more delectable than anything I’d seen before. Joe Kaminski was a goddamn Adonis, and I had no idea why he was fooling with me.
“Hey, you want go out with me?” Joe asked me. What a straight-shooter. I froze in my seat, as I was wont to do, because I honestly didn’t know what else to do at that point.
Again, I was like a computer one error away from completely malfunctioning. I heard a squeal from nearby. I’m guessing someone probably overheard that, but I couldn’t deny nor refute that claim just yet. After all, I was basically a living blue screen error at that particular moment.
“Why?” I asked warily. I even squinted my eyes at him. I thought I was just a booty call.
He shrugged. “Because I like you and I wanted to get to know you better. Think of it like us interviewing each other again, only this time if I manage to get you naked in the bathroom once more, it’s not completely unprofessional.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Another part of me just wanted to tell him off and to leave me alone, because no one really cared about what I thought or felt, and no one really made plans to have me in their future and he was barking up the wrong tree. My mother once told me my siblings would always have my back and that they would include me in their plans, and I knew that was a lie. They all had their own lives to live. They didn’t need me weighing them down, and let’s face it, I was a pretty huge deadweight. No one wanted, let alone needed, that.
Why should Joe Kaminski?
Besides, I thought Joe just wanted a one-night stand. Somewhere in all of this, I know that there was a miscommunication somewhere. Maybe this was a miscommunication.
Joe was just having fun. I was just…fun, I guess. I would have laughed in the face of whoever said that, because the word “fun” and I never really meshed well together, but whatever.
“Besides,” Joe continued, pulling me out of my self-shame spiral. “You’re an overthinker and possibly a little bit neurotic and crazy. That’s really hot.”
I made a face, scrunching it up in confusion. “No, it isn’t—oh, you’re fucking with me now, aren’t you?”
I looked right at him and Joe had this sort-of-shit-eating grin on his face. He waggled his eyebrows and placed a hand on my shoulder. “C’mon. It’ll be fun. You can get yourself out of your head for a little while and just enjoy the moment. You need to loosen up a little. Your butt was clenching the whole time in the shower. Now, granted, that felt pretty good, but I didn’t know if that was an involuntary thing—“
At that moment in time, I was so flustered and flabbergasted that he would bring that up in the office. Where people could easily hear! Did…Did this guy not have a sense of what was appropriate workplace conversation? We were in Dale’s office, for crying out loud!
“—or if it was an intentional thing to get me off. Either way, it was pretty hot.”
I had to gawk at him and raise my eyebrow. Was this guy crazy? Was he not right in the head? Why was he talking about me like I was some kind of catch, or some kind of prize? I was neither.
“You weren’t tackled too hard in a recent game, have you?” I had to ask. “I’m trying to figure out if I have to call a doctor for you just in case you have a concussion.”
“It sounds like you have a lot more issues, and it’s not necessarily with me, but with yourself,” Joe said. “And for your information, I haven’t taken a tackle to the head for five years now.”
“Oh good, five years. That’s not worrying at all.” I looked up at him and tried to muster up all the deadpan snark in me, conjuring it into one, scathing look. “Am I that obvious? With all my…quirks?”
Joe shrugged. “What can I say? I like a challenge.”
“Oh, do you, now?” I said, trying to provoke him a little bit. “So you come out, and now you’ve decided you want the reporter who’s writing your coming-out story because he’s a challenge? Because he’s—because I’m—a neurotic mess with a ton of personal issues and you think that’s…”
I couldn’t find the words, but Joe helpfully supplied it for me. “Because I find you attractive, in spite of all the neuroticism you’re displaying now, that’s why. Can’t you just say you’d like to go out and let’s actually just go out?”
I rolled my eyes heavenward and pressed my hands together, close to my chest in prayer. “God, if this guy is real…”
Joe smirked. “I’m very real.”
“…I hope he gets the help he needs very, very soon.”
“I don’t need any help,” Joe said. “Is it a crime to know what you want in life?”
“But you want a challenge? A neurotic, obsessive, socially awkward writer who spends his life in front of the computer?”
I couldn’t help but think about how unlikely this all seemed.
“I mean, first of all, that’s so specific, you might as well have been talking about a kink or a niche. Second of all, I think I see something totally different from what you’re seeing, and that’s why you’re not quite grasping what I’m getting at, here.”
I nodded. “Yeah,” I acquiesced. At least with that point, Joe was correct.
“I see a guy who’s inexperienced and introverted. A guy who enjoys staying at home more than going out, and that’s not a bad thing,” Joe said. “None of those things are bad things. It just means you need a little practice, and I have someone who’d just as happily stay at home with me as go out for dinner. If you ask me, that’s relationship material right there. And I think I’m kind of past the point where I’m just looking for hook-ups and one-night stands. Don’t get me wrong, those are fun too, but I’m thinking it might be nice to try something different this time.”
This time? I tilted my head questioningly. “So, you’re basically telling me you spent the last, what, thirty or so years just fucking a series of dudes, and now you look at me and think “Huh, maybe I’ll try something serious this time around” after just one-bathroom tryst?”
Everything about this smelled suspicious to me. I had a strong sense of self-preservation and if this were a conversation on a dating app, I would have immediately blocked Joe, no questions asked.
But maybe that’s the reason why I was still single. Taking a huge risk was not usually in my wheelhouse, so just having sex the way we did was already a big deal to me.
“Yup,” Joe said. “When I know what I want, I go for it. Determination plays a big part in why a lot of sports players succeed, after all.”
Again, I suppose I had to concede that point. That was true. If they weren’t disciplined and determined, people in sports would never really win anything.
It was nice to think that I was more relationship material than one-night stand material. After all, I could have chosen to be offended.
“Fine,” I finally said. “One date. We’ll go from there.”
“Hey, that’s all I’m asking,” Joe said, though I could’ve sworn his eyes glimmered in happiness. “What say I pick you up this Friday at seven?”
“Okay.”
This time, there was a cacophony of squeals somewhere nearby, followed by the crashing of some form of dinnerware. Dale peered out from the pantry with a grin spanning from ear to ear.
Good Lord. What did I get myself into?
Chapter Nine
I heard the same squeals of excitement from my friends that night as Dale and the other Stylish employees from the pantry. I called for an “emergency meeting” among us once more, and while Camille was doin
g her rounds and couldn’t attend, and Ysa was in the middle of a conference with someone from Shanghai, there was always Talia, Chase, and Rye. With Talia’s next outgoing flight still a week or so away, and Chase and Rye were basically inseparable and often came as a package, the three of them were there to, once more, share a meal and maybe get a little bit wine-drunk.
Well, they were mostly there to get wine-drunk. But it didn’t offend me at all. It afforded me the opportunity to talk their ears off.
Plopping into my seat, I placed my face into my hands and leaned over as the weight of my decision actually bore down on me. I just agreed to a date.
Fuck.
This was going to be exceedingly awkward in ways I can’t even describe. I couldn’t have a decent, casual conversation with Joe yesterday. What more now, when the threat of an actual date loomed in the air?
“No. Way.”
“He asked you out on a date?” Talia said, jaw agape.
Chase leaned forward. “The more important thing here is that he tracked you down to the office and managed to get you to acquiesce to a date. That’s either real creepy, or real sweet.”
Talia raised an eyebrow. “Why can’t it be both?”
Rye nodded. “True. Talia’s got a point. It could be creepy and sweet, and how did it go? You said yes, right? You need to go for it while you have a chance, Emmett.”
“I said yes. I didn’t know how else to respond. The rest of the day kind of passed like a blur after that,” I admitted. “It’s hard to keep track of what’s happening when you realize that you just said yes to a date.”
“Why should this be an issue? You went to prom, right? That meant you asked someone out on a date,” Talia said.
“Actually, Emmett didn’t go to prom. He stayed at home and played video games all night. Back then, I went out with a date. A girl, too. I still thought I was straight back then,” Chase admitted. “Rye went stag, I think.”
Rye nodded in acquiescence.
“That…makes some sense,” Talia replied. “So you said yes. Are you ready to get out there and date?”