Man Flu

by Ryan, Shari J.

  “Have you considered that may be the reason he’s your ex-husband?”

  Did he just go there? He did. He totally just went there. “Excuse me?”

  “I don’t mean it in a rude way,” he says, peering into the rearview mirror as he switches lanes. “It’s just that … if you’re so closed off, maybe that put a barrier between you and Rick, you know?”

  “From one divorcée to another, do you really think you should be giving me advice? Especially since I was cheated on and replaced by some Barbie bimbo, who can hardly spell her name. What’s your excuse? Where did you go so wrong, Mr. Perfect?” I snap at him defensively.

  He stalls, looks over at me, and swallows hard, before returning his gaze to the road. “I never said I was perfect.”

  “That wasn’t the question.”

  “I know why my marriage went down the shitter. That’s the difference between the two of us.”

  I reposition myself in my seat, feeling the heat rise through my neck and into the backs of my ears. “How do you have the nerve to make that kind of assumption after knowing me less than a week and having very few facts about my life to go on?”

  “I’ve seen a lot in the last week,” he says.

  “So, you’re blaming me for getting cheated on? I just want to make sure I’m understanding you correctly. I guess Rick is still as slick as ever with his greasy salesman spiels. I should have known you’d take his side when I heard you two laughing together yesterday.”

  “I didn’t say that,” he says.

  “Then just say it, Logan. What have you figured out about me while watching me puke my brains out? I’m honestly intrigued.” By the anger searing through each of my words, I doubt he believes I have any sort of curiosity about what he might say, but I do want to know where this crazy assumption is coming from.

  “You don’t want anyone to care about you,” he says. “Just as men act like they don’t want to be cared about, it’s never the truth, so I can only assume you do want to be cared about. However, the big difference between men and women is that women still have a sense of nurturing even when pushed away. Men don’t have that sixth sense, so if they think a woman doesn’t want to be cared for, they may walk away.”

  I open my mouth to snap back with something, but nothing comes to me. No thoughts. No words. He just described me, but did he describe Rick’s actions too? Rick never struck me as the type to want to feel needed. He’s always been the one who has the needs and wants.

  “I—” I still have nothing to say.

  “Look at Tiana as an example,” Logan says. “She clearly needs more attention than the average woman. I mean, I heard her tell Rick at least once last night that she needed some attention. I wasn’t a huge fan of the baby talk that accompanied it, but I kind of thought … wow, it’s nice to just be told what she wants instead of making a man play the whole guessing game. I can safely assume that Tiana is just easy.”

  I laugh because he hit the nail right on the head with that one. “That, she is, Logan.”

  He raises a brow and looks over at me briefly. “I’m serious. I mean easy as in simple, not high maintenance emotionally.”

  “Well, too bad for me, then. I am who I am, and if someone doesn’t like it, they can go find another Tiana.” I cross my arms, feeling defensive for the way I am, even though I don’t care—I’ve never cared about what anyone else thinks.

  “Look, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you are the reason for your divorce, but I’m telling you it’s okay to need help sometimes, and no one is going to judge you for it.”

  “Okay, thanks for kicking me when I’m down,” I tell him. I don’t want this conversation to continue. I’m even more uncomfortable now than I was when I got into the truck.

  “For the record, I think it’s hot when a woman can take care of herself, but there’s still a time and place to lean on help when it’s there. Sometimes we men need to be needed.”

  I let him help yesterday. I don’t understand why he’s being so pushy about this. I was helpless, as a matter of fact. Rick had to have filled his head with so much shit, I can’t even process what he must know about me.

  Did he just say it’s hot to be independent?

  I inhale sharply and set my gaze on the side window. “I’m like this for a reason. Everyone has reasons for the way they are.”

  “You’re right,” he says quickly. “and I’m pushy and forward, so because of that I’m taking you out on a date tonight.”

  I whip my head around. “Excuse me?”

  “Yeah, I’m taking you out for a nice dinner. I might kiss you. I might even try to persuade you to do more, and I might break that sneering little look in your eye too.”

  I’m having a hot flash. Is that possible at thirty-three? “What?” I’m a little blunter this time, but seriously, what the hell is happening?

  “Now’s the part where I either say I’m kidding, or I reply with … is there a problem?” He clears his throat, pulls into the parking lot of the coffee shop, parks, and looks directly at me. “Which one do you prefer?”

  What kind of question is this? Obviously, it’s the latter half of his assumption—or whatever I’m supposed to call it. Obviously.

  “Are you propositioning your boss?” I reply.

  “Am I?” he questions.

  Answer him, Hannah. “I could have you fired for this.”

  “Could you?”

  “Yes,” I snap.

  “Then fire me.”

  “I liked you better before we had lunch yesterday. You were such a kiss ass.”

  “I can kiss your ass if that’s what you like.” I should slap him. How rude is he? Who says that? Stop picturing him kissing your ass, Hannah. “Although, it all depends on whether you get tea or coffee right now,” he says with a chuckle, obviously amused with himself.

  “Why did you pretend to be so sweet yesterday?” I ask him. Really, my brain feels like it might explode. Either he has multiple personalities, or he fooled me more than I’ve ever been fooled.

  “I wasn’t pretending.”

  “So, what is this?”

  “I want you.”

  “Who says that?” I ask, throwing my hands in the air.

  “A thirty-five-year-old man who knows what he wants when he sees it.” How the hell do I respond to that? “Coffee or Tea? Or should I say, shits or no shits?”

  “Tea,” I snarl. The only reason I’m not going in with him is that I don’t want anyone to see us together. “Here, let me give you money.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he says, then closes the door before I have a chance to argue.

  During the time I managed to graduate college, become a wife, a mother, and an ex-wife, I seem to have forgotten the girl I once was—the one who played mind-games with the guys who played hard to get until I lost interest. I was the one who never let anyone close enough to know what was going through my mind. Now, like the weak skin beneath my stretch marks, my thoughts can be penetrated without much force.

  If Logan wants to play mind games. I can play too. The old me—and the real me is still here somewhere. I just need to relocate the parts.

  The reminiscence of playing games brings my wandering eyes to my phone and Words With Friends, hoping to see a notification I might have missed from Dickle. My sweet Dickle, who I pushed away too many times.

  There’s nothing but a new game request from him. I open the game board, finding the letters spelling out the word, sigh.

  I scan my letters, looking for anything I can respond to his sigh with. Rather than concerning myself with points, I use my “I” to add beneath his “H.” His turn.

  Chapter Eleven

  At least it’s Thirsty Thursday. Or, it will be when I get home tonight. Alone. By myself. With a box of wine.

  OTHER THAN A QUICK “THANK YOU,” I keep my thoughts to myself as we cross the lot and park in front of the office building. The elevator ride is silent, despite the loud thoughts of a “Fifty Shades”
scene that could be played out in here, and possibly with time to spare.

  Maybe that’s my game. I’m uncomfortable, so if I make him uncomfortable, I might not feel so bad. I look up at the numbers on the elevator, ticking by slowly as we chug up to the fifteenth floor, but we’re only at five. He’s watching the red digits too, which means he isn’t aware of the thoughts buzzing around in my head. I can do this. I used to be so damn smooth.

  I turn around and shove my hand into his chest, taking him by surprise as I pin him against the wall. I clench the linen material of his white shirt into my fist and press up on my toes before going in for the kill. A cold shiver runs through my core, leaving me breathless as my lips touch his. His body tightens, his breath catches in his throat, and his hands clench my shoulders.

  I went way too far.

  He pulls away and glares down at me with what looks like anger. “Are you freaking kidding me?”

  I can’t lose my confidence now. “What’s to kid about? You said you wanted me. How was I?” It feels like the words of another—sharper—version of me are coming from my mouth. Because this me—the one existing in my current state of mind. I don’t even know if Logan was kissing me back, but his lips are like a ripe cherry that I could lick and bite all day. I haven’t had those thoughts in—nope, never had those thoughts.

  “Hold on a minute,” he says.

  With a hand still firmly holding onto me, he reaches over and hits the alarm button. “What are you doing?” Shit. I’m getting fired today. That’s that.

  “Did you just ask me how you were?” he asks with a guttural snarl.

  “Yes, that’s what I asked. Shut the alarm off, Logan.”

  Logan makes a sudden move and without an inclination of what’s to come, I’m straddling his hips, in a skirt—thankfully, it’s not a pencil skirt, that would have been an awkward tear. My back is pressed against the wall, and the vibration from the sirens are tingling through my back, but the sensation of his hardness is overwhelming as he places his lips back on mine. His tongue brushes against my lips, urging them to part. Coffee. It’s all I taste on his tongue, and I want to drink him all in. His breaths match my own, heavy and out of control. Still pinned in an unmovable hold by his steel-hard body, his hands are free to comb through my hair. Holy mother of—this is hot. This is hotter than “Fifty Shades.” He has muscles everywhere, and I just want to run my fingertips up and down his arms over and over as he continues mauling my mouth with gentle nips and sensual flicks of his tongue.

  Don’t stop. “Don’t stop,” I moan into his mouth.

  “Hannah? Are you going to be sick again?” My eyes flash open, and I’m holding myself up on the bordering rail of the elevator wall, watching Logan stare at me from the corridor as if I were a loon. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be okay?” I ask, trying to play it off as if whatever the hell I just did was normal elevator behavior.

  “You just told me not to stop?”

  Oh, dear heaven. “I think it was just a phantom wave of nausea,” I tell him. Or a delusion of your lips touching mine in ways I can clearly only dream of.

  “Yeah, that’s normal. You’ll be okay.”

  No, I won’t. I’m not even wearing a skirt today. What the hell is wrong with me? Like I’d ever go after a man like that. Pfft.

  “People are going to think it’s weird if we walk in together,” I tell him.

  “People are going to think it’s weird that your car was here all day and night, but you weren’t,” he adds in.

  I brush past him and pry open my bag to look for my ID tag to scan, but he steps in front of me and presses his ass up against the scanner, holding it there until we hear the door unclick. Cute. No, that’s hot. Dammit.

  He opens the door and holds it open, waving me inside. Upon entering the office space, the only thing I see are half a dozen men poking their heads up and above their monitors, and Brielle with her mouth hanging open. She stands from her desk chair and trots over to me in her unthinkably high heels. “Hannah,” she mutters through clenched teeth. With another quick peek over my shoulder, she smiles at Logan. “Good morning!”

  Brielle is making a scene as she drags me along the row of cubes and shoves me into my office before closing us inside. “What in the world happened to you? Do you have any idea how many times I tried calling your phone? I thought you were abducted or something.”

  “Abducted?” I ask, lifting my brows with question. Who in the world would abduct me?

  “Well, you went to lunch with …” she shrugs and does a weird head nod toward the door, “you know.”

  “Logan?” I question.

  “Shh,” she says.

  “Logan knows I went to lunch with him yesterday,” I inform her.

  “Then what?” she continues. “Huh? You’re all pale and clammy looking. Something must have happened.”

  “Oh yeah, something happened all right.” I take off my coat and drape it over the top of my bookshelf.

  “You’re not going to tell me, are you?” She’s disappointed because I don’t care to talk about vomiting all over the hottest man I think I’ve ever been within five feet of.

  “I had the stomach flu, Brielle. I yakked all over the guy. He took me home, watched me puke again, naked at one point too, I should add in … hot, right? Then he took care of Cora until she fell asleep. Oh, and now I have to face him every day for the indefinite future.”

  Brielle slowly squats down into the guest chair across from my desk. “Oh, my Blahniks, are you serious?”

  “You think I’d make that up?”

  “That is like the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard,” she coos and bounces her feet. “Did he hold your hair and stuff?”

  “Brielle—I’m absolutely mortified.”

  “He took care of Cora, Hannah. That’s like—I mean, that’s something.” Every thought I’ve been trying not to think over the past few hours are now dribbling from Brielle’s mouth like a leaky faucet. Maybe he stayed and took care of me and helped with Cora, but whatever it was yesterday isn’t the same today. Or it’s more. This is hurting my head, which already hurts. “Are you going to see him again?”

  “You mean, when I’m not choking up chunks?”

  “Well, yeah.” She responds with true curiosity like I was serious.

  “He asked me to go out with him tonight. I think he was joking, though.” That’s kind of a mean joke after being brutally sick for twenty-four hours. Who does that?

  “Why do you think he was joking?” Brielle asks, leaning forward with interest as she presses her elbows into her knees. This is turning into another therapy session where I get schooled from a twenty-something-year-old on how to live.

  “Come on, Brielle, really? Look at him. Look at me …”

  “Girl, you have some serious self-image problems. You’re smokin’ hot for thirty-three. You look like you’re twenty. You could probably do something with your wardrobe, but you’re gorgeous. Stop doubting yourself.”

  I look down at my cardigan and black dress pants. “What’s wrong with my clothes?” As I’m asking, I admire her ensemble of navy blue, fitted dress pants and a white button-down shirt that’s so fitted, it might explode into shreds with one deep breath. “I can’t dress like you. I have a child, and hips, and—”

  “Gigantic ladies,” she continues speaking for me. Ladies … boulders, same thing. “And your hips form an hourglass shape. Plus, I’d kill for your ass.” You don’t want to see what that thing really looks like, honey. Trust me.

  I roll my eyes at her remarks and redirect my attention to my blacked-out monitor. I tap my mouse, bringing the bright-as-hell thing to life, and slouch back into my chair.

  “That’s it?” she asks.

  “What?”

  “Never mind,” she sings while popping out of the chair. She opens the door and walks directly into Logan’s cubicle. I watch, wondering what the hell she’s about to say to him, but it’s not as much about what
she might be saying as what she’s doing. What the hell, Brielle? She hoists herself up onto his desk, knocking over his pen cup. I can see the giggles and hear the reverb. Her hand is on his shoulders, and she’s squeezing his tricep. She’s got to be kidding me. This is so inappropriate. We’re at work. I’m her boss. I’m his boss. This can’t happen. I stand up, pushing my chair back a few feet, clearly a little more enraged than I should be. I make my way to Logan’s cube in a nano-second and stare at the two of them like a mom—a mom with my hands on my hips. “This is completely inappropriate behavior for the office,” I scold them, but it wasn’t really Logan. It’s Brielle.

  “Have you felt this thing?” Brielle continues squeezing his arm. “It’s like a rock. Did you pitch a lot?”

  “I was a second batman—I mean baseman,” Logan winks along with his answer. “But, that’s history now.” Logan seems mildly embarrassed by the show of—err—affection Brielle is giving him.

  “That’s so cool. I’ve always wanted to learn how to play baseball. Do you think you could maybe … teach me?”

  My heart is throbbing in my chest, and my veins are filling with a surge of anger. “No, he can’t teach you how to play baseball.”

  “Why not?” she argues, holding a mischievous arch to her brow.

  “He’s injured.”

  “No, I’m not,” Logan responds.

  Yes, he is. That’s why he’s not playing baseball anymore. “So, you lied? Because it’s illegal to lie during an interview, you know?”

  “I was injured, but I’m not now, so no, I didn’t lie.”

  “Great, so you can show me how to play,” Brielle pipes in again. “What are you doing tonight after work?”

  My head falls to the side as I press my tongue against my cheek. She’s freaking playing me like a toy right now.

  What if he says yes to her?

  I shouldn’t care. They belong together, but she has a boyfriend …, I thought.

  “He’s going out with me tonight,” I say, quietly.

  “What was that?” Brielle asks.

  “She said she was going out with me tonight,” Logan repeats with a smirk.