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“You didn’t find shit,” I snapped, taking another quick drink of my coffee.
“Very convincing.”
“Sheila…”
“How long have you and him been involved with each other?”
“We weren’t…” I began and then stopped when I saw her unimpressed expression. “Up until a couple of weeks ago, it was like, two months or so…longer actually. Halloween. So three months.”
“So, not quite serious but pushing it,” she said, watching me still.
I let out a huff. “It wasn’t serious from the start…or at the finish. We both agreed it was just for fun.”
“Ah, I see. And you were…okay with it? At your job?”
“I wasn’t…well, yeah. I established rules, but…”
Sheila chuckled. “Don’t you worry, I’m not going to go and tell on you for what you were doing in your free time.”
“It wasn’t really free time,” I muttered, feeling ashamed of myself. “I let myself get sucked into that…jackass and completely ignored my morals and standards. And for what? A good-looking piece of ass?”
“A handsome one indeed,” Sheila mused, and I could see something lurking in her gaze.
“Ugh, just say what you want to say? At least if it’s you chewing me out for ignoring my good sense because of my dick,” I muttered, rubbing the end of my nose. “I’m not sure I’m ready to hear anything else.”
“You wanted more than that, didn’t you?” she said, and I resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t going to get out of this conversation unscathed.
“I thought there was more,” I said in an irritated tone, flicking the handle of my coffee mug in agitation. “And maybe there was. But as of two weeks ago, he announced he could see I was getting feelings, and it was better if it was cut off because he had none.”
“Hmm,” she hummed, tilting her head. “You don’t sound very convinced.”
“I’m not,” I said with a shrug. “But I’m not going to harass the man into admitting what he’s feeling or not feeling. Honestly, I don’t think emotions are really his strong suit.”
“And they are yours?”
“Fucking hell, I hope I’m better off than him.”
“Language,” she chided, albeit more gently than usual.
“Look,” I grunted. “I don’t know if he has feelings or not. He’s a pain in the ass to read at the best of times. It just…it felt like it, you know? Deep in my gut, I felt like we were moving toward something bigger than what we’d been so far. He was constantly trying to spend time with me, and after New Year…”
“What happened then?” she asked softly.
I shifted uncomfortably in the chair, turning my attention to the floor. For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to tell her about New Year, not in detail. There had been a magical quality about the entire night by the time it was over. I didn’t know how to explain how intimate and thoughtful the night had been on his part or how easily he had gone with my change in plan.
In the time leading up to that night, part of me had started to suspect there was more between us, growing ever so slightly. It was in the softness of the gaze he reserved for me and me alone or in the way his walls slowly crumbled around me. It was in the way he easily fell asleep next to me, even knowing I would have to stay awake and eventually leave.
“Confirmation,” I finally said with a shrug because what else could I call it? “Or at least, it had seemed like it to me. With everything that happened that night, I thought it was finally a sign we were…it doesn’t matter.”
“Clearly it does,” she said with a snort, straightening finally. “Sounds like you were starting to fall for him.”
I immediately wanted to argue but forced myself to breathe. “I guess I was.”
“And it sounds like he caught you mid-fall and snatched you out of the air,” she continued thoughtfully. “No wonder you’ve been out of sorts.”
I eyed her. “I really have been bothered by Sophia’s condition.”
“Of course you have,” she said, her gaze softening. “I’m not denying you’ve grown fond of that woman, and in her own way, I think she is of you too. But all of this with him added on top isn’t helping very much, now is it?”
