AllFreeNovel
Share Us
TWENTY-TWO
Raya
I had to admit,I was disappointed Cole called in sick.
Of course, I wanted him to get better, and rest was the best thing for him. If he was having pain in his leg, I could see that being a legitimate reason to not want to come into work. But, there was also the sneaking fear in the back of my mind that he was having second thoughts about what we had done, and this could be some way he was trying to get out of coming back to work.
I didn’t want to let my insecurities throw me through a loop, and I really didn’t want to make the stupid mistake of texting him and asking if that was the real reason why he didn’t come into work that day. Both had crossed my mind, and I was surprised I had been able to hold off texting him so far.
There was a part of me that figured he would message me if it was important, but another part of me that wanted to overlook the fact I was paying him to work here, and as a concerned person who cared for him, I wanted to know if he heard anything from the doctor. It had nothing to do with the fact I was paying him to work with Romeo, or the fact that he had missed today.
Romeo was fine skipping a day with his lessons, and with how far the horse had come to this point, I was comfortable with letting some of the other staff members work with him to reinforce what he had learned from Cole already. It was just a matter of trying to do the right thing without it turning into something else.
I sighed but was interrupted when the front door to the office opened.
Normally, I would be out with the horses in the barn, but Stephanie, our secretary, had taken the afternoon off to take her elderly father to the dentist, and I had elected to be the one to take care of things in the office for the afternoon. I knew how to do everything for the job, and without Cole out there to drool over, there was little reason for me to not want to spend the afternoon on bookwork and such.
I was just bored without Cole around, and with boredom came the time to think, and that’s what bothered me. I had way too much time on my hands to sit and think about what he was doing, and what the real reason was for him not coming to work that day.
Sure, I trusted he was telling me the truth, but with my mind seemingly in control of itself at times, I was overthinking the situation much more than I should have been anyway. It was tough to reconcile what was going on in my own brain, but I was doing my best. I needed some sort of distraction, but Stephanie had done most of the work on Friday because she knew she was taking this afternoon off, and that left me with next to nothing to do to fill my time.
I really was supposed to just sit in the office and wait for the phone to ring, answering any questions that might come from a potential client, or simply directing calls to the right counselor. It was an easy enough thing to do with my time, but I wanted to be too busy to sit and worry about what was going on in Cole’s head.
The only thing I could let myself do was will to the universe someone was going to call and have an issue that would take me a minute to solve. Or perhaps someone would come into the office and have a few questions that I could use to fill the time a little better. I wasn’t one much for playing games on my phone while at work, but I realized now how handy it would be to have a few games at my disposal for this very reason.
As though the universe itself was answering my call, Harper came in.
“Hey girl!” she beamed, and I practically flew from my chair to give her a hug.
“How are you?” she asked as she gave me a squeeze. “Sorry it’s been so long since I last came out to see the place. When you told me you were getting you job back here, I was thrilled to hear it, but I still couldn’t find the time to get away for a couple weeks!”
“That’s alright,” I told her as I brushed off her concern with my hand. “I know you’re having a blast with your new guy. How are things?”
I had largely been the one to encourage Harper in her new relationship, and I was happy things were working out for them so far. It was still a relatively new relationship considering, so it was still both fun and exciting to her. I loved the way she glowed when she talked about her life now. It was such a change from the way she had been, and it was nice to see.
She quickly related to me what had been going on in her life, including how good it felt to be with the one person she had slept with.
“I’m not saying at all if you sleep with more than one person you did anything wrong, but like, I just really like knowing that he’s the only one who has ever been intimate with me, and how good that feels. It really is something special, and I’m glad we did it.”
“You know,” I said with a sheepish smile. “I think I know what you mean.”
“Shut up!” Harper stared at me with wide eyes. “You gave up your virginity?”
“I did,” I said with a nod. I couldn’t hide the wider smile that spread across my face as I told her the story of Cole and how things had fallen together. I told her how Wrenley was the one who got the two of us in touch with each other, and how they didn’t get along, but I really liked Cole, and I wanted to see where the relationship was heading.
“Wow,” Harper said with wide eyes. “That’s amazing. I had no idea you’d found someone or that you were so interested! Damn, where have I been?”
I laughed. “It’s okay. I understand you’re dealing with a lot of the new and shiny with your own guy, so it doesn’t bother me that you’ve been out of touch. I’ve been hanging out with Wrenley more again, and that’s nice. Just not when we talk about Cole. She’s not quite sure I’m making a smart decision here, and I try not to let that get to me, but what if she’s right?”
Harper smiled. I knew she knew what I was talking about, but I was the one who had been telling her to be careful with her new guy when she told me she was going to give away her virginity to him. And with how things turned out for her, I had high hopes I was going to find myself in a similar situation. Not that I was going to tell Harper I was having those kinds of feelings. I just wanted to hear what she thought about the entire situation.
“It doesn’t make much difference to you what Wrenley thinks about him, does it?” Harper asked. “Does she have a good reason to be concerned about you two being together?”
“Just that he was such an ass to her when he was in the ER with the broken leg,” I said. “And if I had to put up with that kind of BS when I was at work, I can see why she’s not too impressed with him. But that’s not what’s going on with us. He’s working with Romeo, one of the horses here, and I guess you could say the two of us have hit it off pretty well. I didn’t plan on sleeping with him, but the more we got to know each other, the more it felt like what I wanted to do.”
“And how do you feel about it now?” Harper asked.
“I don’t know. I have no regrets about it, but I can’t shake the feeling that I might be making a mistake. I don’t know how much of that is just nerves, and how much of it has to do with the fact he called in today.”
