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“No?” Mason said, looking at me and then shrugging.
“I’m just not feeling shots today, guys,” I said, weakly.
“Why not?” Matt asked.
“I think I know,” Mason said, a bit louder than he probably thought he was being. “It’s Amanda, isn’t it. No matter what you say. You got a thing for her.”
A teasing laughter filled the table, but when I didn’t join, they quieted down.
“It’s not like that,” I said, trying to find the words.
“Oh, come on,” Jordan said, interrupting. “We all saw how you looked at her, Tom.”
“No, I mean it’s more than that,” I said, sighing. What the hell. If anyone wouldn’t judge me, it would be them. “We slept together. A couple of times.”
“Bravo!” Jordan said, holding his empty shot glass in the air and suddenly looking around. “Waitress? Waitress, I have another celebration I need a drink for.”
“She has a name, you know,” Tyler said, elbowing Jordan in the rib.
“I am so sorry, what’s your name?” Jordan said as she approached.
“Carla,” she said.
“Carla, can I have another shot please?” Jordan asked, turning on the charm. She smiled and turned on her heel, rushing back to the bar.
“It’s not worth the celebration,” I said miserably.
“Why?” Jordan asked, his eyes following the drink as it made its way above people’s heads and back to him.
“Because he told me they were just business. Nothing personal. Right in front of her,” Mason said, the silliness and jovialness gone.
“That,” I said, pointing to Mason.
“Ah, fuck,” Matt said.
“Well, how do you feel about her?” Tyler asked, adding more beer to my mug.
“I’ll be honest, I am terrified out of my mind. She’s the first woman I have ever felt something even resembling something real for. Whatever was going on between us when she was here with me, it was more than sleeping together or just dating.”
“Sounds like you’re in love,” Mason said. A general head-bobbing from around the table meant the rest of them agreed.
“Well, fuck,” I said.
“Another one bites the dust,” Jordan said, slamming back the shot and placing the empty glass on the table. Carla, who hadn’t gone far, came back up to grab it, and Jordan motioned that he wanted one more.
“Well, mad or not, in a different city or not, my brother being in love is worthy of a glass of something,” Matt said.
“What if she breaks up with him and never talks to him again?” Mason asked.
“Ouch, man, he’s sitting right here,” Tyler said, pointing to me.
“And I have ears. I can hear you. All of you,” I said.
“Then we mourn his loss with a drink,” Matt said.
“Fair enough,” Tyler said. Reluctantly, I raised my glass, shook it, and downed it in one long pull.
“So, now what?” I asked.
“You go back to San Francisco,” Jordan said from the other side of the table. “You go back home, spend a couple of days getting things sorted, and get her back.”
A murmur of agreement from around the table had them all look back at me.
“I don’t even know if she’ll see me,” I said.
“Has she quit her job yet?” Mason asked.
“Well, no, not yet,” I said.
Mason looked at me blankly. He blinked a few times, and I looked around the table to see all the other brothers giving me the same expectant but blank expression.
“What?” I said, exasperated.
“If she hasn’t quit yet,” Mason said, “then you know where to find her.”28AmandaIt took a few days, but I was finding my flow again. My routine was back to the way it used to be before I left San Francisco, and during the day when I could convince myself I had put everything behind me and was back to normal life. I just did my best not to acknowledge the thoughts that came up during the other times of day.
My usual early morning start was back to feeling natural, and I had fallen back into my pattern of carefully detailed to-do lists and highly focused productivity during the day. While I didn’t like to dwell on it, a couple of times I noticed I got even more work done now that I was in the office and didn’t have Tom in his office just a few steps away to distract me.
It was the first time that I really allowed myself to acknowledge how much he had influenced me even before we went to Oregon. I always recognized he was friendly and fun to be around. But I stopped myself short of acknowledging that we were good friends, or that we could have any sort of connection or relationship outside of the office.
It was unprofessional. It would be irresponsible and potentially damage work together to keep his company going.
Those were all thoughts of a version of me who didn’t know how incredible things could be if I let down my guard and explored what else could exist between us. But that version also didn’t know how painful and disillusioning it could be to lose that connection as well.
