Page 24 of Boardroom Mask

I pick up my water glass and take a sip. My pad thai is sitting in front of me, mostly untouched. I’ve pushed the noodles around enough to make it look like I’ve eaten some, but my stomach is a clenched fist and nothing is getting past it.

Elliot pauses. He looks at my plate, then at me. “You okay? You don’t like it? We can order something else.”

“No, it’s good. I’m just not super hungry.”

“Oh, okay. Yeah, totally. No worries.” He takes a huge bite of his green curry and chews with his mouth open. “So anyway, do you follow football at all, or?—”

“Not really.”

“Cool, cool. That’s cool. I mean, you don’t have to. It’s not for everyone.” He takes another bite. “What about baseball? You seem like a baseball person.”

“Why do I seem like a baseball person?”

“I don’t know. You’ve got, like, a vibe.”

The door opens and a man walks in alone. Tall, dark jacket, thin, confident. My whole body goes rigid and I grip the edge of the table. But then he pulls off a beanie and I see a bald head and a red beard and he waves at someone in the back corner.

Not him. I let go of the table.

Elliot has stopped chewing. He’s watching me with a look that’s trying very hard to stay cheerful but is losing the fight. “Jillian, can I ask you something?”

“Sure. Yeah. Anything.”

“Are you, like… okay? Because you seem kind of… I don’t know. Distracted, maybe?”

“I’m fine,” I mumble. “Sorry. Long day.”

“No, yeah, you mentioned that.” He puts his fork down. “It’s just, you keep looking at the door.”

“Do I?”

“Every time it opens. You’ve looked over there, like, twelve times since we sat down.”

I force myself to look directly at him. “Sorry. Bad habit. Reporter brain. Always scanning the room, heh.”

He nods, but the grin has dimmed a few watts. He picks his fork back up and pokes at a piece of chicken. “This is nice, though,” he says after a beat. “Right? Like, this is good?”

“Yeah,” I say. “This is nice.”

Against all odds, we make it through the rest of his green curry and my untouched pad thai. He tells me about his mom in Connecticut and his sister’s new baby and a camping trip he’s planning with his buddy Mav. I say “that’s great” and “oh, wow” and “how fun” at roughly appropriate intervals, but we both know I’m running on autopilot. After a while, even he can’t ignore it.

He sets his fork down and wipes his mouth with a napkin, then balls it up and drops it next to his plate. “You don’t actually want to be here, do you?”

His face isn’t angry or hurt, exactly. Just resigned. Like he’s been waiting for this part all night and it finally showed up, just like he knew it would, just like it always does, because that’s what happens to nice guys like him.

I immediately feel horrible. I’m a bitch. The biggest bitch alive, probably, a self-serving asshole, and there will be a circle in hell reserved for me and me alone. “Elliot, look, I’m?—”

“It’s okay,” he interrupts, with an edge in his voice that I’ve never heard before. It makes him sound more grown-up, strangely enough. “Seriously, it’s fine. But I’d rather you just tell me than keep pretending.”

I close my eyes for a second. He deserves honesty. I’ve been using him tonight as a human shield against my own fear, and that’s a shitty, shitty thing to do to someone who’s only ever been kind to me.

“You’re right,” I confess. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said yes tonight. It wasn’t fair to you.”

“Because you’re not interested.”

“You’re a really sweet guy, El. But… just not for me. I’m sorry.”

He nods, once, slow. Then he abruptly shoves his chair back and stands up. “I’m gonna hit the bathroom,” he says.