Her face changed a little then. Less banter. More thought.
“I don’t know,” she said after a second. “Maybe because I’m always clocking what people are trying to make a thing mean versus what it actually feels like when real people get insideit.” She shrugged. “Maybe because I know when a room looks expensive but doesn’t feel alive.”
There it was. That mind again.
That turn in her thinking that made me want to keep her talking longer than was reasonable.
“That makes sense,” I said.
“I know.”
That got me.
I laughed and shook my head.
“What?”
“You don’t waste a good opening.”
“Why would I?”
We sat there a second smiling at each other, the kind that sat just on the edge of something warmer than either of us had named yet.
The server brought our drinks. We thanked her. The pause that followed wasn’t awkward. Just charged in that subtle way certain pauses got once two people had enough interest in them to stop rushing to fill every inch.
Then she asked, “How’s your day?”
“Long.”
“But survivable?”
“Barely.” I took a sip of the bitter brew that was only adding to the edge i felt being around someone I had to look at and not touch.Yet. “One client wants money he hasn’t earned yet. Another wants me to believe his vision is a financial document.”
She laughed. “Men and vision. Dangerous combination.”
“I blame podcasts.”
“I blame confidence with no evidence.”
“That too.”
I looked at her over the cup. “See? This was worth leaving the office for.”
“You just wanted an excuse to look at me in daylight.”
I set the coffee down. “You say that like it wasn’t a solid reason.”
Her mouth shifted around the laugh she was trying not to give me too easy.
“Wow,” she said softly.
“What?”
“You really do say things like that with your whole chest.”
“I’m too old to mumble around what I mean.”
That changed something. Not wildly. Not enough for anybody else in the room to clock. But I felt it.
