This was a professional call. This man was not my lover.
“Hi, Tom. So, I hate to do this so last minute, but could we move our meeting tomorrow to 4:00 p.m.? I have something I can’t get out of and need time to get back to Harlem.”
He made a rumbling sound, and it was like thunder crackling through my nerves. It’d been a week since our first meeting, and I really wanted to see him again.
“Sure, no problem.” His voice was lower when he spoke again. “I thought you were going to have to cancel. Like I said before, my schedule is fairly flexible. Do you need more time? I can meet later than that.”
The way Tom spoke to me, like he cared about my needs, or like making things easier for me was a priority to him, was intoxicating. It was most likely because he was a decent person and didn’t act like a diva because he had money, but deep down in a little corner of my heart where no one else was invited, I imagined this was only for me.
“No, 4:00 p.m. should work, I just need to drop my mom off?—”
I stopped talking, horrified that I’d shared information about a personal appointment with Tom. My lack of professional boundaries were going to get me in a serious bind before this renovation even got off the ground.
I sighed internally and tried again. “I need to get back to Harlem from the Bronx. I shouldn’t need more than an hour.”
The silence on Tom’s end was making me squirm. I felt exposed and weirded out by the possibility that he’d ask what I was doing.
“Camilo.” The way he said my name, in that perfect inflection, like it wassupposedto sound, got me every time. “If you need to take care of your mom, we can reschedule. Your family is the priority.”
I hesitated before I spoke, but soon I was saying more than I probably should. “It’s fine. I’m just going with her to an appointment.”To do an intake for a domestic violence support group, which she’s finally agreed to do after years of trying to convince her and I don’t want to miss the chance to get her there.“The place is right by Fordham Plaza. We should be done by three. I can take the Metro-North from there; it won’t even take thirty minutes. I just want to give myself enough time, so you don’t have to end up waiting for me if I get delayed.”
Again his response took some time and when he spoke, he was the hesitant one.
“Why don’t I meet you up there?” I actually had to suppress a gasp at the question. “We can have our meeting at the botanical garden.” His voice suddenly rose with excitement. “I’ve been wanting to see the Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit, and it’s supposed to be beautiful out tomorrow.”
There went my pulse again, threatening to jump out of my chest. This was not a good idea. This was the opposite of sensible. The botanical garden was not a place for businessmeetings; it was a place for dates. I couldnotdate Thomas Hughes.
I opened my mouth to put a brake on this course of action, but when I spoke I heard my stupid mouth say, “I’ve been wanting to see that, too.”
This time there was no pause and I got a firsthand glimpse of the tenacious businessman Tom was rumored to be. “Excellent. I’ll meet you at the conservatory. I’ll leave a ticket for you at the front.”
“Tom, you don’t have to do that,” I protested, feeling already like this was getting closer and closer to a date by the second.
“Of course I do, I keep changing meeting locations and it’s the least I could do given how easygoing you’ve been.” I wasn’t even sure what he was talking about. I was the one who’d changed the time of the appointment, and he had come up with the gardens because I was going to be in the Bronx. Somehow Tom had made me feel like I was makinghisday easier by changing our entire plan for the meeting.
I wanted to be contrary, to tell him that he was changing the rules and making it harder for me to keep myself at bay,butI also wanted to see him. I wanted to see the exhibit withhim. I wanted.
Tom.
I heard the sound of his throat clearing and I wondered if he was as fucked up about the pull between us as I was, but when I spoke, I could do nothing to mask the anticipation in my voice. “All right. I’ll see you then.”
“Until tomorrow, Camilo.”
I ended the call and sat there wondering if there was any chance I could realistically stick to my “stay off Tom’s dick” plan for much longer, until Ayako’s voice mercifully yanked me out of my fretting.
“Yoooooo… Is all that frowning about Mr. BDE?”
Ayako thought she was fucking hilarious.
“I’m not frowning, and calling a major donor ‘Mr. Big Dick Energy’ is super unprofessional,” I said primly.
She laughed at my very weak attempt at outrage and planted her ass on my desk. “I have sources who can confirm that the dick is indeed big.” She widened her eyes and put a finger over her lips, then aimed it at me.
The smile threatening to break out of my face was very hard to hold back. “I’m sorry. I can’t confirm or deny any knowledge concerning Mr. Hughes’s dick, or any other body parts.”
She twisted her bright red lips to the side as she rolled her eyes. “Uh huh, so what’s the deal, why are you sitting here looking spooked? Did he cancel on you?”
I sighed as I tried to extract what was appropriate to say about everything I was feeling at the moment. “No, I just called to let him know that I needed to push back the meeting an hour.”
