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On Wednesday afternoon, I’d had enough. I had requisition paperwork to turn in for extra tile. I wasn’t about to give it to Justin. She could just get off her high horse and meet with me in person. I deserved that much. I crossed the street and told her assistant I needed to speak with her.
“Tell Nicole I want five minutes,” I barked.
The secretary slipped into Nicole’s office. I heard the murmur of voices and waited, annoyed to be kept waiting. Then I heard Nicole raise her voice, heard her say, “I said tell him I’m busy!” That pissed me right off. She wasn’t even going to see me? The hell with it.
I barged into the office, “I just need five goddamn minutes,” I spat.
The secretary looked from me to Nicole and back again, alarmed.
“It’s fine. I’ll take care of this. You can go,” she said, dismissing her assistant. The woman hurried out, and I shut the door behind her.
“What in the hell is going on? First, I had to clear everything with you. If someone sneezed and needed a goddamn Kleenex I had to get your approval. Now I’m supposed to leave you alone and give Justin any information to pass along? What the hell?”
She rounded her desk and sat down. She looked shocked to see me here, yelling and in her face. Like that wasn’t our whole dynamic, the crackling chemistry, the conflict, the arguing and then bursts of passionate kissing. I felt a little off balance by the look she gave me. Like she was shrinking back from me a little. I felt myself frown at the thought. She wasn’t snapping back at me or putting me in my place. She was just staring at me like I was the last person she expected to see.
“What do you want?” she said evenly, her voice so distant and cool that it was like a slap.
I handed her the papers and she took them, barely glancing down at them.
“I’ll take care of it,” she said in the same tone.
I had stepped right up to her desk to hand her the papers, and up close she looked even worse. Her lips were pale, her brow furrowed as if in concentration. Was she sick? I felt an uncomfortable rush of protectiveness. I wanted to get her ginger ale and tell her to prop her feet up and tell me what I could get her that would help. I wanted to chase everyone from her door and make them leave her alone or drive her home so she could rest.
“You okay?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” she replied.
“Is there anything you need? I can go over to Rachel’s diner and get you some soup or something,” I offered. I didn’t know why I was pushing, why I felt protective when she was clearly freezing me out, giving me every cue to leave her alone.
Something passed across her face then, some look I couldn’t put a name to. Then she gave a small smile and said, “No thank you.”
Bewildered, and feeling more concerned than I wanted to admit, both about how she looked and her attitude, I finally left her office. I wasn’t going to be able to get another word out of her. All her fire was gone. The heated words, the steamy glances—she was a cool, detached stranger now. As far from me as if she were floating on some iceberg. That’s what it felt like right at that moment. But I knew her well enough to know she wasn’t a cold person, an unfeeling, stuck up person. She was involved, opinionated, all warmth and determination. Seeing her so flat and pale, listless and quiet was unsettling for me. I wondered again what the hell was going on with her and why she wouldn’t accept help from me.
She had to know by now that she could trust me. That I was her secret lover, sure, but I was also a decent guy. I’d bring her soup or whatever if she needed it, give her a ride. It rankled me that I got the impression she didn’t think she could count on me. And it aggravated me even more that I was bothered about it. We’d been hooking up. We didn’t date or have a relationship. There was nothing serious between us at all. So why did it bug me that she wouldn’t open up and tell me what was wrong? Why did I want so badly to be the man she turned to when there was a problem?
Because I felt like I had a right to know. I felt like she should believe in my good intentions, my dependability and honor. I was a good friend, a stand-up guy. If something was wrong, she should tell me and know that I’d help her out. Maybe the city council or the county board were giving her shit and it stressed her out, or maybe something happened at the conference that upset her. I didn’t have a solid guess about what was bothering her, but I damn well meant to find out.
