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“He told you.”
“He doesn’t have to. I can see the man checking his phone every five minutes and stealing glances at your usual empty chair during meetings. And you must know that he did ask me if I was meeting you today. Don’t worry. I told him you don’t answer my calls either. I don’t even mention your name to him at all.”
I shrugged lightly. “It’s just that… I don’t know what to say to him.”
“Well, you could have at least told him farewell. You left without telling him goodbye, Luc, and yes, that one he told me himself. Your gesture hit him really hard, you know. Maybe because Sam rarely has been ignored by a woman. Though I believe it’s more likely that you broke his heart. More than a million pieces, I say. Why did you even do that for anyhow? And before you say it’s because he kept secret my recommendation to him, remember that I’ve known you for years. I know you’re not capable of holding a grudge against anyone. Proof of this is you’re sitting next to me right now. So tell me, why did you leave Sam?”
“You’re wrong. I didn’t break his heart. It’s impossible. After his divorce, Sam barred his heart from everything and everyone. The only exception are his two daughters. What we had, was all we could have. I simply avoided the awkwardness of saying goodbye to whatever that was.”
“Daughters? Sam has two kids?” Joe was completely surprised at my words.
“Adopted. And they’re not kids. They’re almost eighteen.”
“And he’s divorced too? Geez.” Joe ran a hand through his hair. “I had no idea. If I knew…”
Joe appeared flustered. Probably wondering how if he had been friends with Sam back then, he might have been by his side through the wedding, through the divorce, all of it. But how could Joe not have known? He and Sam ran in the same circles. Did Joe really hate Sam enough to shut out any news about him completely?
Joe sipped on his coffee and faced me again. “Speaking of revelations, I have one myself. I’m selling my company. Well, it’s more like Sam offered to buy it and I accepted.”
“You sold it? To him?” Now that was a bigger surprise. I stopped munching on my croissant. My attention was entirely on Joe as I eagerly waited for more details.
“When Sam and I were getting patched up after this,” he pointed to his brow stitches. “We got to talk in a civilized manner. Sam told me ‘sometimes the best choice is to let go.’ And I figured that’s true.”
Sam had offered that same line to me too once – when I was still attempting to save my friendship with Joe.
“That’s why I came here today. To get one of my clients to sign over with Sam. Can you believe that? I’m handing over all my clients to Sam. The same clients I fought so hard to keep away from him. He’s also taking on all my employees. He’s already rented out another floor in his office building to prepare their new offices. Best part of it? He offered me a job too. Head of Operations. Can’t believe I’m saying this but I feel relieved. Frankly, at this point, I don’t know what else I could have done to save the company on my own. Guess I’m not cut out to lead. Not like Sam. He is just brilliant.”
“He’ll be your boss now. Can you handle it?”
“I guess I could learn to tolerate him again. We did have a pretty solid friendship before. Shame we ended it, right?”
That big wide smile of contentment on Joe’s face was one I hadn’t seen in a while. And suddenly, like a light bulb switched on, I understood that the stress of his business situation had unintentionally turned him rude and angry towards life and towards me.
“You know,” Joe began. “Maybe if I considered closing down earlier, I might have saved my friendship with you. I could have made time for you then.”
“Maybe, maybe not. I’m sure you’ll be giving a lot of extra hours at your new job too. You’re a certifiable workaholic.”
“You love your job too. That’s probably the one thing we ever fully agreed on.”
“Yea. Probably why we stuck together this long.”
Joe rubbed off the remnant flakes of croissant on his hand over the plate, then wiped his mouth and pushed the plate away. “Did I ever tell you why I took over making us coffee in the morning? You made mine too dark.”
“A black coffee is always dark.”
“Oh and by the way I hated your colourful socks. They’re all too bright.”
“And I hated your monochrome collection of ties. They’re all so… grey.”
Joe straightened down his, as a matter of fact, grey tie. “I hated how you crease all the edges of my books when cleaning my desk.”
“I hated that you never cleaned your desk.”
“I hated that you don’t cook.”
“Oh, I really hated that you didn’t either.”
And we laughed so hard. What a pair we were. Joe and I agreed on so many things. Even the things we hated.
