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April: Game night Thursday! Come meet my other friends!
Me: I’m in!
I bite my lip, excitement coursing through me at the idea of meeting more people, more… normal people.
I cringe. I don’t mean normal like it’s a bad thing, because to me, it’s a good one. Most of my friends—some of my friends—were pretty decent people. But I was just sick of everything being about “rising up” or the “newest fashion” or “keeping up with trends.” It was a dang miracle that I wasn’t forced to do something like film TikTok videos for Leads Energy.
And I would never, ever mention it to anyone either, lest they decide that it was a good idea.
“Good day so far?” Paul asks, pulling out into the busy Denver traffic. The beauty of living in Denver was that you could drive twenty minutes west and be in the mountains, some of my favorite days were getting away from it all.
Not hiking—oh no. No thank you. But I didn’t mind a cozy cabin with a fireplace, one of my favorite romance books and a warm drink.
“Pretty fair,” I answer, thinking over my day and tucking my phone in my purse. All of the messages on there could wait.
I filter through the morning, making mental notes on things I need to finish and people I needed to call when I got back to the office. I find myself smiling when my mind drifts to the image of the awkward mail guy this morning.
From memory, he was pretty cute. Somewhere around my age, I think. But I didn’t take a long look, distracted by work and expecting someone like Lisa.
The mail room people typically would leave my mail with her, not come into the office. But I found that I really enjoyed it, someone who didn’t come in demanding this or that from me and just doing their job without needing me to do something for them.
“How are your grandkids?” I’d met Paulie’s granddaughter once when they’d been in the mall at the same time as I was. She was from the one and only son he’d had with his ex-wife. The son tragically lost his wife some time ago, and raised his daughter and son by himself, with the occasional help from his parents.
Paul fills me in on the latest goings-on and I listen with rapt attention, soaking in the normal that was his life.
Taking his granddaughter to her martial arts classes, something she was apparently excelling at.
Taking his grandson to a robotics building class.
Having them for sleepovers.
I often wondered if I would ever have the opportunity to take a child to some class or another. That daydream was one I kept to myself. No one wanted a CEO who dreamed of being a working mom. They wanted someone that would put work above all, always. I wanted to find a way to make our entire company’s work/life balance more sustainable.
Too soon, we pull up to the building that houses one of the finest Italian restaurants Denver had to offer, where instead of ordering the pile of spaghetti like I wanted, I would order something “mother approved.” Like… soup.
I enter the restaurant and smile at Mark, the host who is vying for the position of manager. I’ve known him for a while, ever since my mom deemed this to be the best place, making it home to all our working lunches.
He gives me a nod and I follow it with my eyes, seeing my mother sitting, prim and proper, at a table, her blush-pink dress in pristine condition. I roll my shoulders back and paste a smile on my face as I walk to her.
And I can’t help but wonder how many daughters use a fake smile around their own mothers.
Chapter Five
“I’m still a hopeless romantic who still believes letters are much more beautiful than text messages.”
-Michael Bliss
Warren
I was up half the night, thoughts of a coffee-color-haired woman running through my mind and making it impossible for me to put down my pencil, words racing through my brain as I traced the curve of a nose I only saw once.
I was… entranced.
It was the only word that I could think of for what the sight of her did to me.
I could never tell the guys; the taunting would be endless.
As I got ready for the day, brushing back my long hair into what everyone refers to as a “man bun”—shake my head—and grooming my beard to give myself a clean look, I think about what I could say or do to impress the woman who hasn’t left my thoughts.
