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Miracle Worker
“I’m so glad we decided to walk to Robin’s. I don’t feel as stuffed nor as bad I didn’t work out as much today,” Rick said ten minutes into their walk. George was pulling and wanting to go, his puppy needing the exercise.
“I’m sorry about my mother,” she said. “She told me in the kitchen she did that on purpose. She isn’t that way and now she is going to have to worry you’ll think poorly of her.”
“Why did she do it?” he asked. He wasn’t used to meeting the parents of anyone he’d dated. As he’d said, he didn’t date much or when he did they didn’t get to the meeting of the families or there wasn’t family around.
“She wanted to see how you’d react to it. If you’d laugh or jump in and bust on me too.”
“Did your ex do that?”
“Mike did. He used to laugh about things. He never stuck up for me. Then he’d join in. Not to be mean, but just to fit in. Sometimes it was hurtful; other times, I didn’t care that much. I was used to it.”
“You should never get used to someone being hurtful to you.”
The guy sounded like a dick to him, but he wasn’t one to trash someone. It wasn’t a threat to him.
“I know that now. Mike never meant it as much as he had no backbone. That was the comment about me dating people like me.”
“Wait,” he said, turning to look at her. “You’ve got a backbone. You stood up to your parents and your brother.”
“I do have one. I didn’t mean it that way. It was more that it was a size comment. You are the biggest person I’ve dated. You aren’t nerdy, as Whitney said. She’s funny. She meant no harm.”
“None felt,” he said. “Though many think those in the tech field are nerdy.”
“Not you,” she said. “Not even talking to you. You hardly ever talk about your job or your work or anything. How come?”
He shrugged. “Part is disconnecting for one.” When he wasn’t with Gillian he was still putting in ten- to twelve-hour days. But since he lived at home and it wasn’t hurting anyone and he loved his job, he didn’t think it was a bad thing.
He took time off to eat healthy. To work out. To walk his dog.
He liked the flexibility he had to walk away from his computer to gather his thoughts and then go back. Working from home was better than he thought it’d be. Probably healthier for him too.
“You can talk to me about it if you want,” she said.
“It’s all good,” he said. “The other part is—and don’t take this the wrong way—but I don’t think you’d understand what I was saying.”
She laughed. “I wouldn’t, but you could talk about the people. You like who you work with, right?”
“I do. They are great. There is going to be a retreat I’ve got to go to at the beginning of the year in Lake Placid. I don’t have to, but I’d like to. They bring in a lot of the leaders and those in higher ranking positions for a few nights. It’s not so much a work event as a face-to-face to connect and talk about things. Last year it was in Richmond, this year Lake Placid. A lot of people wanted it there for skiing and such. They change the times of the year too.”
“That sounds like a lot of fun,” she said. “What are you going to do with George?”
“I thought I’d see if Robin could take him,” he said.
He’d just found out about this a week ago and was told no pressure to go this year, but he wanted to. It was best to go and meet some of the people he was working with face to face. There was part of him that missed that interaction but not enough to want to go into an office full time again.
“I’d love to take him if you don’t mind,” she said. “The only problem is he’d be locked up all day while I was at work. So maybe it’s not a good thing.”
“I’ll be driving up on a Thursday and then coming back on a Friday night. Because I’m close enough, I don’t need to fly in the night before and then out Friday night or Saturday morning. I think he’d be fine if you want to.”
“I’d love it,” she said.
“If you don’t mind, you can just stay at my house,” he said. “That might be easier than bringing the crate and everything else to your house.”
He was watching her face and there was a deer in the headlight look. “I couldn’t do that.”
“I don’t have a problem with it,” he said. “But you don’t have to. Why are you looking so unsure?”
