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Christ, hope is a scary thing.
After making the wrong calculation for the third time in a row, I get up to grab some shitty coffee from the vending machine down the corridor.
Yeah, I’m not fucking stressed. Sure.
I’m really bad at bullshitting myself.
My office mate gets up, too. “I need a break,” he announces to no-one in particular—good, because I’m not paying him any attention—and follows me out.
We stand awkwardly side by side, waiting for the machine to clank its slow way through the process of making coffee that tastes like dirt someone peed in. It’s an art. It’s technology at its finest.
“What was your name again?” my new colleague asks.
“Joel.”
“New here, huh?”
“Yes.”
I should make an effort and be nice. I should stop being paranoid about everyone around me. So I attempt a smile.
Judging from the guy’s face, it’s not recognizable as such. “And your name?”
“Edgar.”
“Allan Poe?” I quip.
He blinks at me, clearly without a clue. “What?”
“Forget it.” I receive my plastic cup of scalding bitter coffee and gesture for him to request his own. “Sorry. I’m a bit tense.”
“Oh no worries. I’m tense, too.”
“And why’s that?” I sip at the coffee and burn my tongue.
That’s a good thing. By burning off my taste buds I might
be able to swallow my shitty coffee without a hitch.
“I’m about to propose to my girlfriend. Have you ever done it?”
“Done what?” My mind instantly wanders into the gutter and looks through its pickings—me and Jet fucking Candy at the same time, Candy sucking me off while Jet pounds into her, Jet blowing me while I finger Candy, Candy—
“Proposed to your girlfriend.”
“I’m bi,” I say automatically—and since when do I say such things automatically? Holy shit.
There, you see? Bisexual. I can speak the word and not have an aneurism, although cold sweat is running down my temples.
And a tick has started in my eyelid.
Fuck.
“Oh.” He looks up from where he’s retrieving his own ugly plastic cup full of shitty coffee. “Okay. And do you have a girlfriend, or a boyfriend?”
“Both.”
His eyes bug out a little. He sloshes the coffee and winces when it splashes his hand. “All right, then. Have you proposed to them?”
