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Before I could gather my thoughts and open my mouth to say something, make a small comment, tell her that I knew… she moved from my side.
‘Oh, look. I think that’s our ride.’
And then she moved away from me.
We were in the car and almost at our street when she leaned closer again. Thinking she was going to say something important, I leaned in as well.
‘I still don’t have a crush on you,’ she whispered, eyes on the driver.
Amused, I kept my eyes on her. She pulled back from me.
‘I think you made that pretty clear the last time we spoke about this,’ I reminded her.
She nodded. ‘Okay, just wanted to mention it again.’
I laughed quietly. ‘You’re good. We’ve established that you don’t have a crush on me.’
9 Charlie
After a somewhat quiet weekend lovingly spent with Pepperoni where we bonded enough that he felt comfortable to snuggle up and fall asleep in my arms, Monday was a rush at work. The woman who had gotten injured while using Michael Ashton’s car, Kylie Combs, had finally spoken about the whole situation on a vlog and as if that wasn’t enough damage on its own, she had also written an article on it for one of the biggest technology websites, bashing Michael’s company. After getting a short and to-the-point text from William, I’d jumped out of bed, taken care of Pepperoni in record time and basically ran to work. William was already there at 7.30 a.m., and I was glad to see I was not the last.
The meeting lasted for longer than any of us expected, but we knew from the start that the whole deal would keep us busy. Trying to figure what went wrong was one of my favourite things about our job.
As I took notes, I discreetly watched William out of the corner of my eye. My eyes just naturally managed to land on him. Did I feel guilty about it? Not really. Not at all. But he caught me staring more than a few times and like deer caught in headlights, I tried to act innocent. Twice he put his hand over mine to stop me clicking my pen. He didn’t say anything. It felt so intimate.
When we wrapped up the meeting and everyone left to get to their tasks, it was just me and William. Suddenly the room seemed to be too small for two people.
‘We’re together then?’ I asked and then immediately backtracked. ‘On this, I mean. We’re together on this specific thing.’
His mouth curved into a smile. The first one of its kind since we first crammed in this room. With some hesitation, I smiled back.
‘You get nervous around me when we’re alone, don’t you?’
Pffff. Why would I do such a thing?
I forced myself to smile more and shook my head as if he were being ridiculous. ‘Not really. Why would I?’
He chuckled. ‘I agree. Why would you? Especially since you already told me you don’t have a crush on me anymore.’
I tried my very best to not make a weird sound, and I was successful, thankfully. I kept the smile intact on my lips. ‘Exactly. To be honest, you’re not very crushable anymore. You got old, I think. That might be it.’ I wanted to take the words back the moment I heard myself say them because it sounded a lot like I was flirting with him, and I didn’t think it was my best idea to date.
He raised his eyebrow. ‘I’m not crushable, you say?’
We’d been staring at each other’s eyes for at least a few seconds – which felt like minutes rather than seconds – when William sighed and slowly shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Charlie. That was inappropriate for work.’
I made another noncommittal sound and gave him a dismissive wave, then changed my mind about not commenting. Be honest and go for it. Remember the list. ‘What do you say we keep it professional when we’re around the team, but when we’re alone we can be friends like we were the other night? Otherwise I’m pretty sure I’ll make it awkward every single time we interact with each other, and I really don’t want to do that. Plus, we’re neighbours too, so it’s not like we’ll only see each other at work. I feel like that would be a good arrangement, but what do you think? Would you like to be friends with me?’
‘Okay.’ He nodded to himself. ‘Yeah, let’s do that. Friends, then?’
He had beautiful eyes that looked at me in a way that was hard for me to put into words. His smile was even more beautiful and he was my friend. After thinking about him every now and then for years and wanting to be with him or someone very much like him, we had officially friend-zoned each other.
