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12
MELANIE
The next morning, I was up fairly early, no surer of what had happened the night before than I was when I went to bed.
Whathappenedlast night? Was that a date?
It had felt like a date. It had all the hallmarks of a date, aside from me driving myself to and from it. He had been dressed in a nice suit, and I’d worn something that showed off a bit of skin. We ate at a new restaurant, drank wine, and talked about things we enjoyed. At the end of the night, he even asked if I would go home with him to ‘keep talking.’
I declined. Part of me wondered if I only declined because I didn’t trust myself in that situation. I didn’t trust myself that I wouldn’t throw myself at him and complicate this whole situation way more.
Was last night just a strange circumstance of two people who in another situation would have dated? Would I be interested in him and pursue that feeling if it weren’t for the fact that he bought my company out from under me and part of me hated his guts?
All of this was running through my mind as I sat up and instantly lay back down. I knew it was early, but not crazy early. I had a little bit of time to lie there and hope that the headache that suddenly made itself apparent would die down before I had to get out of the bed.
It wasn’t debilitating, but it was enough to make me close my eyes and groan a little. Wine always did that to me. Even if I didn’t get drunk, sometimes just having a glass of wine was enough to make my head thump the next morning if I didn’t drink a bunch of water before bed. Of course, in my haze of confusion following the sort of date, I kind of crashed without doing my normal hydration routine.
Or taking my makeup off.
Dammit.
Swaying a little with the headache, I made my way to the bathroom and started running the sink so I could get the crud out of my eyelids. Going to bed directly had led to some pretty spectacular dreams, though they had been fleeting and I couldn’t remember much of them when I woke up. All I could remember was that they had been hot, and I woke up a little warmer than the weather would otherwise indicate.
Once my face was clean, I went into the living room and poured a bowl of cereal before sitting down at my table and popping a couple acetaminophen. In an hour or so, the headache would be gone, and I would be on my way to work.
Strictly speaking, my shift didn’t start until four, but I had some paperwork I needed to catch up on anyway. Plus, a new hire was starting today, and I wanted to be there to do her orientation and make sure she was comfortable. I hated not being there atthe start of new hires’ shifts, but Norma was there. She might be a little gruffer, but she made sure anyone we took on knew that they were in safe hands with us.
I flipped the TV on for background noise as I ate my cereal, adding a banana to the mix out of a meek attempt at making it healthier.
As I sat with my back to the sun, letting it warm me up and gently ease me into my day, I heard something on the TV about a weather emergency. I didn’t pay it much attention, just noted it somewhere in my mind that the store would likely be busier today because of it. Texas didn’t often get any kind of snow, but people still went insane for milk and bread when heavy rains or storms were forecast. I was going to have to be ready for fussy customers who would be angry about settling for almond milk in their panic buy.
My mind wandered to what I should do about Victor. Part of me wanted to text him and see if he wanted to meet up again today. I wanted to know if the sparks would keep flying now that we weren’t dressed up like a date, at a restaurant like a date and otherwise doing all the normal date-like things. Would we still be attracted to each other the way we seemingly had been the night before if I was wearing my hoodie and apron and we met in the parking lot of the store?
The phone rang in my hand, and I saw that it was Carmela. Smiling, I swiped it open, knowing full well she was calling to pry about last night. She had set the whole thing up, after all. I wondered how much she saw between Victor and me, and how much of our night was designed to get us to know each other for business and how much was because she was playing matchmaker.
“Hey,” I said. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” Carmela replied, wildly chipper. “I hope I didn’t wake you up.”
“No, not at all,” I said. “I’m up. Going to head up to the store in a bit.”
“Oh, I bet,” she said. “It’s going to be a madhouse today, I would think.”
“Yeah, probably,” I agreed.
“Well, I wanted to call and ask how last night went,” she said, cutting straight to the point. “Did you bury the hatchet?”
“Maybe?” I said. “I don’t know. He was very nice. I tried to be very nice back. We had a good time.”
“Did you talk about the store?” she asked, and I could tell there was another question in that, hidden away between the words. She wanted to know if there was a lot of non-store conversation too.
“We talked about it,” I said. “We actually have some surprisingly similar ideas on what to do.”
“See, I knew you two would hit it off,” she said. “Are you seeing each other again any time soon?”
“I’m sure we will,” I said. “We kind of have to see each other now.”
“Why?” she asked excitedly. “Did something happen?”
