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“Hmm, impressive,” I remarked.
A couple of my local friends attended Georgetown. It was a prestigious school, every bit as impressive as Cornell had been for me.
Taz had finished his breakfast and started clearing the table.
“Here, let me,” I said, taking the dishes from him. “You’ve been the perfect host. Let me clean up in here.”
“You won’t get any argument from me on that,” he said. “I need to make a couple of phone calls then I’ll run you home, how’s that?”
“Fine,” I said, rinsing the dishes preparing to load them into the dishwasher.
I was flustered. Why was I flustered? It was just Taz; the same Taz that I had seen more than a dozen times over the past year. Why was he suddenly having this effect on me?
Part of it was the fact that Taz seemed to regard me as some type of a college coed, which of course I was; but more like someone in a different generation than him.
So what? I was eight or nine years younger. That was nothing from my perspective.
Perhaps he had lived longer than me, had more life experiences than I have had, that didn’t mean he could disregard the fact that I was a woman, not some drooling teenager for Chrissake.
He reappeared in the kitchen just as I had finished up. He was watching me closely now, as if perhaps he was seeing me differently than he had before.
“You ready?”
“Yep,” I answered. “Let me grab my stuff.”
“Oh, your dress is in a garbage bag out back, you know, the smell and all.”
Oh God - did he have to say it like that?
“You can just put it out with the trash,” I said, turning to walk down the hall. “It’s not like I’ll ever wear it again.”
The twenty-minute drive to Mom and Slate’s was mostly spent in silence. His truck had been thoroughly cleaned. I noticed some Febreeze air freshener clips had been attached to the vents on the dashboard where the heat came out.
“So, what happened between you and Adam?” he asked, obviously uncomfortable with the silence.
“It just didn’t work out,” I replied. “We are still friends. We talk now and then. He has moved on, but it's okay.”
“Ahh,” he said with a nod, “he found another chick, huh? That’s rough I guess.”
“Not really. He found another dude,” I clarified, watching for his reaction from my peripheral vision.
I saw his head turn quickly to look over at me.
“Really?”
“Yep. He said he had been in denial. I guess being around me sealed the deal prompting him right out of his denial.”
“Oh shit, Lindsey. I’m sorry for nosing into your business. I didn’t mean to.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “In some ways, I guess I almost feel better that it wasn’t another chick. I can’t blame myself.”
“Why would you ever do that? You’re a cute kid. You must know that.”
Shit! Did he just refer to me as a ‘kid’?
“It’s fine, Taz. I’m not fishing for compliments from you.”
He patted my knee as if consoling me.
