“Well,” he said brightly, “I guess that makes things easier. Now you can just date Bridget and we’ll all be happy.”
Thank god we weren’t on a video call. He didn’t need to see the way I blushed, hands tightening on the wheel. “I’m not going to date her.”
“Kidding. Mostly. Sammy’s right you two were cute together.”
“So, what are you and Sam going to do now?”
He let me change the subject, and we discussed family plans for the holidays while I drove, and as always, it diverted into random chatting by the time I got to the coffee shop where I used to go for meetings out of the office. It wasn’t too busy right now, Wednesday morning after the rush, and I parked behind it and said cordial see-you-laters with Kevin before I went inside and faced the fact that I’d only picked up about sixty percent of my conversation with him. Distracted. Somehow.
The barista at the counter recognized me, but thankfully they weren’t looking to dig up my life story, just said it had been a long time and it was nice to see me again. Probably assumed I was in town for the holidays, which would work well enough. Igot my oat milk latte, and I sat by the window, and I thought of Bridget.
I did everything in my power to get work done, but my mind kept drifting, and the thought of her was… sticky. Every time my mind came across it, it took all my force to pull it back away. Away from questions like whether her eyes would look the same in person as they did in that video. What she would want to do. What it would be like with a woman… let alonethatwoman. What would happen with us now.
Was this just her offering this one time? Come tomorrow, we’d be back to normal, except that we’d slept together? Would that be enough for me?
Of course, if I had her permission now to look at whatever I wanted, that was one thing, but I knew just looking at her posts right now wouldn’t satisfy me.
We’d cross that bridge when we came to it. For now, I’d do some work.
Right. Work.
I’d do some work.
I stared for a long time at my computer.
I didn’t even know what kind of work I did. What did I do for a living?
It was a few hours of that, and then I ordered another drink, and I tapped through job listings.
I wondered what Bridget was doing.
I needed to stop thinking of her. But we had sort of a… roleplay thing going on right now, and my part in the roleplay was to think of her. So I gave myself permission to fantasize about her, just a little. To think about that video.
I’ve been waiting so long for you to get home, baby…
My brain was fully melted by lunchtime, when I ordered a sandwich and took it back to my table, staring into the middle distance while I ate, and I had a heart attack when the doorsjingled and the familiar figure of Mark Castle came into the shop, my old coworker from the job Bridget and I had worked together, and I froze up and tried to keep still—like he couldn’t see me if I didn’t move. He wasn’t a T-Rex. He saw me even though I didn’t move.
“Victoria Jameson,” he said, lighting up and coming towards me for a hug. I squirmed awkwardly and put my whole mess away long enough to give him one of the company-polite half-hugs with pats on the arm and all. “I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. Back for the holidays?”
“Back to… figure things out altogether,” I laughed awkwardly. “Seattle didn’t work out.”
“Oh, yeah? Sorry to hear that. So what are you doing now?”
“Looking for jobs.” I pointed to my computer. “Figuring out the next steps. The job in Seattle was nice enough, but my boss pushed me over the edge, and in the end, I quit without really much of a backup plan. So I’m figuring things out.”
“Rough. Hope things will be okay. Staying with family?”
“With Bridget from our team, actually. She happened to have an open room when I was looking.”
He beamed. “I haven’t seen Bridget in ages. What’s she doing these days?”
Me, soon enough. I smiled. “She’s an independent media creator. Very impressive stuff.”
“Is she? We’re in need of more media specialists right now.”
“Ah.” I don’t think they wanted what she did. I mean, Mark probably did. He seemed like the type. But… I didn’t want to share that right now. “Well,” I said, and I was saved by the bell—they called his name from the counter, and he nodded.
“Maybe we’ll get in touch with her. Well, it’s good seeing you. Be in touch, we’ll catch up. Might be able to get you some leads. You always were good to work with.”
