The smile on my face grew and I leaned over the table and pulled the menu down until Chase looked in my eyes.
“Hey,” I whispered the word to him, trying to see if something a little more intimate would calm him down.
“Hey,” he answered back. We sat there for a while staring at each other, both of our smiles growing.
“You ready to order?” A young girl came up next to our table and I sat back in my seat as I watched Chase order from the menu in his hands. He ordered the loaded crab cake sushi rolls for me and the tempura rolls for him. In the end, though, we would be sharing from each other’s plates regardless.
It always happened like that. We would both order what we loved and then also eat what the other person ordered. We learned years ago that there were no boundaries with us that made us uncomfortable. It was like we had known each other our whole lives, and while I knew we did, Chase didn’t. But I never let that affect how we were together.
I liked that we had grown into this rhythm together and were close, but goddamn it, I just wished he would make some kind of move. It wasn’t like I didn’t catch him eyeing me from across the room or leaning closer to me when we were alone. I saw it all, each sign, and with how today was going so far, I was hoping those signs were about to turn into something more.
“So, why the change of scenery?”
“I thought we could do something different.” Chase shrugged his shoulders and took a sip of the water the waitress had brought us.
“Is that all?”
I tried to egg him on, to make him spit out what it was exactly we were doing. I had waited too long in my life to have him nervous about making some sort of move.
“No.” Chase looked up at me, mouth open, about to say something, but the waitress chose that moment to drop off our food.
“Let me know if you two need anything else.”
She left us alone and instead of saying what he was going to before, Chase shoved a piece of sushi in his mouth. I followed suit as we ate in silence. I never reached across the table to take a piece of his food and he didn’t either. It felt different and for the first time in knowing Chase, I felt a wall come up.
It made my own wall start to build itself. What if I was wrong in all the signals I had seen? What if he didn’t want to even just be friends anymore? What if this was a last supper kind of lunch?
I chewed on the inside of my cheek and Chase paid for lunch and then we exited the restaurant and headed back to the office. I took a step behind Chase when we came to a narrow part in the sidewalk and I felt the space between us grow. I didn’t like how this lunch was going and it wasn’t over yet. It wasn’t over till I was back at my desk sitting across from Lilly, working on numbers and photo edits.
I looked across the street at Bakers once we hit the front of our building. Lilly and Alexa were standing inside ordering their lunch and I wished I had just waited for them to finish to eat. I felt a hand grab mine and looked down at where Chase was standing next to me, his hand reached out to mine. He squeezed it once and then I squeezed back.
In that exact moment it was like everything changed and I was being dragged into the building and toward the stairwell.
Chase slammed the door behind him and pushed me farther behind where the first set of stairs were. If anyone decided to come in here they wouldn’t be able to see us, and as long as we kept in hushed tones, no one would be able to hear us.
“What’s going on, Chase?”
I felt like I had the right to ask such a bold question, what with him taking me to lunch and then basically ghosting me while he was in my presence.
“I’m trying to do this the right way, but I keep getting clammed up.”
“Do what the right way?” I egged him on again, just like I had in the restaurant. This was it. This is what I had been waiting for.
“Ask you on a date.”
Chase leaned toward me and I forgot that we were in the stairwell of work as my back pressed against the bottom of the wall. I stared up into his eyes that bore into me as we both waited to see who would say something first.
When his Adam’s apple bobbed, I decided to make the first move.
“Then ask me.”
My voice was barely above a whisper, but to me it felt like an atomic bomb.
“Erica.” Chase moved closer to me, his chest touching mine and his arms caging the space around my head. Our faces were only a breath away from each other, and as much as I wanted him to kiss me, I wanted this question to come out of his mouth even more. “Will you go on a date with me?”
