She laughs as if it’s no big deal.
“Whatever. It’s fine. Tea. Now.” She waves away my concern, but to my intense relief, she lowers her voice. She knows I hate the spotlight.
“Yes, it was Damon, yes, it was beyond phenomenal, and no, there was nothing about it that sucked except maybe the being at work part. That wasn’t great, but-”
“What! You guys did it at the arena? The one who doesn’t even talk about sex, getting fucked in public. Well, maybe not in public. I mean, that’s private property, I guess, so technically…”
“Oh God.” I groan, hiding the heat of embarrassment with my hands, but I’m grinning because I do love Lainy, drama llama that she is. I really need to get more comfortable with all the sex stuff. Ugh.
“So… details, Jos, details.” She ignores my discomfort, of course, because she loves pushing me out of my comfort zone. Honestly, though, that’s not a bad thing most of the time.
“Fine. It was in the gym at the arena, but it was late at night, so no one was there, except the security guys. No one saw us. At least, I don’t think anyone saw us. Oh God, what if someone saw us?” I’m horrified at the thought.
“Psh. Irrelevant. Who cares about that? How was it?” she demands impatiently.
I shove down my concern because I do want to talk about this part. I am out of my depth, and I know it.
“Dear God, it was incredible. Un-fucking-believable! That man has a mouth on him. I may never recover. I’m not even sure I want to.” My body perks up, getting excited at the thought of Damon’s dirty mouth. “I seriously thought you guys were lying about great sex.”
“I told you, with the right guy…” She smirks and winks.
“Yes, but what do I do now? He’s my employee, and even though there’s nothing in the HR handbook about fraternization, isn’t it some ethical violation or something? I mean, I can’t date my employee. That’s not acceptable. This is such a mess. I’ve only been doing this job for a short time, and I’ve already fucked it up. I don’t know why I thought I could do this.” Guilt and shame are overwhelming me. I cover my face with my hands with a big sigh.
“Okay, that’s enough of that,” she says sharply, and I peek at her through my hands. “This is not a mess. It’s only an unexpected turn in the road.” Her voice is gentle, and she pulls my hands away from my face.
“Now you listen to me, Joslyn Robertson! Yes, this was unexpected, and no, it’s not typical, but that doesn’t mean you’ve screwed up. We’re going to talk this through, and everything will be fine. I will not let you put yourself down over this. There are enough people out there who do it for us. We don’t need to do it to ourselves. Now start at the beginning, and tell me everything.”
Her smile is bright and wide and filled with all the love our friendship holds. My mouth reluctantly curves into a smile because no matter what happens, my bestie’s got my back. As I walk her through the events of the last month, I realize how much I care about Damon. He’s not only a colleague but also a friend, and maybe something more.
“I have no experience with healthy relationships,” I finish. “How do we go forward? What happens next? And what about the whole public relations aspect? How do we even deal with that? I don’t even know how he feels about what’s happened. I’ve also been avoiding him like the plague for the last few days because I’m mature like that.”
I give myself an eye roll because I honestly deserve one. Lainy huffs out a laugh.
“Ugh, I’m such a hot mess,” I mumble as I bury my face in my hands.
I sigh, feeling overwhelmed with the uncertainty of the future, but underneath, there’s a sense of relief that comes with sharing my fears with a friend. It gives my heart hope.
“Wow, okay, a lot going on for you. For now, I’ll skip how salty I am that you didn’t tell me any of this much, much sooner, and move on to clarifying a few things. First, he made the first move, correct? And you didn’t coerce him in any way?”
I roll my eyes. “Um, have you met me? I’ve never initiated sex with anyone my whole life, much less tried to coerce them into it.”
“Exactly. So, clearly, no moral or ethical violations here.”
She has a valid point. There wasn’t any coercion on either side of our encounter, so yeah, no violations.
“And you don’t have a ‘no fraternization’ clause in your HR manual, so no violations there, either, right?”
“True,” I confirm, nodding at her to continue.
“Let’s leave the PR issue for later and focus on how you’re feeling. How do you feel about him? Is this just sex, or is it the beginning of something else? If it’s just sex, what are your expectations? What are his? Or, if this is something else, what would you like it to be? I know that I’m just asking the questions you are already asking yourself, but the thing is, you can’t do this in a vacuum.”
“Meaning?”
“The reason that Scott and I have such a great marriage isn’t just because we have mind-blowing sex.”
“Mind-blowing? Uh-huh.” I give her my best fake shocked look. If anything, I know more about that than I want to.
“Um, hello! Absolutely.” She grins wickedly. “But seriously, our marriage works because we communicate. Probably more than we should. I know I over-share, but I do love to brag on my man,” she teases.
