Someone steps in, and I force myself to look away from her. Coffee, work, and maybe I’ll allow myself some time in the Lair.
This isn’t the right week to struggle with focus. Kevin and I are leaving for Seoul soon, to visit our new partner—Injin Electronics. Even though we won’t be away for long, I have things to prepare to make up for it.
And all I can think of is the petite brunette downstairs and the fact that she’s giving me another chance despite everything I did. I’ll never understand what I did to deserve it. Or to deserve her. But here we are.
She’s a stubborn little thing, isn’t she? She fights tooth and nail for what she wants. And for some reason, I’m what she wants.
How the fuck am I supposed to focus, knowing that? I wasn’t particularly looking forward to the Seoul trip, but now it’s even worse. I don’t want to be five thousand miles away, eager to return home the whole time. But I don’t have a choice.
Half an hour later, I’ve barely accomplished anything when two knocks on the door free me from my useless attempts at getting anything done. “Come in,” I command.
I’m not expecting anyone in particular, but definitely not the one that appears when the door opens. “Hi,” Andrea says with a shy grin as she steps in.
“Hi.”
“Am I interrupting?” she asks, eyeing my messy desk as she approaches.
This definitely isn’t a normal sight, so I understand her hesitation. “No, I’m trying to sort out a few things before the trip.”
“Oh, right, to meet with the Injin team… When are you guys leaving, already?” She fidgets with a paperweight on my desk, which I’ve learned is a sign of nervousness for her.
“In exactly a week,” I answer.
“Are you excited about it?”
“I’m mostly worried, to be honest. We aren’t used to letting the company fend for itself.”
“You know, we’re not totally incompetent,” she points out with a slight squint. “We can be trusted not to set the place on fire.”
“Have you met Brian and Steven?”
She lets out a bubbly laugh. “I promise I’ll keep a close eye on those two and make sure the company doesn’t sink without its captains.”
She’s made her way around the desk now, and she pensively leans back against it, half-sitting on the sharp edge of the glass surface. Clearly, we aren’t back to our former ease, and the awkward tension is quick to settle between us. I can’t wait to return to the effortless and witty conversations we used to have. I long for the nerdy banter we can pull off in texts, but apparently not in real life yet.
Can we ever get back to it? What if it’s too late? What if all the pain and hurt I caused ruined what we had?
It’s as if she’s having the same thoughts because she asks, “Do you think we can do this?”
Because she deserves more than a surface-level answer, I genuinely think about it. More than anything, I want to believe we can. I know I’ll try my hardest, and I believe she’ll do the same.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “I’ve never wanted to make anything work with anyone. This is all new to me, and I’m not sure how it’ll turn out. I’m still eighty percent confident you’ll eventually come to your senses and seek someone better than me. But until then, and for as long as you want me in your life, I’ll be there.”
I don’t expect her to react by raising a hand to my jaw, gently grazing the stubbled skin there. It’s as though the confidence that I lack went to her instead, and she looks down at me with assurance.
“Do you have a secret wife somewhere?” she randomly asks.
I smile at the question. “No.”
“Are you a registered sex offender?” she wonders next. I shake my head. “A convicted felon?”
“No.”
“Do you have a weird, unsanitary fetish?”
“Definitely not.”
She removes her hand from my jaw and gives me an approving nod. “Then we’re good. Those are my hard limits.”
