Could it be…Ben?
I wait for her to tell me more, but she offers nothing.
She sips on her coffee. “How was the weekend?”
“I slept with Connor and my sister told me she hated me,” I say flatly.
Carrie chokes her coffee backout.
“I’m sorry, what?”
I shrug. “That. On Friday night I had sex with Connor, and then on Saturday my sister and I had a huge fight while trying on wedding dresses and I’m pretty sure she’s never going to talk to me again.”
Carrie’s eyes arebuggingout. It must be a full minute before she finishes processing the information.
“Start with Shannon.”
I do. I tell her about Dan crashing the weekend.
“Asshole,” she declares.
How they showed up at the office unannounced.
“TheONEday I’m not here,” she seethes.
Me inviting Connor to dinner.
“Rogue move, even for you.”
I tell her about the Palomas, the comedy tickets, Shannon’s shitty dinner comments, the bad energy in the air, Shannon’s joyless bridal appointment and her insistence that she wantedto buy a dress sheclearlydidn’t like, and, finally, the argument that roared up out of nowhere.
Carrie makes me recount every word Shannon and I exchanged with precision. I give her as much detail as I can remember, but a lot of it is clouded by the mists of my rage.
The part I recall perfectly, of course—a crystal-clear memory in high definition—is the moment she told me she hatedme.
Carrie dismisses this immediately. “She was being extremely dramatic. Let it settle. Then you two can talk.”
Considering Shannon’s last cooling-off period lasted over two years, this doesn’t fill me with hope.
“Now,” she says, “on to the good stuff. Namely, you fucking your boss.”
“Can you not say it like that,” I say, bristling. “Especially here, where anyone can overhear you.”
She makes an exaggerated point of looking over her shoulders in both directions. “I think we’re good, babe.”
She is technically correct. There is no one around.
I start telling her what happened after Shannon and Dan left the bar, then realize I don’t want to. What happened between Connor and me feels like it’s just ours.
Instead, I sketch out the simplest version of events; him inviting me back to his place, sleeping together, staying the night. I withhold all the small, incendiary details—the dozens of tiny precious moments that make my stomach flip over just thinking about them.
She whistles. “So will this be a recurring event, or was it a one-time thing?”
I hesitate. “I’m not sure,” I admit. “We didn’t discuss it. Or make plans again.”
“Time will tell, I guess,” she shrugs.
Doubt worms through me. I think of when he kissed me in the office last week, him worrying I was going to blow up his life. Surely that means it’s not casual for him? Hot on the heels of that thought is another: maybe that was him trying to tell me that’s all it could be. I can’t imagine Connor being like Andy, pretending nothing happened. If he did, I’d be crushed. I have no idea how we’d work together. But then again, isn’t it just as complicatednow?
