"Holy smokes," I said, getting up to go to her.
She motioned me to sit back down and dabbed at her eyes. "Sorry," she said. "I didn't mean… I'm just stupid."
"You're not stupid," I told her.
She sighed. "At the very least, if I'm not working at PharmaTech," she said, taking a big swallow of wine, "we could have a real, open relationship."
"We have a real relationship," I said, taken aback. "We went on a date. We went on several dates." Her eyes flicked up to the ceiling then back down to my face.
"Sure, but I was still sleeping with the boss. It doesn't really stir confidence in other employees."
"I'm sorry. I didn't want to make things difficult for you," I said.
"I'm a grown woman. I can make my own choices," she said sharply. Her expression softened. "Besides, we were having fun—no need to make things serious or difficult." She smiled brilliantly at me.
I wanted to howl that this was serious for me. I wanted the difficulties and the struggles and to go through them with her. But I had already practically ruined the evening.
During the last few days, my biggest concern had been that I might lose her. It hadn't even occurred to me that this wasn't something serious for her. Were there signs I missed? Maybe normal people in normal relationships didn't send pictures like that or decorate themselves with candy.
My brothers always joked that I liked to immediately jump to the worst possible conclusion. Maybe I was doing it here. Josie hadn't given any indication that this was just a flight of fancy for her.
Just be normal, and make this a pleasant memorable evening, I ordered myself as the waiter opened the door and walked in with a large oval tray.
"This looks fantastic," Josie said as the sommelier came in with a new bottle of wine. He poured the dark-red liquid in the glasses and faded out of the room with the rest of the wait staff, leaving Josie and me alone.
"To you," Josie said. "Thank you for a wonderful evening."
"It's my pleasure. I really like you a lot, Josie," I said as she inspected her steak.
"Because I saved your marketing bacon?" she joked.
"Well that and you're just an amazing woman." It seemed like the compliments were making her uncomfortable. I tried to steer the conversation into a more lighthearted mode. "Most importantly," I told her as she cut a slice off of the dry-aged beef, "you eat your steak rare. If you had ordered it well done, I don't think we could have been friends anymore. I'm from the American West. We are very serious about our beef."
"There's no way I could have it well done," she said. "I like my meat red and raw." She took a comically slow bite, her teeth clanging on the tines of the fork, pulling it out of her mouth in an exaggerated gesture.
"If you're going to eat like that this whole time," I said, "I'm going to have to end this dinner early and take you somewhere for your private present."
"But then we would miss dessert," she said innocently.
"I wouldn't miss it. You're my dessert."
The lighthearted jokes worked. The rest of the dinner went smoothly, with an easy rhythm.
"I would say that I didn't have room for dessert," Josie sighed, as the servers cleared away our plate, "but I always have room."
The servers set down a plate in front of us.
"This is the tallest piece of cake I've ever seen!" Josie said, clapping her hands.
"It is a seven-layer heartthrob cake," the waiter explained.
"From Grey Dove Bistro," Josie cut in. "I saw this on Instagram! It has white pound cake, lemon curd, raspberry mouse, another layer of pound cake, raspberry and lemon compote, white chocolate mouse and another layer of pound cake and finally a layer of chocolate ganache."
"Yes," the server said. He seemed a little miffed that Josie had stolen his thunder. "It's a cake developed by Chloe exclusively for Salt House."
"I always wanted to try it," Josie gushed.
"There was also a special request made in-house for you," the waiter added.
