Текст книги "The Job "
Автор книги: Claire Adams
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“It’s all right,” I chuckle. “They’re swingers.”
“Oh,” Jessica says.
“Yeah,” I smile. “Not really the kind of mental picture you want to have rattling around in your brain, is it?”
“Not really,” Jessica titters.
“So, who’s your friend?” I ask.
“Oh, that’s my sister, Kristin,” Jessica answers. “We’re actually supposed to be meeting someone here.”
“Really?” I ask. “Who are you looking for? I know most of the people here. I might be able to help you out.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” she says. “It’s not really—I don’t know that I’d—”
“Let me guess,” I interrupt. “It’s a guy.”
There’s a strange apology on her face as she says, “Yeah.”
“All right,” I tell her. “What’s his name? I’ll see if I can help you track him down.”
“That’s kind of the problem,” she says.
“Oh, blind date?” I ask.
All right, this way’s more fun than just coming clean.
“Something like that,” she says. “Kristin gave me his number and we’ve kind of been talking for a while.”
“What kind of voice does he have?” I ask, really pushing my luck.
“I don’t know,” she says. “We’ve never actually talked, talked.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Well, I don’t know. It’s hard to explain,” she answers.
Really, it’s just as simple as saying, “We’ve been texting for a few weeks now,” but I certainly understand how this situation could make that difficult to convey.
“Well,” I tell her, “your sister must know who he is if she’s the one that gave you his number.”
“This is awkward,” Jessica answers. “She got the number from Irene, but Kristin’s never actually met the guy.”
“Ah, psycho-stalker type then,” I ask with a smile.
“No,” she says, “I will have you know that he is—well, I like talking to him, and I think that’s about as much as you need to know about it.”
I put my palms up, saying, “It’s all right. I was just joking. I’m sure he has a relatively low body count.”
“Oh, shut up,” she says, playfully hitting me on the arm.
“Well, not knowing his name or anything about him, I really don’t know how much I can help you,” I tell her.
“I guess I could try texting him,” she says, “but Alec said he might not make it, something about bad clams or something.”
“That kind of sounds like something Alec could have omitted from the conversation,” I tell her.
Even though I was relatively certain that it was her, actually knowing it for a fact and talking to her about myself in the third person has got me wanting to draw this out as long as possible.
“I’m going to send him a text,” she says. “If nothing else, at least I can find out if he’s going to be able to make it tonight.”
She pulls out her phone, and I’ve really got to get out of here. The jig is up if she hears my phone go off right after she sends her message.
“Hey, I’m going to go check on Irene,” I tell her.
“I thought you—well, it sounded like you were implying that they were—you know what?” she asks. “Never mind. It’s really none of my business.”
“No,” I start, “it’s not that—”
She’s texting at a rate that would be impressive if it weren’t so threatening, so I just walk off, taking a right turn toward Alec and Irene’s bedroom.
I get halfway down the hall, but stop as I hear the bed creaking.
It’s never really made sense to me how she could go from looking like she was about to refund to the conclusion that sex was what the doctor ordered, but it’s not really something I spend much time thinking about.
I pull out my phone and, as I go to turn the notification volume down, the text comes through.
Unless Jessica followed me, which I feel pretty safe in saying she didn’t, there’s no way she could hear the sound.
The message reads, “Hey, I’m at the party. Just wanted to know if you were still coming.”
Think, Eric, think.
I have a couple of options here. I could send her a text in line with what Alec had said and start sowing the seeds of distaste for that version of me, but that doesn’t really seem like the right thing to do.
I could tell her that I’m on my way to the party, but again I’d run into the problem of either having to tell her that it’s been me the whole time, or “not show up” and make her think that I’m a flake, but neither one of those options really put me in any different a situation than I’m already in.
Finally, I settle on what seems to be the best version of damage control available to me at the moment, and I write, “Hey, sorry I’m late. I’ve had a bit of a family thing and it’s taking me a bit longer to get out of here than I thought.”
There: no bad clams, no “I’ll be right there,” just a plausible excuse that’s going to let me tell her that I won’t be able to make it with little to no fallout.
Maybe that’s the key. Maybe I just need to keep convincing her on both fronts that I’m a standup guy then, when the moment’s right, I can tell her the truth about everything and it’ll all come out perfectly.
That’s exactly what I need to do: Just keep my plans vague enough that I never actually have to act on any of them and I can just stay here in limbo while I try to figure out just how much I like this woman.
I know that I like her, but that’s about all I know at the moment. Well, and that she constantly looks so good. Every inch of her.
My phone chimes and I look down.
The message reads, “Okay. Well, Kristin and I are going to be here for a while, so just let me know when you’re here and we’ll meet up.”
“All right,” I write back. “Hopefully I shouldn’t be much longer. I’d hate to miss the chance to meet you.”
“Hey, what are you doing?” Jessica asks just as I’m sending the text.
“Waiting for the bathroom,” I tell her.
She cocks her head to one side. “It’s upstairs.”
I keep forgetting that she actually knows Irene.
Her phone beeps and she checks it.
“Right,” I tell her. “I must be thinking of my place.”
What the hell kind of excuse was that?
“Oh yeah, fuck me, baby!” Irene shouts from behind the closed door at the end of the hall.
“Well, okay,” Jessica says laughing.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I was going to give you and your—ahem—friends a little privacy,” she answers as her eyes plead for me to let her leave the hallway.
“It’s really not like that,” I tell her. “I just wanted to get a little bit of privacy so I could make a phone call, but it sounds like this really isn’t the best place to do that.”
“I thought you said you were waiting for the bathroom,” she says.
“Yeah, I guess I…” my brain utterly fails me right in this moment where I need it the most. “To be honest, I don’t really know why I said that. I guess I was just looking for a plausible excuse so you wouldn’t think I was just back here to get an earful of whatever it is they do to each other in there.”
“Next time,” she says, “maybe just go for the ‘wanting to make a call’ thing first. That might make it a lot more plausible.”
I’m humiliated, but Jessica gives me a slight, but sincere smile.
“Why did you come back here?” I ask as she turns again to leave the hallway.
“Oh,” she says, “no reason.”
“Well,” I tell her, “you seem to know this house as well as I do and, with what I started to tell you about Irene’s post-keg-stand ritual, I think you knew what you might be walking into if you came down this hallway.”
“No! It’s not that, I was just—you know, I sent a text to that guy and, well, I wanted to be able to hear it when he texted me back, that’s all,” she stammers.
“Uh huh,” I tell her, “and I just wanted to come back here to find a bathroom.”
“I thought you said you were here so you could make a phone call,” she retorts.
“You, my dear, are blushing,” I tell her.
“Oh, I am not,” she says, crossing her arms.
She wasn’t blushing when I said that, but I didn’t really want to answer her question and, in my experience, telling someone that they’re blushing is about the quickest way to get them to blush.
“Really?” I ask. “So, why are you really here in the hallway?”
“Right now, I’m here because you keep stopping me to talk to you,” she says.
“Oh yeah!” Alec shouts in the bedroom and Jessica and I can’t stop ourselves from laughing out loud.
“It was the morbid curiosity, wasn’t it?” I ask her.
She turns her head, but shifts her eyes back toward me. “Yeah,” she says. “I don’t know. I guess it’s just been a while, and I wanted to try to convince myself that it’s really not that big of a thing.”
“What a weird justification,” I smile. “Do you want to place a bet?”
“A bet?” she asks. “What are we betting on?”
“How do I put this delicately?” I start. “I was thinking we could bet on who finishes first.”
“Ten bucks says it’s Alec,” Jessica says without any further encouragement.
It’s a reasonable bet.
In a regrettably large portion of sexual relationships, you can bet that the man’s going to come first and most of the time, you’re going to be right.
What Jessica doesn’t know is that Irene won’t let Alec come until she’s gotten hers at least twice.
I take a moment to reflect on how unsettling it is that I know that, but today wasn’t the first time that Irene and I have had a conversation after she’s gotten a few drinks in her.
“Deal,” I tell her and put my hand out to shake it.
“Wait,” Jessica says. “You seem too confident.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I made a bet and you’re just ready to go for it? No haggling, no pressing for odds or anything. You obviously know something that I don’t,” she says. “He’s one of those tantric guys who can have sex for hours, like Sting, isn’t he?”
“I really don’t think that there are any similarities between Alec and Sting,” I tell her. “I can promise you that to the best of my knowledge, Alec doesn’t even know the definition of the word Tantra.”
Jessica peers at me, but she slowly, cautiously extends her hand and shakes mine.
“How are we going to tell who comes when?” she asks.
As if she’d heard the question, Irene starts shouting, “Oh yeah, baby. I’m going to come. Oh fuck! Oh, fuck! Oh, fu-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-uck!”
“I’d say that’s a pretty good sign,” I laugh.
“Shit,” Jessica says and reaches into her pocket.
“Double or nothing says she goes again before he does,” I tell her.
“You’re on,” she says, putting the cash back in her pocket.
This really isn’t how I saw things going today, but it’s something.
“How long do you think it’s going to take them?” she asks.
“I have no idea,” I tell her.
She pulls out her phone and starts writing a text, and it occurs to me that the whole reason I came over here was to turn the volume down on my notifications, something I didn’t quite get the chance to do.
“Who are you texting?” I ask.
“My sister,” she says. “If I’m going to sit here and listen to other people have all the fun, I’m going to need a drink.”
“Fair enough,” I laugh.
The hornier part of me wants to suggest that we could always throw caution to the wind and see if we can out-volume Irene and Alec, but the more rational part of my brain insists that it might be a bit soon for such a declaration.
“Did you get anything from your friend?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Jessica answers. “He’s caught up with some family thing, but he’s still going to try to make it.”
“Well,” I tell her, “I hope he does.”
“What are you guys doing?” the sister asks, coming around the corner, somehow managing four sixteen-ounce plastic cups of beer.
“We made a wager, and I’m trying to win my money back,” Jessica says. “Oh, Kristin, this is Eric. Eric, this is Kristin, my sister.”
“Nice to meet you,” Kristin says. “I’d shake hands, but they’re kind of full at the moment.”
“Yeah, let me help you with that,” I tell her. “How many am I taking?”
“All of them,” Kristin sighs. “I’m hoping that at least one of them is for you, otherwise, I think my sister might have just breezed past rude and entered lush territory.”
“Two are for him, two are for me,” Jessica explains.
I hand her two cups and offer one of mine to Kristin.
“That’s all right,” Kristin says. “I’m more of a liquor or daiquiri girl.”
“Oh my god, baby, that feels so fucking good!” Irene shouts from inside the bedroom down the hall.
Kristin looks back at her sister, saying, “Tell me again what you two are doing here?”
“We made a bet on the sexcapades going on in the next room,” Jessica explains. “I’m down one orgasm, but I’m feeling really confident about the next one.”
“You’re betting on who gets off first?” Kristin asks. “I want in. What are the stakes?”
“Well,” Jessica says, “it’s a ten-dollar buy in. I say that Alec blows his load next, but Eric here thinks that Irene’s got another one coming before that happens.”
“All right then,” Kristin says, “ten bucks on Irene hitting number two before Alec gets his first.”
Jessica looks at me and I can’t not smile at her. She asks, “Why am I getting the feeling that the two of you know something that I don’t?”
“When I first met Irene, she was always complaining about how Alec couldn’t hold his pudding—”
“Oh, good lord, is there any way we can call it something else?” Jessica interrupts.
“Fine,” Kristin says. She starts over, “When Irene and I first met, she told me that Alec had a bit of trouble staying in the game. I told her to start edging him.”
“Edging?” Jessica asks.
“Yeah,” Kristin continues. “It’s when a person gets close to having an orgasm, but before that final moment, they ease back and let the feeling dissipate. Once I convinced her that Alec would be more than okay with having sex longer, she implemented the two-bump rule.”
“The two bump rule?” Jessica asks.
“I guess that’s their word for climax,” Kristin says. “It just means that she doesn’t let him toss the dice until she’s gotten at least two.”
“You cheated me!” Jessica accuses me.
“Oh, I did not,” I retort, although I have no rationale behind the defense.
“And you,” she says, turning to her sister. “You just jumped right in there, didn’t you? Well, this sucks,” she concludes and takes an impressively long drink of beer.
A few more minutes go by and, other than the continued sounds of bedsprings creaking and the occasional appeal to a deity, there’s no sign of who’s going to go first.
What has happened, however, is that we’ve attracted quite the crowd of eager gambling enthusiasts. They’re split almost completely down the middle between those who know about the two-bump rule—all of whom are betting that Irene’s got another one coming before Alec—and those who are only betting based on the stereotype who are betting that Alec’s going to blow at any minute.
On top of that, we’ve all created a drinking game where the men drink every time Alec says, “fuck” and the women all drink whenever Irene says, “baby.”
It doesn’t take long for pretty much everyone in the now-crowded hallway to cop a buzz.
What’s most surprising is that this group, made up of at least a dozen people, all of whom—Jessica’s sister excluded—are drinking and betting, manage to stay quiet enough that we don’t reveal our presence to Alec and Irene.
Alec tells Irene that she feels, “so fucking great,” so I, along with the rest of the men in the hallway, take a drink, and I don’t know if it’s the alcohol or the close attention being paid to the copulation down the hall, but I could swear that Jessica is giving me the eye.
“Having fun?” I ask her quietly.
She takes a quick drink and nods her head.
The moment of truth arrives as we can hear both Alex and Irene breathing and moaning with increasing volume.
The hallway goes silent.
All eyes are focused on the door through which none of us can see, but all of us have a vested interest.
“Oh my god, oh my god,” Irene pants, and I’m wondering what happens if they come at the same time.
“Oh fuck,” Alec says (and I drink.) “Oh my god.”
The creaking of the bedsprings increases in frequency and everyone in the hallway, myself included, starts leaning in the direction of the door, hoping to be the first to make out the sound that means victory or defeat.
“Oh, I’m going to come,” Irene says and a grin covers my face. “I’m almost there!”
Alec’s gotten quiet which could be a good sign or a bad sign for my cause.
“Oh fuck!” Irene shouts and, even though the game only states that I drink when Alec says it, I take a few gulps anyway.
The suspense is killing me.
“Oh yeah, baby!” Irene shouts and all the women drink. “Oh shit. Right there, make me come. Make me—”
Everything goes quiet.
Someone I’ve never met puts a hand on my shoulder to steady himself for the coming revelation.
That’s when we get confirmation.
“God damn it, Alec!” Irene scolds and half the hallway erupts into roaring applause, the other in jeers.
Irene comes out of the bedroom a few seconds later, naked, except for a bed sheet. When she sees the crowd, which has only grown since Alec’s bad planning cost me my winnings, she almost drops the covers.
The door still cracked behind her, I shout, “Alec, you let down the team, you fucker!”
Chapter Thirteen
The After-Party Party
Jessica
I still haven’t heard from my friend, but I’m actually having a great time here with Irene, Eric and Kristin.
Even though Eric didn’t owe me any money for his loss, it was double or nothing, I still got a decent payoff from being on the right side of the bet.
It’s been about an hour since Alec—I’m sorry, I have to—blew it, but he’s still in the room, refusing to come out.
Irene couldn’t give a fuck.
The party’s thinned out a bit as it’s a little difficult to top the sheer adrenaline of that hallway, but there are still a few people milling around, mingling.
“Jessica,” Irene says, remarkably sobered up already, either from the sexual exertion or the reasonably small amount of time since her last drink, “there was something I was going to tell you, but I can’t, for the life of me, remember what it was.”
“That’s all right. Don’t worry about it,” Eric says, trying to hide his glance in my direction and not doing even kind of a good job of it.
It’s kind of hard to tell with him, but I think he might be drunk.
Me, well, it’s not so hard to tell.
“So, how often does he sneak one in before you’ve gotten your two?” I ask Irene.
“Not as often as you’d think,” Irene says. “Actually, I think this is the first time in over a month. He’s really built up his game since we started our new program—thank you, Kristin.”
“You know, it’s so weird that we all know each other,” Kristin says. “Well, really that you and Eric know each other, Jessica.”
“I remember what I was going to say!” Irene announces, but Eric immediately asks her if they can talk for a minute.
They walk off together and I refill my plastic cup.
“How many is that, sis?” Kristin asks.
“It’s at least my second,” I tell her.
“Hmm…” she muses. “As that’s the fourth time you’ve told me that, I’m going to say that it’s at least your fifth. I’m starting to think we’re going to have to crash on the couch here tonight.”
“Why do you say that?” I ask.
“Well,” she says, “I’m sober, but I don’t know how to drive stick, so I can’t drive your car. You’ve had way too much to drive, so that’s out, too.”
“Why don’t we just call a cab?” I ask.
“I bet on Irene,” she says, “and I know you got a little shortchanged because you lost your first bet with Eric. What do you think of him by the way?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, taking a drink of my beer.
“Well, he’s pretty sexy,” she says. “Tall, ruggedly handsome—”
God was he ever.
“Why do people always say that: rugged?” I ask. “It always makes me think of a lumberjack or a mountain man, neither of which I would equate with someone like Eric.”
“Well, he’s pretty well-built, sis,” Kristin says.
I would chastise her for calling me sis, but if I did that, she’d start calling me Jay-Jay again and I hate that one even more.
“Yeah,” I shrug. “I guess.”
“And those eyes?” Kristin says. “You know, if I wasn’t having Jed’s baby, I’d make a move on Eric myself.”
There’s the quick flash of something in me, but I push it down just as quickly.
“Whoa,” Kristin says. “I was just talking hypothetically. I’m not actually going to make a move on your man.”
“What do you mean ‘my man?’ We’re just friends,” I explain.
“Well, after your ninja kung-fu death glare, I’d say you’d like to be something more than friends with him,” she says.
“I’m just frustrated that I haven’t heard anything from that guy you set me up with,” I tell her.
“Why don’t you just ask Irene or Alec?” she asks. “They know exactly who it is.”
“I’m just surprised that you don’t,” I start. “You actually gave my phone number to someone you’ve never met?”
“I didn’t give the phone number to him,” Kristin says. “I gave it to Irene, Irene gave it to Alec and Alec gave it to his friend. Just ask one of them. It’s not like you’re in a Sherlock Holmes book. You know exactly how to find out whatever you want to know about the guy.”
“It’s just,” I start. “I don’t know, I guess I’d just rather find out from him. People’s friends always tell the most flattering version of the truth, and I’d rather get to know him better on my own.”
“You could at least ask for his name,” Kristin says.
“I haven’t even asked him for his name,” I tell her.
“Why not?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I answer.
“I think I know why,” she says.
“Yeah?” I ask. “Why’s that?”
“I think you’ve got it bad for Eric,” she teases.
“Speaking of Eric,” Irene says, coming back to sit down with Kristin and me, “what he didn’t want me to tell you a minute ago is that he’s got a huge—”
“Irene, for the love of god!” Eric interrupts.
He may as well have let her finish, because I think the secret’s out, though I kind of wish she hadn’t said anything myself.
“Dick!” she says, trying to pass it off as a jab at him for interrupting her, but she’s still a bit too drunk to come off as clever about it.
“So you two…” Kristin says.
“No, no, no,” Eric says. “No, we’ve never—no.”
“You know,” Irene says, looking over at Eric, “I don’t know that I like your tone there. That wasn’t very polite.”
“You’re my friend’s wife,” he says.
“Yeah, it’d be weird and everything, but you don’t have to be so unequivocal about it,” she rejoins. With that, she walks off, I’m assuming to go find her husband, leaving me with Kristin and Eric.
“So,” Kristin says, “what’s the plan?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “I think pretty much everyone here is too drunk to drive and I really don’t feel like asking anyone for cab fare to cover both of us.”
“You’re leaving?” Eric asks.
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Kristin answers. “I think that we should just stay here tonight. That way we don’t have to drive back here to pick up your car.”
“How’d you two get here?” Eric asks.
“She drove,” Kristin says, pointing to me, “but she’s too drunk to drive and I don’t know how to drive a stick.”
“I’ve got a proposition for you,” Eric says. “I haven’t had a drink in a while, and even before I stopped drinking, I was just barely catching a buzz. If you want, I can drive you two wherever you need to go and just catch a cab home for myself.”
“There you go,” Kristin says, winking at me.
“I don’t know,” I respond.
“I’d be happy to do it,” Eric smiles. “Besides, I was thinking of heading home pretty soon anyway.”
“That sounds great,” Kristin says.
“Why don’t we just have Jed come pick us up?” I ask.
“Because you think he’s an idiot,” Kristin says, “and I’m really not in the mood for bad vibes right now. I’m in a happy place.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t mind?” I ask. “I feel like we’d be taking advantage of you.”
“Not at all,” Eric says. “Like I said, I was planning on heading home soon anyway.”
“Hey, shitface,” Alec says, walking up to our group.
“Hey, you finally deigned to show your face,” Eric says. “You know, you cost me a twenty-dollar payoff.”
The truth is that I do have enough money for cab fare to get both Kristin and me back home: otherwise, I wouldn’t have brought that up as a possibility in the first place. Still, I’m finding myself wanting to spend a little bit more time with Eric if I can.
Despite my earlier mockery of the term, he does have a rather rugged quality about him like one of those guys in GQ in the plain white t-shirts, muscles providing contours and holy shit, I need to get laid.
“Are you ready?” Kristin asks.
Apparently, I’ve been zoning out.
“Are you sure you’re all right to drive?” I ask Eric.
“Absolutely,” he says. “I ate before I came and I only ended up drinking one of those beers, so I’m good to go.”
“All right,” I tell him. “I’m just going to go say goodbye to Irene and I’m ready.”
I get up and meander through the apartment. As much sense as it would have made to simply ask Alec where his wife is, I’m still a bit nervous about having any real contact with him after what happened at the store.
If I knew he was Irene’s husband…actually, come to think of it, assuming I’d still be under the impression that he was the one that broke into my store, I probably would have still been just as happy to see him walk.
“Irene?” I call down the hallway toward the closed door that had been the focus of so much interest so recently.
“Just a minute!” she calls from inside the bedroom.
It’s none of my business if she’s in there with someone while Alec’s out talking to Eric and Kristin. Even though swinging isn’t something I could see myself doing, that’s the way their relationship works for them.
Still, I’m not so comfortable with it that I’m willing to go and open that door without some sort of assurance there’s nothing worth betting on inside the room.
The door opens and Irene comes out, saying, “What’s up? Are you guys leaving already?”
“Yeah,” I tell her. “Eric’s driving us home.”
“All right,” she says. “Hey, there’s something I wanted to tell you.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“The guy you’ve been texting,” she says. “There’s a reason why he told you he couldn’t show up tonight and it’s not what you think.”
“What is it that I think?” I ask, but revise the statement into, “Why couldn’t he show up?”
“That’s the thing,” she says. “He did.”
“He was here?” I ask.
“Still is,” she says. “I wanted to tell you, but I kind of got the vibe that he wanted to tell you himself or that maybe he wasn’t ready to let you know who he was for fear of something or other—I wasn’t really paying that much attention.”
“Who is it?” I ask.
“Do you really want to know?” she asks.
“Of course,” I tell her. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because it’s Eric,” she says.
I scoff as a reflex.
“No seriously,” I say. “Who is it?”
“Seriously,” she answers. “It’s Eric. I don’t know why he didn’t want to tell you before now, maybe it has something to do with the fact that you got Alec to quit from the last job—I don’t know. What I do know,” she says, “is that he likes you, so don’t be too mad at him for not coming clean. I think he’s just nervous about what you’ll think about him.”
“I’m not mad,” I tell her. “I’m confused. How long has he known that it was me he was talking to?”
“I’m not sure,” Irene answers, “but I know he knew before he got here today. Do me a favor, though, and don’t tell him that I told you? I really do think that he wanted to tell you himself.”
Eric.
The guy on the other end of the line, the one with all the fascinating things to say in our first conversation and all of the insight in every one since is the guy with whom I had serious and frequent disagreements with while he was working for me.
And he knew it was me.
My phone beeps.
“Is that him?” Irene chortles.
I look at the screen.
“Yep,” I tell her. “This just got really weird.”
“Yeah,” she says, “but he really is a great guy. At least hear him out—I’m sure he had a good reason why he didn’t tell you himself.”
“I guess we’re going to find out,” I tell her. “Anyway, I’m going to get a free ride back home before I do anything else.”
“All right,” Irene says and gives me a hug. “Thanks for coming. Oh, and on your way out, would you tell Alec that I’m having a little trouble hanging the chandelier?”
“I can help if you want,” I answer just moments before realizing that “hanging the chandelier” is code for “I’m in the mood for sex again.”
“I think I’d prefer it if he did,” she says, smiling. “Nothing personal, I assure you.”
“Yeah,” I laugh. “I got it.”
With that, I make my way back to Kristin and Eric, doing my best not to stare at him on my way.
“Are you ready to go?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Eric says.
Kristin nods.
I give Eric my keys and we leave the apartment, but not before I tell Alec about Irene’s problem with the chandelier.
* * *
Once we’re back at my apartment, Kristin makes a thin excuse and leaves in her own car, leaving me with Eric.
“Well,” he says, “I should probably go.”
“You can stick around for a little bit,” I tell him.
I’m not sure yet what to think of the fact that he wasn’t upfront about who he was once he realized I’m the one he’s been texting, but before anything else happens, I’d like to come to some sort of conclusion.
“I don’t know,” he says. “It’s getting kind of late.”
“Well, just keep me company for a little bit,” I tell him. “That is, if you want to.”
He looks at me and, with a modest smile, he nods.
“Great,” I tell him. “How’s the search for another job?”
“I’m looking, but things are still pretty sparse out there,” he answers.
“Would you like something to drink?” I ask.
“I probably shouldn’t,” he answers. “I still have to drive home tonight.”
“About that,” I start, “I was wondering if I could impose on you for something.”
“What’s that?” he asks.
Lie of omission or not, he was right about me needing some more help when it comes to training Cheryl. When I asked her what an assistant store manager was supposed to do, this look came over her face like I was drunk at the wheel, steering the ship into an iceberg.
“Well, I’m still struggling with training,” I tell him. “Part of me wants to hold on to as much as I possibly can while the other part wants to overcompensate and delegate everything to her. I’m sure there’s some kind of middle ground, but I’m having some serious trouble finding it.”
“I can probably do that for a couple of days,” he says, “but I really do need to focus on getting me and the guys another job.”
“Fair enough,” I say. “I was wondering if you could start tomorrow.”
He thinks about it for a moment.
“I guess I could do that,” he says, “but I won’t be able to do it full time, what with bidding on new projects and all.”
“All right,” I tell him. “So, how about that drink?”
“Wait, I thought you were closed on the weekends,” he says.
