Exasperated, Brad looked back at me. “Man, I don’t care. Go talk to her.”
“Take it back or we take it outside.”
“What?” he scoffed. “Come on man, chill. I’m not trying to start anything with you.”
A couple of ‘take it easy’s’ and ‘calm down’s’ filled the silence between us as the rest of the guys tried to soothe my burgeoning anger.
“Take it back!” I said, pointing at him across the table.
“Dude, fuck. Fine!” Brad said as he leaned away from me. “Forget I said anything.”
After I glared at him for a moment, I reached for a glass of ice water. Tilting it up to my lips, I hammered it back until the cubes collected around my mouth. After a final hard swallow, I placed it back down on the bright white of the tablecloth.
“We good?” he asked.
“Don’t talk to me right now, man.” I muttered as I waved him off.
An uneasy peace returned to the table as everyone raised their menus back to eye level. Instead of looking at mine, I glanced back towards her, and once again I caught Fiona looking. Her gaze fell away from me with an unhurried pace as she rejoined the conversation with her friends.
I shook my head for a moment, wondering what had come over me. Even though I might have disagreed with him, Brad did have a point. But, so what? It’s not like I was going to see her again.
And the way she behaved, Brad had her pegged. She wasn’t comfortable with herself. She probably had her hands tucked inside of her sleeves this instant. I chewed my lip as I considered the challenge a woman like her would present. That’s not something I wanted any part of anyway. I wasn’t in the people-fixing business.
But she did have some pretty friends.
3
Pressure Is On (Fiona)
“Quit looking over there you guys,” I groaned.
“Why?” my friend Christine replied. “You keep doing it.”
I slunk down into the booth a bit, horrified I’d been caught looking at Gabe and now having to explain myself.
“He’s cuuuute,” hummed my other friend Ellie. “What's his name?”
Clutching my sweater sleeves inside my palms, I felt moisture come to my skin as my friends interrogated me about him. Besides Ellie and Christine, there were my two other friends, Kelly and Cheri. They were all beauties, who unlike me fought men off on a daily basis. In fact, the only time men usually talked to me was when we were all out together and they wanted to get close to one of them. Now that the situation reversed itself, I was literally like the proverbial fish out of water.
“Fiona…” Ellie said with a leading tone in her voice. “I’m not gonna ask you a third time. What. Is. His. Name?”
I chewed the inside of my lip for a moment before reaching up and tugging a strand of hair behind my ear.
“Gabe,” I muttered.
“Wooo…” Cheri cooed. “Angelic.”
“You’re going to have to get used to this kind of thing, Fiona.” Ellie added.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“You’re gorgeous.” Ellie said. “You know, finally coming out of your shell. Men are going to notice.” She glanced back over and sucked her lower lip in as a flash of lust came to her eyes. “I wish he'd notice me. If you don’t want him, I’d gladly take him off your hands.”
“You guys are being ridiculous, okay?” I groaned, as I shrugged off their comments. “Our conversation was really awkward. And anyway, it doesn’t matter. There’s no way he’d be interested in me.”
Just then, the waitress appeared, providing me with a much needed respite from their relentless grilling. As the girls asked questions about the menu, I peeked over Ellie’s shoulder back in Gabe’s direction only to find him staring straight at me.
What the hell am I doing to myself? This is ridiculous, Fiona. Stop it. Now.
Sinking down into the cool leather of the booth a bit further, I tugged my sweater down over my curves before reaching up to grab my menu. I was being stupid. Now was not the time to lose focus. Not after all the years I’d put in to get to where I was. Tomorrow was too important and this discussion was nothing more than pure silliness.
Wasting time fantasizing about it wouldn’t help me one bit when I interviewed at Hawkins Biotech. It literally was my dream job. Something I’d lusted after ever since I decided what I wanted to do for a career ten years earlier. I've heard that’s what tragedy does to a person. It focuses their priorities in life. I’d never really given the notion too much credence though. It was natural for me to plan, think ahead. You know... budget, calculate, count, save and control.
My friends teased me with comments about having chronic OCD and the like. Frankly, I didn’t understand how anyone got by without discipline in life. Most people could do with a little more organization, structure and control in their lives, not less. But anyway, I’d grown used to the jokes. What stung at first, maybe even hurt, rolled right off me now.
I was in charge and doing exactly what I wanted.
Besides, I wasn’t the girl who got the guy, and a random encounter in a stupid bar wasn’t about to change that fact. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I was inexperienced, but one drunken screw in my sophomore year left me with little interest in chasing men around, so I didn’t bother. Of course tonight, the girls weren’t having any of it.
“What did he say to you?” Kelly asked, as eagerness flashed to her features.
Still nursing my soda from earlier, I took a sip of the bubbly citrus drink before placing it back down on the table.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
As I lied, I reached down and flicked at my charm bracelet, spinning the four different-colored gems in order, one after the other.
“Don’t ignore us, Fiona,” Christine warned. “If you do, we're going to go right over to your little archangel’s table and give him your number.”
“No!” I exclaimed with a loud whisper, knowing they’d make good on their promise. I glared at my friends, sending a not-so-subtle warning to them as I moved from one to the next, staring them down.
“Well if you ask me…” Kelly snorted as she dismissed my non-verbal threat. “By the look in his eye, he’d take you to the coat room and try to fuck you right now if he had the chance.”
Reaching my hands up into my hair, I groaned as I leaned forward and propped myself up on the table’s edge with my elbows. Kelly’s comment only made things worse. My suddenly skanky friends began to grunt in agreement with her offensive assertion.
“Yeah he would,” Ellie said with a throaty tone.
“You guys!” I said as I pulled my hands out of my hair and dropped them to the tablecloth, palms flat. “Enough. Now, this is supposed to be a nice quiet evening. Please don't stress me out. You know I won’t be able to sleep. I don’t want to get sick because I’m exhausted.”
“Oh poo,” Ellie groaned.
“Yeah, really Fiona.” Christine added. “You’re never sick. It's all in your head.”
“That’s not true,” I replied, straightening up in the booth. As if they needed a reminder, I rattled off my current string of ailments including my unexplained knee and ankle injuries from last year. Then of course there were my seasonal allergies, a persistent sore throat and the occasional migraine. The fact that I didn’t come from the strongest stock never seemed to be of any importance to them.