A message.
I click the tab and see a message from Bobby.
Bobby: Hey there!
Okay. I didn’t expect that. I type out a reply.
Quen: Hey! I’m good. How’s it going with you?
Bobby: Not bad. I’m back in Portland. Are you?
I don’t know why my heart skips after reading his words.
He’s just being friendly. Be friendly back.
Quen: Yep.
Bobby: Good. It was great seeing you this summer. In fact, I haven’t stopped thinking about you since. I hope we can hang real soon.
My eyes are bulging. Really? He’s been thinking about me? I’m so not used to hearing a guy telling me that I’ve been on his mind. If any girl says she’s not flattered by a hot guy telling her that, she’s fucking lying. I push myself to reply before he thinks that I’m purposely avoiding him.
Quen: That would be cool.
Bobby: It certainly would be. You mind if we call each other sometime? Here’s my number: 503-555-7070
Holy shit—he just gave me his digits!
I’m shaking like a leaf.
What do I do?! What do I do?!
Be cool, I tell myself. This is nothing but reconnecting with an old middle school friend. Stop making it more than what it is.
After calming down, I reply to Bobby with my phone number.
“Hey, Quenie—your phone’s going off on the counter!” Dad calls out.
I’m all dressed and ready to leave for dinner as I make my way to the kitchen.
“It stopped,” he reports.
Earlier, I suggested to Jake that we meet at the restaurant. I really like driving the new-to-me-but-used silver Ford Fiesta ever since my father brought it home last week. However, Jake insisted on picking me up. I wouldn’t budge until he promised to take me home right after dinner. We’re going to Bamboo Sushi, one of my favorite spots in Portland. I’m assuming that was him calling to let me know that he’s on his way.
When I check the screen, I feel those familiar butterflies return.
Drew?
He actually called this time. He didn’t text me at midnight, which is around the time he finally peels away from his office and heads home. It’s also a time when I’m normally asleep.
I debate whether or not to call him back. I check the time. Jake won’t be here for another twenty minutes.
“Jake?” Dad asks as he stirs his canned tomato soup in the pot on the stove.
I shake my head.
“Bobby?”
I shake again. “Drew.”
A brow shoots up. “Oh?”
My father doesn’t have to say another word. I can read this man like a book. That’s his ‘I thought you were done with him’ expression. I exhale away the thought as I take my phone to my room and shut the door.
I hit Drew’s number to call him back, and he immediately picks up. “Hey.”
There’s something about the way he says that one word. I get this rush of fear inside that I can’t explain. The fact that we’ve gotten so distant over the past month has me feeling disheartened. I wish it wasn’t this way.
“Hey,” I reply.
“What are you doing?”
Oh no—any question but that one. I can’t tell him that I’m about to have dinner with the guy who broke my heart. I don’t know how Drew would even respond to that. There are two choices: He’d either be upset about it, or he’d simply brush it off and not care. To be honest, either reaction would be undesirable.
“Chilling in my room.”
“Did you work at Lenny’s today?”
I don’t know why, but the way he says ‘Lenny’s’ makes me feel small. I’m immediately self-conscious due to the fact that I’m still working in retail with a college degree. Meanwhile, the person I’m talking to doesn’t have a degree and he’s a fucking billionaire.
“I didn’t,” I mutter too quietly. “Day off.”
“How’s the job search coming along?”
It’s fucking not, Drew.
My blood starts to boil. I am getting sick and tired of him wondering about my job search when he has yet to address what didn’t happen when I came out to San Francisco. Sure—he’s apologized a few times, but he hasn’t made up for it.
Words are words.
I want action.
This man could move heaven and earth if he wanted. I’ve watched him throw down hundred dollar bills to get his way. Yet, he has not been back to Oregon to see me since the night I came home from Carmel-by-the-Sea.
“Still plugging along,” I finally answer.
“Something will turn up. I know it will. Shit—”
I roll my eyes, already knowing that someone is calling him on the other line. It never fails.
“I’ve gotta take this. Can I call you back in thirty minutes?” he asks.
“You don’t have to,” I sigh. “Call me whenever.”
“No—I’ll call you in thirty.”
I tell him the truth, but not the whole truth. “I won’t be available.”
“Okay, I’ll text you. Sorry…gotta get this. Take care.”
Drew switches lines before I even have a chance to say bye.
I’m beyond convinced that a relationship with him would never work. He’s busier than any person I know, and I understand why. I’m not mad. I’m just…disappointed. Perhaps it’s because those five magical days we had together led me to believe that I was worth everything he was giving me. Ever since we returned to reality, that time together in his convertible all seems like a mirage.
It’s no longer real.
What is real is that I have two other men calling me and texting me every single day. When I speak to them on the phone, I end the call and not the other way around. Drew hardly ever texts me anymore, and when he does, I rarely text back. I know it’s silly, but I don’t want him thinking that I’m smothering him. He’d probably text me even less if I were to show him how eager I am.
There are two very attractive, willing guys here in Portland who want to spend time with me. Yet, the one guy I really want lives in San Francisco and barely has time to return a call or a simple text.
I mull over the brutal facts of my predicament. In the end, I’ve decided that I will back away from Drew. For good.
Drew
“Hey, Mr. O-B. Can I be frank with you for just a second? Off the record? You really fucked up. Big time.”
I frown at the harsh way Sam speaks to me as I stand on the other side of his desk. Instead of exercising my authority and barking back, my thoughts revisit the past few months. I then pinpoint one simple fact. The world as I knew it was no more ever since I lost that Gillen Tech deal back in July.
I’ve had minor setbacks in the past but nothing like this. That deal was literally in the palm of my hands. Members of my staff were even getting pulled into meetings with Royce Gillen’s staff. The asshole had me believing the deal was in the bag.
Before the reemerging tech giant was up for grabs, I was getting quite bored with my business. For the past few years, DOB-Com has been a well-oiled machine. The time it takes for me to finish a pastrami on rye, I earn a cool million. Today, it involves very little effort on my part in order to maintain my lifestyle and pay my six thousand global employees exceedingly well.