Not that huge of a leap?
“Hello?” Rix called when I had to take some time and quiet to get over that new morsel dropped from his (perfectly formed, so much, I’d memorized them so I could see them in my head) lips.
“You accused me of being a bigot,” I whispered.
“What?”
“You said I had a problem with you not having legs.”
“I thought you did, but that isn’t accusing you of being a bigot. Trust me, Alex, a lot of people do not know how to deal with me the way I am.”
“I’m not those people.”
“I’m sensing that bothers you, but with the way you acted around me, can you understand how that would be my take?”
Actually, him pointing it out, I could.
And that stunk.
Worse, the way I acted around him was because I was into him, and one thing I knew for certain…
We could not go there.
“Yes,” I forced out.
“Okay then,” he said quietly.
“Okay,” I replied.
“So, you up to get a drink?”
Was he crazy?
“No.”
“Alex—”
“I’m sorry I gave you that impression. You’re right, it does bother me that I did. But I’m…like…” God! “…not good around people.”
“All right.”
“I mean, I like people. I’m just…you know…I like trees and dirt better than people.”
Did I just say I liked trees and dirt better than people?
Rix was chuckling, and it felt it like he was doing it right against my nipple. Thus, I squirmed in my chair at that feeling, and the fact that, considering he was chuckling at all meant I did, indeed, say I liked trees and dirt better than people.
“I like trees and dirt better than a lot of people I know too,” he declared.
“No,” I asserted hastily. “It’s not like I’m a misanthrope or something. It’s that—”
“Misanthrope?”
“Someone who doesn’t like people.”
“I know what it means, babe, I’ve just never heard someone use it in a regular, everyday sentence before.”
One, he called me “babe.”
So yeah, nipples again tingling.
Two, he sounded teasy.
Which had something a little farther south tingling.
Time to shut up.
“Judge says you live up in Groom Creek,” Rix noted.
“I do.”
“So I bet you got a lot of trees and dirt around you.”
More teasing.
Therefore, it sounded strangled when I said, “I do.”
“Right then, give me your address, I’ll grab a six pack and we can finish ironing things out among your trees and dirt.”
Again, I saw him at a table at my sister’s reception, winking at me.
Right on the heels of that, I envisioned him relaxed in the rocker chair beside me, in my space, on my mountain, chilling out…
With me.
It was a beautiful vision.
“Rix,” I whispered, but I didn’t know what else to say.
I needed to get along with him.
I needed to stop crushing on him.
I needed to get myself together so I could be around him.
I could not have him in my space, drinking beer, ironing things out, just being with him.
I had to figure out how to be his colleague, do the amazing things I hoped we’d soon be doing, and behave like a normal, rational human being around him.
Then leave that at work and live my life without him in it in any way, except on the job.
I simply wasn’t sure how I was going to manage to do all that.
Though one thing I did know, he couldn’t be on my deck with me at all, ever.
On that thought, it hit me.
I was currently staring at my trees and dirt, on the phone with Rix, but something had changed.
In a big way.
And I felt that change drift along my skin like the light, but warm touch of a hand.
“Rix?” I called.
I heard him clear his throat.
Then I heard him state, “You got a great voice, Alex.”
I blinked at the trees and dirt.
Rapidly.
“So, your address?” he pushed.
“I’ve got plans tonight,” I lied.
Another brief hesitation, before, “Right.”
“But we’re good. I mean, we’re good if you’re good, because I’m good.”
God!
I needed this call to be over.
“I’m good,” he said.
“So, I’ll see you Monday at work.”
“Yeah, you will.”
“Thanks for, uh…calling. It’s good that’s…um, behind us.”
“Yeah.”
“’Bye, Rix.”
Another brief hesitation, then, with a change in tone I utterly refused to define (it was lower, even slightly heated), he said, “Later, babe.”
Again with the “babe.”
Co-workers did not call co-workers “babe.”
I didn’t get the chance to do the impossible, figure out some way that wasn’t offensive or combative to share that.
He was gone.
Chapter 3
The Meeting
Alex
It was Thursday of the next week.
And one could describe my attempts at keeping things collegial and chill with Rix as a bona fide, unconditional disaster.
In fact, my week overall wasn’t going all that great.
Allow me to sum it up.
Monday came, new sun, new day, new week, I had new plants in the pots all over my deck and a steely determination to be cool around Rix.
This went up in smoke when, before I even left my house to go to work, I got a text.
From Rix.
(Oh yes, I’d programmed him in the phone. I was no fool. No way I’d be blindsided again!)
What kind of coffee drink do you like?
I could have lied, and when I saw him at the office, said I was driving when I got the text and that was why I didn’t answer.
But there was a part of me that was so excited to get my very first text from Rix, and that part was strong.
So strong, that thought didn’t even occur to me before I texted back with oodles of curiosity, Why?
Because I’m buying you a coffee, babe.
Another babe.
That was three.
Highly inappropriate, even infantilizing.
I said not one word about the “babe.”
Instead, I texted, Iced Chai.
Once I sent that, I texted, Mocha latte, iced or hot.
And on its heels, I sent, For just hot, flat white.
Then I got nervous that I might be sounding like a goof.
So nervous my thumbs couldn’t seem to stop tapping letters, and I therefore texted, I assume you want to know what I want right now, rather than all that I like. So just to say, I tend to be a coffee explorer, since I like coffee. And caffeine on the whole. That means the list is kinda long. But if you’re asking for right now, which you are, because it’s chilly this morning, flat white.
After I sent that, I realized that I was absolutely sounding like a dork in sending it, all of it, including the three before. As such, I watched in agony as Rix’s three dots cycled and cycled and then they did it some more.