The fact that both of us could be so open about what we were doing was surprising.
If I were honest with myself, I knew I had judged him from the first moment I saw him. And the second, and probably the third.
I had judged him because of the way he acted with his brothers as if he were carefree. Only I knew that wasn’t the case. He reminded me of people at my job, of the man whose place Prior had taken. But that was all on me, not him.
I was getting over it, slowly but surely.
However, others weren’t.
“Are you serious about this?” Benji asked, slamming the door behind him.
My pictures rattled on my walls, and I looked up at him, my face stony, my jaw set. My icy armor was the only way to get through to him, or at least make it through my day.
“Hello, Benji. How are you today?”
“Don’t give me that.”
“You’re going to want to watch your tone. Because I will report you to HR.”
“You keep holding that over my head, and yet you do nothing. I want to know why you keep picking on this assignment. If you don’t think I’m good enough, then go to the bosses. You haven’t, have you? No. All you do is needle and nitpick, and yet look where you are. You’re still only the double-checker. Not a person with the brains to actually get shit done.”
On the last word, he slammed out of the room, and I sat there, wondering if he’d have let me speak at all.
Most everybody was already at lunch, something I hadn’t noticed because I had been working. I knew Benji had done it for that reason, on purpose.
Not a single soul had been on our floor to hear him talk to me like that.
I could go and complain, and maybe something would be done about it, but I knew Benji was good friends with our boss. They had known each other since they were kids, golfed together twice a week, and drank together three nights out of five.
They were the good old boys, and I was the one left in the dark.
“I’m fine,” I whispered.
However, being in the dark had been the wrong phrase to think, because now all I could think about was the dark, and the last time I had been there. With his hands on my throat and the little girl screaming, who wasn’t me.
And then there had been no more screaming, no more shouts, nothing. There had been silence: just a cold shadow and an icy void.
“Paris?” Prior asked from the doorway, a bag in his hands, and a frown on his face. “I picked you up a burrito bowl because I saw you hadn’t gone for lunch. I can come back.” He paused, studying my face. “What’s wrong?”
I shook myself out of my memories, knowing they weren’t important at the moment. They had never been because I couldn’t relive them every day and survive.
I could only remember the good times. And I kept telling myself that, even though the good memories rarely came when I was sleeping.
“A burrito bowl?” I asked, ignoring his other questions.
“Yes. Hopefully, it’s what you like. I tried to remember everything you usually get. Though I’m generally so focused on how much extra guac I want on the side, that I sometimes forget.” He winked, but I knew he was studying my face, trying to see what was wrong with me.
“Thank you,” I said.
Prior didn’t need to know everything. I didn’t want him to know everything. I didn’t want anyone to.
The girls now knew that my father was out of prison, but they didn’t know every detail of what my childhood entailed. They didn’t know every single little scrape and hit and torture method I had been through—the same as my baby sister.
They didn’t ever need to know those things.
They knew I was scared that I had gone into some kind of shock, and that I had been with Prior when I heard the news about my dad. They were the only ones who needed to know. Perhaps Cross knew now because people who loved each other told secrets like that. I understood. As long as I didn’t see the pity on his face.
The same emotion I had seen in Prior’s gaze for a moment before he blinked it away in the car. Before he did his best to care for me, even though I didn’t know how to deal with him.
I wasn’t going to tell Prior anything because I didn’t want to see that pity again.
“Paris? What’s wrong?”
I sat up straighter in my chair and shook my head. And then I began. “Nothing’s wrong. I was working and forgot lunch, and now I’m starving. Want to eat in the break room?”
“If you want. Or you can eat in my office. Or we can eat here. Or maybe outside on the balcony. There are a few tables out there.”
“I don’t know. I mean, I think I accidentally invited you to lunch when you were just dropping mine off.”
Prior snorted. “I bought extra lunch because I noticed you hadn’t left for your break. We can eat together or separately. It doesn’t matter.” Prior frowned. “I mean, it does matter because you’re my friend, but it doesn’t matter in terms of you deciding what you want to do. No pressure.”
I let out a sigh and pretended that everything he’d said made sense.
“How about you tell me what I owe you.”
He looked defeated for a moment. “How about you just buy me a burrito later?”
“With extra guac?” I asked him, and he smiled.
His eyes brightened, and some of the tension he had been holding in his shoulders seemed to slide away.
Tension about my reaction? Or something else?
And why did I want to know? Why did I want to ask?
“You know, I should get back to work. It’s been a slow day for me, and I could use the focus. Thank you for the burrito bowl. I’ll get yours next time.”
He handed over my lunch, studying my face. I did my best to blank any emotions other than peace. As I said, he didn’t need to know anything was wrong with me.
Even though that was far from the case.
I went back to work, having devoured my burrito bowl quickly, annoyed, and a little surprised that Prior had figured out exactly what I liked.
The fact that I could likely tell him what he wanted on his burrito told me we probably had been working together for too long, even over the relatively short time period he’d been in my department.
By the end of the workday, my shoulders hurt, my lower back ached, and I knew I was going to have a stress headache later. I had gotten tons of work done, but between Benji’s attitude and my nightmare, I’d felt like I was on the verge of throwing up or screaming for most of the day.
I packed up my things and headed out towards the elevator to go home.
Prior was already there, waiting for the lift. He smiled. “Look at us, on the same schedule again.”
“Apparently.”
“You don’t need to sound so excited about that.”
“Sorry, it’s been a long day.”
“Seems like. I got here a little bit before you because I had a couple of things to finish up, but we’re still the last people here.”
I looked around, my eyes wide. “I didn’t even notice that. What is wrong with me?” I could have slapped myself for that thought because first, I did not want to think about what was wrong with me, and second, I didn’t want him to question it.
“Probably because we’re both in the middle of a tough project. I get it, sometimes things just flow, and you forget about everything else. Which kind of sucks because I’m already late to meet Allison.”