Casual (Sex) Friday (66 Faces)

by Evie Kiels

  Ben quickly retreated back to his side of the floor.

  Wednesday during lunch, Ben was sitting in the employee break room staring idly out the window. It was much too nice a day to be working; the weather had cooled a bit, the skies were clear, and if he were outside there would have been a gentle breeze. It was the perfect day to sit outside and just be. Except for that whole Wednesday being a workday thing.

  He sighed and bit into his sandwich. He’d forgotten to put mayo on it, and it was dry and pasty. As he washed it down with some tea, Calvin and another man entered the room. Calvin probably wouldn't notice Ben in his corner, but Ben had a clear view. It was odd, seeing Calvin two days in a row.

  Ben took another bite of his sandwich and washed it down.

  Calvin and the man sat at a table and unpacked their lunches. Ben narrowed his eyes. Something was off. They sat too close together—instead of sitting across from one another they sat at adjacent sides of the small square table. The man kept touching Calvin. They were random touches, but Ben still didn’t like it.

  An emotion that Ben hadn't felt in years—jealousy over another man—was slowly moving through him. Part of him marveled at feeling it at all. Another part of him—the part in control of his motor functions—hastily tossed his half-eaten sandwich, orange, and pretzels back into the brown paper lunch bag. He pushed back his chair and walked toward Calvin's table. Calvin looked up just as he got there. "Hey, Ben. Twice in a week and it's not even Friday. Must be a record for us."

  Any other time Ben might have teased back. Instead, he dropped his lunch on the table and sat down opposite Calvin's lunch companion. "I'm Ben. I work in performance."

  The stranger nodded and said, "Fred. Testing."

  Ben unpacked his lunch and restarted the cycle of biting and washing down his dry sandwich. He kept his gaze on his food while Calvin and Fred made stilted and awkward attempts at conversation. Were they normally so conversationally inept, or was Ben putting a dampener on things? Either way, Ben didn't care. The random touches had stopped. Occasionally he felt Calvin looking at him, but he ignored it. The orange was fascinating, after all. Fred left just as Ben ate the last wedge of orange.

  "You're sulking."

  Ben's gaze shot to Calvin. "Am not."

  "Are too. I've never seen you act like that."

  Ben shrugged. "Bad day."

  "Yeah right. I'm going to pretend you're jealous."

  Why pretend? That was exactly what it was. But Ben would be damned if he was going to share that. "Whatever makes you happy."

  "Fred's kind of an ass. But he's usually pretty funny. Can't decide whether to be creeped out by him or just ignore it."

  Creeped out, Ben thought. Calvin should definitely be creeped out. And avoid Fred. Instead of telling Calvin that, he just said, "He seemed … touchy-feely."

  Calvin barked out a laugh. "Yeah, he is." Calvin played with the bottle cap from his drink for a minute then laughed again. "You are jealous! I—"

  "Am not."

  "—Can't believe it. You are actually jealous. Oh, sweet, sweet victory. I can feel it within my grasp."

  Ben rolled his eyes. "I am not jealous. I just saw you sitting here."

  "Mm hmm."

  "It would have been rude to ignore you."

  "Right."

  Ben glared at Calvin, gathered up the remains of his lunch, and got up. "I'm done. See you later, Calvin."

  Calvin winked at him. "Later, Ben."

  On Thursday, Ben waffled about adding Calvin to his IM list so that he could monitor his presence at work. If he added him, Calvin would be notified. He'd know Ben was watching him. Which might not be a bad thing, but it would be telling. In the end, he added Calvin anyways. He waited for some sort of gloating IM, but it never came.

  He thought his action had gone unnoticed until a quarter 'til noon. An IM window popped open on his screen from Calvin, asking Ben if he wanted to go out to lunch. Ben smiled briefly, but then frowned. This didn't count as a date did it? Surely not. So Ben agreed.

  They met at the elevators. As soon as they left the building, the heat hit Ben like a brick wall. The pleasant temperatures earlier in the week had spiked into the upper nineties. Sweat was already beading on his neck. They should have stayed in the air-conditioned building. They took the bus down to Pioneer Square where there were places with plenty of shade in which to seek refuge.

  During lunch, Calvin babbled about the previous night's Mariners game. Ben still didn't care about baseball, but Calvin was excited. His eyes were bright and smiling; his hands were moving all over the place, illustrating a batter swinging and missing or a ball flying in the air. Ben knew he was smiling. Calvin stopped speaking mid hand wave.

  "What?" Ben asked.

  "I thought you didn’t like baseball." Calvin looked like he was trying not to laugh.

  Ben suppressed a chuckle, not really succeeding. "I don't."

  "Huh. Well … what about the Sounders?"

  "Ah. Now the Sounders I do like. Only for the crowd, though. They're insane." Ben shook his head, laughing. He loved how crazy the soccer fans were before games. Marching to the game in a merry parade of green and blue.

  Calvin laughed. "That they are."

  When they got back to the office, the air-conditioning was a relief. Ben sat alone at his desk absorbing the cool air and shivering as the sweat dried away from his body. He had enjoyed lunch and had especially enjoyed Calvin’s company. How odd that he had thought Calvin was boring before, since that wasn't the case at all. He spun around in his chair a couple times, looking forward to the next day when Calvin would come by after work and repeat the ritual of asking Ben out.

  Five o'clock on Friday and Ben tried not to look like he was watching the entrance to his cube. He hadn't seen or talked to Calvin all day. Not online. Not at his desk. Not during lunch. Ben began worrying; what if Calvin didn't come by? What if this was some form of ultimate revenge for saying "No" to him for three months? Would he do that? It seemed un-Calvin-like, but some guys were jerks. Ben really didn't think Calvin was a jerk though. Not really.

  Ben sighed and turned to his desk trying to decide what to take home for the weekend. He put his work-dishes in the gym bag to take home and wash. Didn't even bother with the book on optimizing cache performance—if he was going to read that thing he was doing so on company time. He put his laptop in the bag. And … there was nothing else. No reason to stay. He checked his cell phone, and his heart sank, stupidly disappointed that there were no missed calls or texts. He poked his head out of his cube and looked down the aisle, but there was no Calvin. He looked at the clock one last time. If Calvin were coming, he would have appeared by now. Ben sighed and picked up his gym bag off of his chair.

  He walked slowly to the elevator. Still no Calvin. The doors slid open and Ben forced himself to leave the building. It was another gorgeous summer day, a little on the hot side—the weatherman was threatening another week with highs in the uppers nineties.

  He didn't know where to go. He had expected to be going somewhere with Calvin. He didn't want to call Sarah for drinks because then he'd have to admit how pathetic he'd been, pining over Calvin and then … did Calvin stand him up? It felt like it.

  Ben found himself walking the familiar path to the waterfront park. There was an unusually high number of tourists downtown, and the sheer number of bodies around him coupled with the heat made him agitated. He was beginning to regret not hopping on a bus (that was sure to have been packed and standing room only) and going home. He hoped that the tourists hadn't discovered the park. Sometimes, somehow they did. It was just a little too far north of downtown to be obvious and attractive to tourists, but occasionally they found it.

  As he got farther from downtown, the number of people lessened slightly. When he got to the park, there were fewer people there than normal. Maybe even the locals thought it was too hot to spend the late afternoon frying in the sun. Ben walked until he found an empty bench by the path where he
could see Puget Sound. He arranged himself and his bag so the entire seat was occupied and uninviting.

  He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. The sun felt good and the heat wasn't quite as oppressive as it had been when he was walking. There was a slight breeze coming off the water, and the sounds of children playing and people talking were pleasant. But it was impossible to enjoy, because Calvin hadn't asked him out again.

  Ben thought that there might have actually been something between the two of them. The drunken kiss at his door … there was definitely something there. For the millionth time, Ben reexamined the previous weekend. Friday was a little weird. Calvin had been kind of an ass. But Sunday was … it had been fun. Ben so rarely had fun. He wanted more of it. Calvin was fun. His friends were fun, if not a little nosey.

  After a while, Ben looked at his watch. He'd been there for an hour. He should go home. Eat. See if Sarah wanted to get together. Except he didn't want Sarah. Maybe he'd catch up on the TV he'd missed during the week instead.

  Ben looked around, watching groups of people on the grass chatting happily. What would it be like to have people like that? Laughing and hanging out. Brad had done such a number on him—he distrusted everyone he had met since then and second-guessed everyone he knew. Now he was lonely.

  He watched boats zipping by in the water. Maybe if he had a boat he'd have more fun. But he would still be alone. So maybe that wouldn't be fun. Maybe he should take up a hobby.

  "Ben! Hi!"

  Ben looked to his left, shocked. "Thank fuck," he said under his breath.

  "Huh?"

  "Nothing. Where have you been?"

  Calvin pushed Ben's bag out of the way and sat down, immediately putting his arm around Ben's shoulders. "I didn't actually think you'd be here. The one day I—why didn't you answer your phone?"

  "My … what?" Ben pulled his phone out of his back pocket. Three missed calls about an hour ago. "Sorry, I didn't feel it ring."

  "I was over in Redmond. I was in meetings all day, my phone ran out of batteries, the bridge was broken. It took the bus a god damn hour to cross that god damn bridge."

  Ben nodded; he could sympathize. He'd lost so much time of his life and been late to so many appointments because of that fucking bridge. He put his hand on Calvin's leg.

  "When I got to the office you were gone," Calvin said. "I tried to call."

  Ben glanced surreptitiously at Calvin from the corner of his eye. He was dressed casually in jeans and a wrinkled t-shirt. Ben was so happy that Calvin was there. If only he'd ask Ben out again, then everything would be perfect. They would go out, have a couple drinks, and maybe go back to Ben's place this time. But Calvin just sat there, quietly looking at the sparkling blue water. Ben was impatient and, after not receiving his expected weekly date request, just a little freaked out. "Calvin?" he said quietly.

  "Hmm?" Calvin's face fell into worry as he looked back at Ben.

  "Do you think … want to get a drink with me?"

  It took a moment for the worry to fade into a happy smile, and then Calvin leaned forward and pressed a kiss on the corner of Ben's mouth. "More than anything."

  Fin

  About the Author

  Evie Kiels was born and raised in the Midwest, learned to appreciate the majestic beauty of nature in the Pacific Northwest, and now lives a hop, skip, and a jump away from the amazing Rocky Mountains (where she laments the lack of community composting but adores the abundance of sunshine). By day, Evie aims to make the world a better place by making websites more pleasant to use. By night, she reads about heroes searching for their happily ever after and writes about the same. When not working, reading, or writing, Evie enjoys hiking on warm sunny days and sewing on cold wintery days.

  Visit Evie Kiels at http://eviekiels.net, twitter (@EvieKiels), or on Goodreads.