by Gail Sattler
He shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe. But when you texted me back I thought you sounded hungry.”
She paused, midchew, then swallowed. “I was still at work, and all I said was that I was tired and wanted to go home. How did you get hungry out of that?”
He shrugged his shoulders again. “I don’t know how. I just knew.”
Of course she’d been hungry, but she didn’t want to text about it because she didn’t want to start with negatives. To do so would have made the night go even worse.
Natasha dabbed at her mouth with her napkin, then again sucked on the straw. It was down to ice, and none had melted yet.
“Want some of mine?” Jeff held out his drink toward her.
“Thanks, but I think I’ve had enough.” She pushed back her hair, and tried to smile at him. It didn’t feel quite as forced as the smiles she’d had to paste on her face for the past four days, but it was close. “I know I’ve been kind of negative, but I really appreciate this. Thank you.”
He stood. “No worries. With that, I think I’m going to go home now. You can finish my drink. I left it on the table.”
“You’re leaving?” He’d been there exactly long enough for her to eat, and she’d never wolfed down a meal so fast in her life. She glanced at the time, and yawned.
“Yes, and that’s why. I’ll probably see you tomorrow. Text me when you’re leaving work and I’ll think of something we can do.”
She’d already been on the verge of rude, so Natasha quickly stood and walked him to the door. “Good night.”
He stopped, and turned around to face her. “Yeah. Good night.” Slowly, one hand rose. Almost hesitantly, he lightly brushed her cheek with his thumb.
Natasha felt her eyes go wide. If this had been a movie, it would have been the perfect time for the tall, dark, handsome hero to kiss the damsel in distress. Not that she was in distress. He’d fed her and she felt fine now, except for being so tired she didn’t know how she was able to stand.
He looked down at her mouth.
As if he was thinking about kissing her.
For the past year, this was the moment she’d dreamed about—fantasized about—because she knew it would never happen.
But now it was here. Really happening. He was single, and available. With Heather gone, there could be no interruptions. No awkward moments. The timing was perfect.
Except, suddenly, the thought of him dating other women terrified her. He was starting to play the field, but she didn’t want to play that game. She wanted to be the one—his one and only. The woman he would love and cherish for the rest of his life. She didn’t want to play the usual dating games. They knew each other too well for that. She also knew she couldn’t compete with the rest of the single women in the world. He’d made it clear that they would never be more than just friends. But...it looked as if he wanted to kiss her. And just thinking about it made her heart pound so hard she thought he could probably hear it.
“You have ketchup on your chin.” He swiped it off with his thumb, stepped back, then lowered his hand and rubbed his thumb on his jeans. “Good night. Sweet dreams.”
Before she could respond, he turned, walked out and closed the door behind him. “I’m going to stand here until I hear you click the lock.”
She raised her hand, but let her fingers hover over the mechanism, not touching it. It was almost as if locking the door with Jeff on the other side would do or signify something, but she didn’t know what.
“I don’t hear the click,” his voice rumbled from the other side of the door.
“Okay,” she squeaked out, turned the knob, then slid the safety chain into place.
“Good. Good night.” His footsteps sounded, fading in the distance, then she heard the hum of the elevator, signifying that he’d pressed the button.
She wasn’t sure what happened, but she had a feeling that instead of sleeping, she would spend most of the night staring up at the ceiling.
“Good night,” she whispered through the wood, and turned around.
He’d said he wanted her to text him when she got off work tomorrow. She wanted to take that as an encouraging sign. She really did. But what she wanted just wasn’t meant to be. Instead, she would take what she could get. If friends was all they would ever be, then she would have to make the best of it, because it was better than nothing.
* * *
Jeff stood back and stared into the fridge as he packed up tonight’s supper into a bag. Yesterday he’d gone by the seat of his pants and brought her burgers, which had been more practical than date-worthy. It got the job done of feeding her, but no more.
Just for good measure, he put his bottle of soy sauce into the bag, in case Tasha didn’t have any. It didn’t hurt to be well prepared. He had everything for a nice romantic supper, and not all of it takeout. She didn’t like salad every day, but she did like vegetables, so he’d made a trip to the store to get some asparagus. He had no idea how to cook it, but he’d gone online and printed the instructions, cooked it just right, timing it for exactly four minutes in the microwave with just the right amount of butter and salt. All he had to do was throw it in the microwave once he got to her place to reheat it.
Today, he had a plan. She’d texted to say that she had to stay until the store closed, prepare the day’s deposit and lock everything up. Since again she couldn’t come to him, he was going to her.
As the last customer’s car exited the lot, Jeff pulled in, and parked next to Tasha’s, which was close to the employee exit. He turned the car off, then pulled out his phone to watch a movie he’d saved. Every time someone left, he glanced up, counting the employees, not sure how many were actually working that day, but knowing Tasha would be the last one out.
After a long gap, two people left together, one of them Tasha. As she locked up, he got out of the car.
“Hey, Tasha,” he called out as he approached, so he wouldn’t scare her in the dark. “It’s me.”
She stiffened, but didn’t jump, so that was good. “What are you doing here?” she asked as she double-checked that the door was locked, and turned around.
“I don’t like the idea of you going to the bank all alone so late, so I’m going to follow you. It’s not a good idea to get out of the car alone with a bag of money like that.” He knew she’d been nervous when she told him she had to drop the deposit off at the bank on her way home. Yes, she’d only texted, but he could tell.
Her eyes widened. “It’s not exactly a bag of money—it’s a locked security pouch. But with the right tools someone would still be able to get into it. Usually there are two people going to the bank every day, but with so many people sick, not today. The boss says if someone tries to rob the person who is doing the deposit, don’t fight, just give it to them, but that doesn’t have any guarantees. I’m glad you’re going to be there.”
Neither spoke as he walked her to her car and waited for her to get in. Once her door closed he jogged around his car and, as promised, followed her to the bank. Since there were no cars in the lot, she parked beside the building instead of in a designated parking spot. It took under a minute for her to unlock the metal drawer for money bags and toss the bag in, but if someone had been waiting for a victim, only seconds were needed.
She waved at him after she made sure the drawer closed securely, then hustled back in her car and began the drive home. Again, he followed her. After a few blocks, his phone rang. The hands-free option picked up the signal; it rang through the car’s system, and the line opened. “Hi, Tasha,” he said as he slowed for a red light. “See, I told you it was a good idea to have a hands-free system. Sometimes you do need to make calls from the car. Now you don’t have to pull over.” He’d called her once when he knew she’d been driving, and had been worried she’d been in an accident since it took her so long to answer. He couldn’t believ
e it when she said she had to pull over to pick up the call. But at least she hadn’t answered while driving. That would have been worse. He’d immediately bought her a hands-free system for her car, and got a friend to install it.
“I still think you spent too much money, but I do appreciate it. I’m calling because I notice you’re still behind me. Your place is in the other direction.”
“I’m not going home. I’m going to your house. I have food.”
“Food?” He could almost hear her stomach grumble, and he wasn’t sure it was his imagination.
“Yes. Good food. Yummy food. Stuff you like. Including vegetables. The whole shebang.”
A pause hung over the line. “Dessert...?”
“I’m not telling. The only thing I’m going to say is that it’s not the kind where you put your finger in the icing.”
“I think you just told.”
“Oops. It doesn’t matter. You knew, anyway. I’m just not giving away any more details.”
Another silence hung. “Why are you doing this?”
Because he wanted to change the parameters of their relationship. But he couldn’t say that. They’d been friends for so long, he didn’t want Tasha to reevaluate things and find him missing the mark of what she wanted in a relationship. He wanted to raise it up to the next level. He couldn’t take the chance that she wasn’t interested in more, so he needed to get her piqued. A little at a time. Except he only had a week left to start raising the bar before Heather got home. All his feelings for Heather had gone dead and were buried, but he knew things would be very awkward when he came face-to-face with the two of them together. “Because I knew you would work through your break and you’d be hungry. I can’t have you waste away into nothing.”
She actually laughed. Which was encouraging. “That’s not going to happen in one day, but I appreciate it. You’re right, I did work through my dinner break, and I am hungry. I’ll see you back at my place.”
The phone beeped as the car disconnected the call.
So far so good.
He pulled into the visitor parking, gathered the bag and made his way to the building. He didn’t expect the woman on the third floor to be on her balcony so late, but sure enough, there she was. Holding the bag up with one hand, he waved with the other, and as always, she let him in. When he pressed the button for the elevator he wondered if when the elevator door opened maybe Tasha would be already inside, on her way up from the underground parking, but she wasn’t.
As he stepped out of the elevator on the sixteenth floor, suddenly strange echoes from the past hammered at him. In his mind’s eye, almost as if it was happening again, in front of the doorway next to Tasha’s apartment, he pictured a couple embracing. As his feet skidded to a halt, his eyes lost focus. He stared into the empty hallway, picturing Heather and her married neighbor bolting apart when he spoke—their faces riddled with shock, then guilt.
He’d never felt so broadsided in his life. In those few seconds, he’d felt his life had come crashing down around him.
Behind him, the doors of the other elevator swooshed open. Tasha’s voice echoed behind him. “And to think I was hurrying so I could get to my place to push the button to let you in.” She hustled around him to her door, reached for the doorknob, then looked at him over her shoulder. “I guess that woman on the third floor was...” Her voice trailed off. She spun, then reached out and wrapped her fingers around his arm. “What’s the matter? Are you okay?”
He blinked a few times to clear his head. Slowly, the picture of Heather, her lips swollen from another man’s kisses, faded to a face so similar he had to blink again.
“Yeah. I’m fine.” He shook his head to get the image out of his mind, but the pounding in his heart didn’t disappear so fast. This was Tasha looking back at him. Innocent Tasha. Not scheming Heather.
“You don’t look very fine.”
“No. I’m fine. Really.” He was fine, because Heather was behind him and his life was moving forward. With Tasha. He held up the bag. “I’m going to make us dinner. At least reheat it, anyway.”
Her head tilted slightly as her gaze bored into his eyes. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Now let’s go in. I have food to prepare.”
She held eye contact for a few more seconds, then opened her door.
Once inside, he closed the door behind him and made his way to the kitchen. “You go relax on the couch, and I’ll get everything together,” he said over his shoulder.
But instead of making herself comfortable, her footsteps echoed on the kitchen floor behind him.
“Tell me what’s wrong. You looked like your dog died or something.”
“I’ve never had a dog.”
“No. But you have a pet so you know what I mean.” Not making eye contact, she walked to the cupboard and removed a couple of plates while he looked for a couple of big spoons. “You looked stricken. Is something wrong?”
He opened his mouth, but his voice froze. In all the time since he’d caught Heather and her neighbor together, he hadn’t really talked to anyone about it, except Tasha. He’d recapped the situation to a few people, but she was the only person to whom he’d told the ugly details.
Besides feeling as though he’d been pole-axed by Heather cheating, it had also devastated him that she hadn’t been honest. If he was doing something wrong, or if she didn’t love him anymore, that might have justified, at least in her own mind, a reason to be unfaithful. But she never told him anything or gave him any indication that she wasn’t happy. If they had talked, really talked, and been honest with each other, they would have either mended what was wrong, or decided they weren’t right for each other and both moved on.
Although, in the past month, he had thought about it and decided they weren’t right for each other from the beginning. Still, it would have been better to have mutually agreed and walked away as friends than to end it as things had happened.
Now, if he wasn’t honest with Tasha, that wouldn’t be fair to either of them. If he wanted this relationship to work for the long term, he had to do it right. She’d asked him what was wrong, therefore he had to tell her.
If she couldn’t handle it, then she wasn’t the right person for him, either. He didn’t want to think that was possible, but there was only one way to find out.
At least he didn’t have to look at her as he spoke, if he kept his head lowered, as if he was continuing to look for the spoons. “When I got out of the elevator it was like a déjà vu moment. I started thinking about when I caught Heather and your neighbor together in the hall.”
“Oh,” was all she said. She paused for a few minutes, then reached for a couple of cups.
This was it. He’d already told her what he’d seen. Now he had to tell her how he felt.
“I don’t know if I was more angry or devastated. I felt like I’d been run over by a truck, and then it backed over me just to be sure it was really over. I’d just been thinking about what being married to Heather would be like. My house becoming our house. Kids. At the moment I’d been thinking of getting a puppy. And then it all blew up in my face.”
Jeff raised his head to see Tasha staring back at him. If he wasn’t mistaken, she was holding her breath.
Automatically, his hand went to his shirt, where the tuxedo’s breast pocket would have been, where he’d put his granny’s heirloom ring when he took it back from Heather. Feeling it in his pocket all day and all evening at Luis and Crystal’s wedding had been a biting reminder of the end of his relationship with Heather, and the failure of his dreams. “Being at the wedding was so hard. They were starting the beginning of the kind of relationship I wanted. The comfort of coming home to someone who wants me there. Being with someone who still loves me even when I’m not at my best. That also means spending my life with someone I’m going to want to be with ev
en when she’s not at her best. Someone to share the ups and downs of life. Kids. Pets. Rotten neighbors and backyard barbecues. Someone to share the good times and the bad, just like the vows say. And in one second, it was ripped away.”
Tasha swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I don’t know what to say,” she whispered, then quickly stepped to him and threw her arms around him.
At first he stiffened, but then put his arms around her and held her against him. Fortunately, she didn’t talk. She only pressed her forehead to his right cheek, tightened her hug and held on.
Now, with Tasha in his arms, he realized he hadn’t been as over it as he’d thought. He’d been trying to prove, even just to himself, that he was strong and had moved on, but he hadn’t. He’d pulled the plug, but not everything had gone down the drain. Today, it felt as if he’d not only cleared the drain, but also snaked it. He probably should have smiled to be thinking of Tasha as the auger of his soul. But she was more than that. He hadn’t been able to talk to Luis as he’d been able to talk to Tasha.
Tasha was the best friend he’d ever had. Not only that, she was a beautiful and caring woman. He wanted to keep holding her, and kiss her to show how deeply she’d worked her way into his heart.
Tasha was a keeper. Even though she didn’t say she wanted the same things as he did in a relationship, she didn’t say she didn’t. He could work with that.
He moved his head, just a little, and nuzzled her hair. Since it was late in the day he couldn’t smell her shampoo, which he knew smelled like flowers, but her hair was still light and fluffy.
Softly he brushed her temple with his lips through her hair. He wanted to kiss her. But he didn’t want to be too obvious about it. Instead of reaching up to move her hair with his fingers, he pushed her hair away with his nose until he felt her soft skin against his lips.
Now he would lightly brush her cheek, fluttering kisses against her skin until he could kiss her properly. He felt a bit of a smile coming. This moment was good, and it was going to get better.
