They both stare at me open-mouthed, so I explain, “It was raining. My car was in the overflow parking lot. I was carrying an important proposal that couldn’t get wet. We were leaving at the same time.” When they continue to gape, I roll my eyes. “Can we go to lunch already? I’m starving.”
“And crabby,” Lisa mutters, catching up to me at the elevator.
Zoe’s too nice to be the first one to say it, but she nods her agreement.
“I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, okay?” I try to defend myself and close the topic at the same time. But it only adds fuel to the quickly building inferno.
Lisa laughs. “Oh! I see.”
“Alone!” I insist. “I had insomnia. Probably something I ate.”
“Mm-hm…”
Zoe interjects softly, “That was a really nice smile he gave you. And he made a point to back up so he could give it to you.”
Suddenly paranoid that someone’s going to hear them, I look around us. “Will you two shut up? If I had known it was going to be so much trouble, I would have just walked in the rain.”
The elevator arrives. We step in, although I’m tempted to send them without me.
“‘Trouble’?” Lisa questions, pushing the button. “What trouble? We’re just teasing you a little bit. That’s nothing unusual. Unless you’re referring to something else that happened when Jude gave you a ride…” She holds her hands in front of her like a frame. “I’m seeing steamed-up car windows, body parts pressed up against glass…”
“So!” I interrupt loudly. “Where are we going for lunch? Did we ever decide?” I figure the only way we’re going to get off this subject is if I drag us away from it. “I’m in the mood for sushi. Is it weird to want sushi for lunch?”
“It’s not a crime to be attracted to someone,” Lisa says.
“Especially when he looks like that,” Zoe agrees. “He’s not really my type, but I have unconventional taste in men.”
That’s an understatement. The last guy she dated had so many tats and piercings, it was hard to tell what features God had originally blessed him with. And I know she’s not meeting these guys at the public library on Friday nights, so it makes me wonder what our quiet little Zoe is like when she’s off the clock.
The elevator doors open on the lobby, but I hang back while they step off. “You guys go ahead,” I say, hitting the button to take me back up to the office.
“What?”
“Oh, come on! Don’t be a baby,” Lisa says. “We’ll stop bugging you.”
But the doors are already closing. I wave at their incredulous expressions, then I’m blessedly alone again. Sighing, I lean against the wall. I don’t really want to sit at my desk through lunch, eating a candy bar from the vending machine, but I don’t want to go somewhere outside the building and eat alone, either. Maybe I’ll find the closest hair salon and get a haircut. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. My straight hair is halfway down my back when I wear it down, which isn’t very often, because it’s so hot and heavy. It’s going to be unbearable when the summer temperatures really kick in.
“I love your hair. It’s so beautiful, the way it catches the light.” He leans close and breathes in. “And it smells so good.”
“Thanks.” My freshly cut, silky black hair looks like something in a shampoo commercial. “Most guys prefer long hair.”
“You make any length look fabulous.” He fingers the ends, brushing his knuckle against my ear.
“Well, I thought it was time for a change.”
With his lips almost touching mine, he says, “Don’t change too much, though. I like you just the way you are.”
Real Jude materializes in front of me. I startle and squawk, drowning out and replacing the usual elevator ding and making him look up from the floor, where his attention had been while he waited.
“Libby!” His smile turns to confusion as he gets into the elevator with me and presses the button to go down. “I thought you had already gone with Lisa and… blimey, how embarrassing. I can’t remember her name.”
I’m so flummoxed, I can’t move fast enough to get off the elevator. The doors close and we descend, both facing the front. “Zoe,” I rasp, then clear my throat. “That was Zoe.”
“Oh! You mentioned her yesterday, and I couldn’t picture her. So that’s her.”
Tamping down my irrational irritation at his inability to remember her, I say crossly, “Yes. That’s her. Hasn’t she done any work for you in all the months you’ve been here?”
He either doesn’t pick up on my pique, or it doesn’t bother him. “No. I s’pose not.” Then he laughs. “I’ve only been here three months, though. And I hardly ever leave my office.”
“Except for today.” I glance at him from the corner of my eye.
“Except for today,” he repeats, grinning, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. “I decided to get away for an hour.” He says it like it’s the most rebellious thing he’s ever done. Turning his body toward me, he asks, “Would you like to join me?”
Instead of outright rejecting him, which is my first inclination, I hedge, “Where are you going?”
He shrugs, still grinning. “Dunno. I have no idea what’s even close. I thought I might take a walk. It’s lovely out today.”
We arrive in the lobby before I can come up with a nice way of saying, “no,” so I step off the elevator and have an out-of-body experience as I watch myself walk with him to and out the revolving door, onto the sidewalk.
“Where to?” he asks expectantly, as if I’m the instigator of this outing.
“Oh. I don’t know. Sushi?” I can hardly believe I’m hearing myself. I was supposed to say, “I don’t know… I think I’m just going to get my hair cut.” That was the plan, wasn’t it, before he interrupted Fantasy Jude and me?
He nods
