Urgh, this choice is so much harder than it needs to be. It’s driving me nuts.
Once the waiter leaves, I stare at Katy hard and she notices. I must be giving her such an intense look that she can’t even act polite and pretend that I’m not being odd.
“Is something going on?” she asks me curiously. “You’re… looking at me strangely.”
This is it, my moment to make a choice. Do I act like an adult or do I act like a horny teenager with absolutely no control? Rationality and my natural impulse battles itself inside me hard.
“I’m just… looking at you,” I answer pitifully, not really picking a side. “You’re…”
“Yeah,” she replies raspily, shocking me. “I think I know what you mean.”
That stuns me into silence. I wasn’t expecting that. Does she know what I mean? Does she feel the same way about me? She’s obviously being cryptic because of the professional relationship that we have, but just knowing that she feels something calms me down just a little bit. Maybe I don’t need to know anything more, maybe that’s enough…
But as we look at each other and I feel that deep stirring in my chest, I know this isn’t enough. I know I want more. I can almost feel my fingers itching to reach forward, to grab her, to tear off her clothes and to kiss every damn inch of her skin. I don’t even mind that we’re in public, everyone can damn well watch if they want… actually no, I don’t like that at all. If things ever were to go that way with Katy I wouldn’t want it to be something seedy like what I’ve had with Ally. I’d want it to be something special, something different. Oh my God, what is wrong with me? I think again.
“So, do you have any questions for me?” Katy asks me with a question in her eyes. “Is there anything you want to know about the plans we’re setting out?”
Right, business. That’s what we’re here to discuss, so that’s what we should focus on. It really doesn’t matter if we’re sharing feelings with each other, work comes first. “I don’t know, I don’t think so. You’ve been really clear on everything.”
“Good, good. Right. Well now we just need to get some official documents drawn up. I need to make some calls to some people, and you need to get some signatures, but after that we’re almost ready for our meeting. That’s pretty good, right?”
I nod, not really having anything to contribute to this conversation now. I really feel like we’ve covered everything this morning. “Yes, that is good. I’m… excited.”
I don’t know how excited I am actually. Mostly I’m just nervous. I’m anxious about all of these changes that will affect my company that I’m not controlling. Maybe I did push too hard, too quickly and I created a mess of things, but that was my decision. Everything I did, I decided. Now this is all going to be controlled by everyone else. The banks are going to be agreeing on what I can and can’t do, and I’m just going to have to agree on it. It sucks. I don’t like it at all. The banks don’t know about my father and all the heart that he put into it, they don’t understand why I want to keep certain aspects of it as it is. They’re just going to be heartless and do what they think will make the most money.
I hate it, but I have to go along with it.
Katy seems to sense my anxiety because she reaches forward and she touches my hand. “It will be okay. You do know that, right? You can trust me. I will make this work for you. I actually have a lot riding on it myself, you know, this isn’t all about you.”
As she lets out a laugh, I can hear the strain there. There’s something to that comment, and I need to know what it is. “You do, huh?” I ask while I lean in closer to listen to her.
“I do actually.” Her cheeks taint pink. “I’m up for partner at the law firm.”
I don’t know what that means, I don’t really speak lawyer, but I’m sure it spells out promotion. “Well that’s great news. You definitely deserve it since you are so amazing at your job. In fact, who do I need to call to put in a good word for you? Who do I need to discuss your amazing abilities with to make this partner thing happen for you?”
Kat
y giggles appreciatively and she tucks stray strands of hair behind her ear. “Oh well that’s really kind of you. But you can’t put in a call for me, I haven’t really done anything yet. We don’t know which way it’s going to go. I’m not saying that I’m going to fail, I’m just saying we can’t kiss any ass yet… even if I need to be made partner desperately.”
“Oh well with you in charge I do know. I’m sure you’re going to kick ass for me. In fact, I’m banking on it. And you should be a partner, you deserve it.”
She smiles at me, the sweetest grin that I’ve ever seen in my life and she thanks me. As she speaks I stare at her lips with a deep fixation. Katy has the most gorgeous mouth that I’ve ever seen. I want to kiss her. That urge keeps washing powerfully over me, almost knocking me from my seat. I don’t think this is just something I want to do because she hasn’t let me yet, I think I might really like her a lot. I think I might be developing feelings for the first person in years. I don’t know if that’s something I can ignore.
Shit, I’m a mess. What am I going to do?
Chapter Ten – Katy
I can feel something happening between me and Evan. It’s been happening all day long. Something powerful is changing between us, and I don’t know what to do about it. I could feel something underlying under the surface all morning, but we had business to distract us then. Lunch has been a different matter. We haven’t had anything else to take our focus off one another. Even when we’ve tried to talk about something else, the tension has still been there.
“Thank you for lunch,” I say with a bright smile as Evan comes back from the counter where he’s paid the waitress. “That was really nice of you. You didn’t have to do that.”
“Oh, it’s just a work meal,” he plays it off. “I can claim it as business.”
I don’t think he’s going to do that, not when the company is in so much trouble, but I let him get away with his lie because it’s much easier than challenging it when things are all strange.
“Well thank you, it’s still very nice of you.” I tug my coat around my shoulders. “Do you want to get back to the office now? We still have stuff we can do this afternoon…”
“Yeah, I suppose so.” Evan shrugs his shoulders. “I mean I need to get back to get stuff done, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to. You can take the rest of the day off if you want?”