“That’s perfectly understandable. But you do realize this isn’t going to be a talk therapy session, right? That’s not what this is. This is someone who is trying to collect data for a book.”
“Yes, Mom,” I said, sighing. “If it starts to border on a talk therapy session, I’ll tell him to start billing me, okay?” There had been times when I’d wondered if I should be expecting a bill in the mail from her. It honestly wouldn’t have surprised me.
“Well, I’ll get his contact info over to you, and then the ball’s in your court. But Carl is very nice, and he takes his work seriously.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I said. “I’ll talk to you later. We can figure out a good time to get together for coffee or something in the next couple of days.”
Her email came through a few minutes after we got off the phone. I looked at his phone number on the screen, but I hesitated in calling. I decided to wait; maybe I’d do it tomorrow. For now, I would continue my job search.
At work, though, it was hard to pretend that everything was normal. I could feel him watching me, whether it was when he was sitting at his desk, the door to his office slightly ajar, or when he was across the room, talking with Dan or Jonathan, his eyes landing on me, almost daring me to look over at him.
I wanted to. I wanted to look over at him so badly, even though another part of me didn’t want to see him again. I felt like I was getting pulled in two directions; the rational part of me demanding that I stand my ground and not let myself be pulled back in by whatever force had drawn me to him in the first place. But the emotional part of me was aching with desire to just be near him again, to have him look at me the way he did.
The whole day passed like this, intensifying to the point that I felt like I was going to explode. The air felt like it was crackling and I wondered if anyone
else in the office could sense it. How could they not? I knew Ian could. Jonathan, though, seemed oblivious as he went about his business. Toward the end of the day, he stopped by my desk and asked when I wanted to get together for my first lesson in self-defense.
“Maybe this weekend?” I asked. “I don’t have too much planned.” I could feel Ian’s eyes on me.
“Sure,” Jonathan said. “Saturday afternoon would be good. I was thinking you could come down to the mixed martial arts gym I go to. There’s a space we can use.”
“Okay,” I said. “I think that’ll be good.”
He grinned. “Great. I’ll text you about timing and everything, but I’m thinking maybe two or three.”
“You two making plans without me?” Ian called from his desk. His tone was light, joking, but I could tell he was forcing it.
Jonathan looked at me and winked. “We might be,” he said, speaking slowly, as though deliberately taunting him. “Daisy’s interested in learning some self-defense. We’re going to try to get together to work on it this weekend.”
“I see.”
He didn’t say anything else besides that, and when I snuck a glance into his office, he was looking down at his desk, writing something.
A little while later, Jonathan left. I went to the bathroom, and when I was coming back out, Ian was there, standing by my desk.
“So, you’ve got plans with Jonathan,” he said.
I nodded. “We just made them today.”
“You’re suddenly interested in self-defense?”
“I think it’d be a good thing to learn. I don’t think it’s a bad idea,” I said. “And Jonathan said he knew something about it.”
“He does. I do, too. You could’ve asked me about it.”
“I know. Jonathan was right there, though, when I was thinking about it.”
“So it’s a matter of convenience?”
I finally looked at him, after avoiding direct eye contact all day. He was staring right at me, and I felt a warm shiver go down my spine, that I tried my very best to ignore.
“It’s a matter of I was interested in learning about something, and someone who knows something about it happened to be right there. So I asked him. That’s it.”
He nodded slowly. “I’d be inclined to believe that,” he said, “except you’ve seemed distant.” He took a step closer to me, and I swore I could feel the heat radiating off of his body. I took a step back, trying to put some distance between us. I didn’t want him to know how strong his effect was on me, even now, when I was trying to be completely immune to it.
But it’s not like you could just turn those feelings off, could you? It wasn’t that easy. If it were, I imagined that Noah would’ve forgotten about me a long time ago.
“Have I?” I said. I glanced at the clock hanging on the wall by the water cooler. “It’s a little past five. I better get going.”