“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, it’s good actually, but it’s bad timing. The software project I told you about that I did for a friend of mine? There’s a corporation in Hong Kong that just acquired it and they want me to join him to do training for their staff.”
“You’re going to Hong Kong?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“A month probably. Maybe a little less if I can manage it, but...it’s not a great time for me to leave town and just pull the plug on what you and I—”
“Don’t even. We’ve hooked up a couple of times. It’s not like we’re high school sweethearts, and you’re going to war, Jack. Let’s skip the dramatics and just say that we had fun, and you have a business trip.”
“We had fun?” He said, his voice going cold. “I was going to say we could email and Skype and keep in touch, try to stay together long-distance, but if it was just fun to you, you know what, never mind,” he said, standing up.
“I just don’t think it’s a good idea. It’s better to let this go. It’s not like we were serious,” she said defensively.
“I’ll see you around, then,” he said.
His beautiful dark eyes seemed shuttered, his thoughts closed to her. She wondered fleetingly if she’d hurt him when she said they had fun. There was no way he was that attached yet...he was a guy after all. Her experience told her rather chauvinistically perhaps, that only women developed feelings quickly, that men had to be coaxed and sometimes shouted at before they admitted to an emotion. The evidence was clear. He was leaving the country, which was a pretty strong statement that they weren’t going to be together.
“Have a safe trip. I’m sure you’ll have an adventure in Hong Kong.”
“It’s a nice place.”
“I have your shirt and stuff I borrowed,” she said halfheartedly.
Britt took the folded shirt and shorts from her laundry basket and took it to him, somehow reluctant to return them.
“I figured you’d want them because you probably got the shirt as a souvenir from New Zealand...”
“Never been there. My brother owns that bar. He sent me the shirt after he bought it.”
“You have a brother?”
“Yeah. He runs a bar.”
She smiled. “Anyway, here’s the shirt.”
“Keep it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks,” she said wryly, holding the shirt to her chest, relieved and sad at the same time to get to keep it.
“We had fun then,” he said with a sigh and held out his hand.
“Yes,” she answered, her voice a little shaky. She took his hand and held it for a moment.
Jack kissed her hand. It happened so quickly she wasn’t even sure he’d done it, except for the distinctive tingle on her skin where his lips had brushed the back of her hand. Then, he was gone. She was holding his shirt, staring at her own hand like a mental patient. She laid her hand on the door and shut her eyes.
After a few minutes of deranged pacing, she put the shirt down on her kitchen table and went downstairs to collect her mail. She glared at the padded envelope in her mailbox. Back in her apartment, she set it on the bed as gingerly as if it were C4 instead of a Victoria’s Secret order. It was absolutely humiliating.
Britt dialed Jack’s number.
“Listen, I did something stupid, which isn’t that unusual for me, but I wanted you to know that you’re basically pretty much right about me.”