Chapter Two
Jacob left after the game mumbling something about losing a bet. Before he left, he slapped me on the shoulder and told me to grow some balls. I couldn’t help but smile like an idiot and for some odd reason, I slept like a baby. Having someone here with me to take my mind off of the situation really helped. It’s been a week since I’ve last seen and spoken to Julia so tonight was extremely important to me.
“Hey Mike,” Nathan called out as I made my way into the office fifteen minutes early. I was starting to feel a little down again, but I managed a small smile and greeted him back.
“Hey Nate, how’s the wife and kids?” Nathan sighed and sat down in his seat.
“The baby is growing up fast, she’s starting to walk now and getting into everything and breaking all my shit.” I laughed at him. Kids seemed to be walking earlier and earlier these days. I’m pretty sure she’s seven months. “And Christina might be pregnant again!” Nathan slammed down his paperwork and I couldn’t help but to laugh a little harder.
“Hang in there,” I said as I made my way to my cubicle. I needed that laugh, even though it was wrong, I was happy that other people were having a hard time like I was.
I spent the rest of my day handling projects that I neglected to do a week ago and I avoided Elizabeth as much as I could. We both worked as paralegals at a law firm so avoiding her for most of the day was a miracle considering we worked on the same floor. I couldn’t look at her because even though I was mad at myself, I was mad as hell at her also. She knew that I was engaged, but she came onto me and ultimately got me to sleep with her. I know that I could’ve easily kept my junk in my pants, but the woman was quite enticing. When I saw her as I was about to go on my lunchbreak, I froze.
“Hey,” Elizabeth said looking me dead in the eyes. I looked over her head at the clock, it was 12:36.
“Hello” I said as normal as I possibly could. I was flustered but I didn’t want her to know that. I tried to walk passed her but her slender hand reached out and grabbed my arm.
“Michael” she sighed “Let’s talk about what happened”. I released the breath that I didn’t know I was holding and looked back at her.
“There’s nothing to talk about. We fucked, I was drunk and it won’t happen again.” I said as quietly as possible. Her soft features contorted with pain and I almost felt bad for saying that to her. “Almost” being the key word. Her eyes began watering and I thought she was about to start crying, but the tears refused to fall.
“I deserved that” she said fixing her posture “But please, I want to speak with you and apologize appropriately.” She shuffled back and forth on her feet and this time I sighed.
“I told Julia what happened between us and she dumped me. People mess up every day and it sucks that I had to mess up with you. Like I said it won’t happen again. There’s nothing for us to talk about.” I saw something flash in her eyes when I mentioned that Julia had dumped me, but I was too stressed out to read too much into it. Without waiting for her reply, I turned on my heels and walked away.
Everywhere I went to grab some food was crowded and I mentally cursed myself. I hadn’t eaten an actual meal in a week and I was starving. The only thing that I ate was just random meat that I pulled out of the refrigerator which obviously wasn’t a proper meal. I felt like my stomach was eating itself. I needed to find someplace to eat fast! After walking for fifteen minutes, I finally came across a subway that was not as crowded as the other places. I didn’t really find subway filling, but it was better than nothing.
I ordered a foot long subway club with a turkey breast chopped salad. At least this time I’d be eating something a little better for my nutrition. I sat down in my seat at the back of the restaurant eating in silence as I watched young lovers walk in and out of the place.
“Subway never gives you enough food,” the teenage boy said as he held hands with what I assumed to be his girlfriend.
“But the food is good. I don’t want anything else. Come on please,” the boy sighed and said fine.
They were more than likely on lunch break from school. I watched them as they flirted with each other, unable to keep their hands off of each other. The boy appeared to really hate the place, but he put up with it because of his girlfriend. They reminded me so much of Julia and me at that age. I smiled as I realized we’d come a long way from that stage in our lives. The couple left as quickly as they came and I left soon after them.
I walked that long street back to the office with my hands in my pockets. I was trying to come up with conversational topics so that things wouldn’t get awkward after Julia and I spoke for a while at dinner. I shook my head in disbelief, I didn’t even know why I had to do that since Julia and I spent the last ten years together. I could hear Jacob saying, “I can’t believe you are going all out for a woman like this” I laughed to myself “I just want everything to be perfect” I was starting to feel too emotional, so I took my hands out of my pockets and hurried back to the office.
When I got home later that day, I ran quickly into my bedroom to pick some clothes out for tonight. I was starting to see why women spent so much time looking for something to wear when they went out. I thought a suit would be too formal, but jeans were out of the question. I decided to go with a simple black dress shirt with some khaki pants. I wanted to look good for Julia, but I didn’t want to seem like a complete stranger to her.
I showered and shaved. When I looked into the mirror, I noticed that I had a slight tan. My hazel eyes scanned all over my chiseled face and I looked more close to normal than I had been looking for the last several days. I toweled dried my hair and spiked it up a little. When I was completely dressed, it was 6’ o clock. It’ll take about thirty minutes to get to Julia’s mother’s house and around fifteen minutes to get to Shelley’s. I thought it’ll be best to maybe stop by a store and buy Julia flowers but I changed my mind, I didn’t want to appear too out of character.
I drove the freeway in utter silence and decided to turn on the radio. I just needed something to distract me from my thoughts and concerns. When my phone began ringing, I turned the radio off and answered it.
“What’s going on Jake? You know I’m about to go out with Julia” I said without saying hello.
“Yeah, yeah.” Jacob said, “I never asked, where you taking her?”
“Shelley’s.”
“Shelley’s? I thought you hated that place.”
“I do, but that’s where she’s wants to go so that’s where I’m taking her.” I heard Jacob sigh before he shouted into the phone.
“Whipped!” I really didn’t want Jacob to kill my mood.
“I’d rather be whipped instead of at home alone jerking off” Before Jacob had time to come up with a comeback, I hung up the phone. “That’ll teach him” I said laughing.
When I finally arrived in front of the house, I took in a deep breath and exited my car. Whipped or not I had to make a good impression. When I knocked on the door and Julia opened it, I was at a loss for words.
She was gorgeous wearing a lime green short dress with black high heel shoes. Her hair and her make-up was done expertly. Her brown eyes scanned over my body in the same manner that mine did hers. She poked out her lip in a way that made me think that she was pouting. “You look good” she muttered under her breath and a wide smile spread across my face.
“Thanks, you’re always gorgeous so it’s not surprising that you look good too.” She told her mother that she’d be back later and closed and locked the door. We walked awkwardly back to my car and I held the door open for her. She said nothing as her slim body slid into the seat and I shut her door once she was all the way inside of the car. I walked around to my side with a goofy grin on my face like I had just hit the lottery or something.
“We’re going to Shelley’s right?” she asked once I began driving.
“Yeah, that’s where you want to go right?” I asked glancing at her from the corner of my eye. She nodded and sat back into her seat looking oddly out of the window at the passing cars. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know if I should start with small talk now or wait till when we were at the restaurant. The awkward silence was killing me and I wanted to make sure she was having a good time. I decided to break the silence, “So how have you been?”
“Fine” she said too quickly not even looking my way. Ouch! The coldness from her voice stung me a little bit, but I continued on.
“Well, I’m glad one of us is fine.” Julia turned and looked at the side of my face and sighed.
“You know that’s not what I meant,” she paused and took a deep breath. “I’ve been miserable as hell, but don’t think that it means anything. I’m still pissed off” her high pitch voice cracked when she said that. She almost sounded like she was going to cry. I felt good that she was affected as much as I was about our breakup.
“I’m miserable too, but at least we get to see each other now.” I looked at her and flashed Julia a quick smile just as I pulled into the parking lot of Shelley’s. When we entered the restaurant, we noticed that it was packed, I was glad that I made reservations that morning.
“Do you two have a reservation? We’re pretty crowded at the moment and will not be able to seat people for another two hours.”
I honestly didn’t know why this restaurant was so popular; I found the place to be quite nauseating.
“Yes, my name is Michael Christianson.” The host looked through his list of names and smiled at me.
“Please follow me.” He grabbed two menus and led us to the back of the restaurant which was a little more secluded.
“I’m impressed,” Julia said once we were seated and the host was out of ear shot. “I’m surprised that you made a reservation. You normally made me do things like that.” I looked through the menu, unimpressed but still attempting to find something remotely interesting to eat.
“Well, I did it for you. I’m sitting in a restaurant that I hate for you.” I said and Julia blushed as she looked away from me. The restaurant got a bit noisier as a group of women made their way towards our direction.
“Dorian just irritates me so much sometimes” one of the women said and I looked their way because the voice sounded familiar. The host was sitting four women, two I recognized as being women from work. One of them being Elizabeth! My face turned pale as a ghost when her eyes landed on mine.