The entire night passed without hearing from Toby. I’d resisted calling him again, even though the waiting was excruciating and frankly, a bit frustrating. I wanted to talk to him about Jessica and I hated having all my questions left unanswered.

Had he forgotten all about me?

“You want to go get lunch?” I asked Billy as we sat next to each other in the newsroom the next day.

He glanced over from his cubicle.

“Like in the cafeteria?”

“No, let’s get out of here. We haven’t hung out in a while.”

“I see what this is…”

“What?”

“You still haven’t heard from Toby, have you?”

“Who?” I asked, acting confused.

“Sure,” he laughed. “Let’s go. I’ve got to get out of here anyway.”

I pushed my chair back then stood up, stretching.

“Yeah, let’s get out of here. That taco place is close.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” he asked, pointing at my computer.

“What?”

“Your flash drive. That one has your personal files, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, but it will be fine. No one here cares about my photos.”

“Or mine,” he said, laughing. “Let’s go. You’re treating, right?”

“Sure. You still hurting for money?”

We walked toward the stairs.

“Actually, I got a freelance gig, so things are looking up.”

“Nice. Doing what for whom?”

“I can’t really talk about it.”

He opened the door. I walked through and headed down the stairs.

“Come on, you can tell me.”

“No, I don’t want to mess this chance up right now. Maybe later.”

“Fine,” I said, not really caring.

I had my own problems to worry about.

“Why don’t you think he’s called?” I asked as we reached the first floor.

“He’s probably just busy. You two have been seeing a lot of each other, haven’t you?”

“Well, yeah, but…I don’t know. Something seems off.”

We reached the parking lot.

“You driving?” he asked.

“Yeah, sure.”

“This client is a bit crazy,” he said once we were on the road.

“How so?”

“Oh, in every way imaginable.”

“Sounds crazy, right up your alley.”

“You do know me well.”

I smiled as I pulled into Commander Taco. They had the cheapest but best American tacos in all of Ohio if not the entire Midwest. We ordered a dozen tacos and two drinks, a root beer for me and a tea for him.

We ate the food outside on a round metal picnic table. The wind whipped, but the sun was out and kept us warm enough as we dove into the cheap journalist-food. He smiled repeatedly as we ate.

“Are you ever going to show me that secret photo project you’re working on?”

I covered my mouth with my hand as I finished chewing.

“You don’t want to see it,” I said, then smiled.

“What are you talking about? I love all your work.”

“Well, this is different. I took some photos of Toby while he was…uh…you know.”

He cocked his head to the side and squinted his eyes together.

“No. What?”

“Don’t make me say it,” I said, shaking my head.

Billy burst into laughter.

“You did not take pictures of him naked.”

I smiled.

“What if I did?”

“Anyway, how do you know I wouldn’t want to see them?”

I stared at his face, not understanding what he meant. Before I could ask, my phone rang.

“Is that him?” Billy asked.

“Yeah, but I’m not going to answer it. He made me wait, he can wait. I’m with my good friend at lunch.”

He smiled. I set the phone down on top of the picnic table. It buzzed a few seconds later as I received a text message.

“You know you want to read it,” he said, nodding toward my phone.

Damn you, Billy. You know me so well.

I grabbed the phone and turned on the screen. With a swipe and a tap, I saw a message from Toby.

“Come to me.”

“We’ve gotta go,” I said, taking one more bite then standing up.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Toby wants to see me. I’ll drop you off at the newspaper.”

“What happened to having lunch with your good friend?” he teased.

“Please?” I begged.

He stood, gathering empty taco wrappers from the table. I rushed to my car with him following behind somewhat slower just to irritate me.

“Just be careful, okay?” he said as I drove back to the newspaper.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we still don’t know what’s up with his ex-wife. I can appreciate you wanting to bone him, but…”

“We do not bone,” I interrupted.

He rolled his eyes dramatically.

“Don’t tell me you make love.”

“No, we haven’t done that yet, but we’ve fucked a lot. And it’s been good.”

I glanced over and grinned. He fell silent as I turned back to the road ahead.

After dropping him off, I headed to Toby’s huge house outside the city. Was everything okay? He hadn’t given me much information, but if we were together, a simple message was all it took for me to come running. Was I making a mistake? Why did love have to be so damn complicated?