Not Safe for Work(81)

An elbow in my side brought me out of my thoughts and back into the cramped booth at Arturo’s.

“Hey, what’s wrong with you?” Teagan cocked her head.

“Sorry.” I gestured dismissively. “Just lost in thought, I guess.”

Bianca giggled. “Thinking about Cal’s mom at the table again?”

Cal groaned.

I laughed. “Yeah, that’s it. What can I say? A woman with that much experience requires a lot of imagination to satisfy. So I always have to think up—”

“McNeill, I’m so f*cking serious.” Cal gestured at me with a steak knife. “If you mention f*cking my mom again…”

I shrugged. “Okay, well, there was the other night with your sister, and—”

“My sister?” He grimaced. “Dude, have you seen my sister?”

“No, I can’t say I have.”

He shuddered. “Yeah. You just…no.”

“So what you’re saying,” I deadpanned, “is that your mom is hotter than your sister?”

Cal buried his face in his hands and groaned while the rest of us laughed.

“Sorry, man,” I said without an ounce of sincerity. “You walked into that one.”

“You really did.” Bianca patted his shoulder. “But it’s okay, we still love you.”

“And your mom still loves Jon,” Teagan said.

Everyone except for Cal burst out laughing. He flipped us all off, rolled his eyes and kept eating. That was what I loved about this group. We all knew where the lines were when it came to ribbing each other, or sexual innuendo and explicit topics, and though we all pushed the envelope hard, it was known that any requests of “no, this needs to stop” were to be immediately respected.

These were people with whom I spent in excess of forty hours a week. I knew them, and they knew me. We’d all learned to give Scott space if he didn’t make any jokes in his first fifteen minutes of work. We boys didn’t have to—and didn’t dare—question Bianca and Teagan when the former couldn’t stop eating potato chips and the latter went to the vending machines for chocolate at ten in the morning. The cracks about Cal’s mom and me always stopped if he responded with tight-lipped silence. Everyone knew when Teagan called it quits with her ex-boyfriend, Scott had fallen in love with his current girlfriend, and my second wife and I had separated, all before any announcements were made.

The food on my plate was getting less and less appetizing as pieces began to fall together in my brain. These people could read me like a book. Which meant they knew when anything significant in my life had changed. Which meant it was only a matter of time before they picked up on something. Perhaps not exactly what, but they’d catch the scent, and sooner or later, the little tells would accumulate.

And suddenly I’d have to explain and define something I couldn’t explain or define. Things were too casual to use the word boyfriend but too deep to use the word casual. Not that I was obligated to answer questions or tip my hand, but I wanted to keep this under wraps for now. I didn’t like denying it. Self-deprecating comments didn’t feel right when it came to my relationship with Rick.

If I was going to keep this under wraps, though, I had to keep the business-as-usual fa?ade going, and spacing out at the table during lunch wouldn’t help any. I forced myself to fall into the conversation, which currently involved everyone accusing Silent Dave of using his giant headphones to listen for signals from the mother ship. I played along. Anything to keep them from seeing how hard I was dragging right then. This didn’t hurt, not like a hangover, but it had the same effect, in a weird way. The price of a spectacular weekend—feeling not-so-spectacular afterward.

But I kept that to myself, and I kept up the illusion through the rest of lunch, paid my part of the bill, and we all headed out.

On the way out to the cars, Teagan put her hand on my arm, and I slowed my pace to match hers. Keeping her voice low, she asked, “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Rough weekend, I guess.”

“You guess?” She eyed me. “Was it or wasn’t it?”

“It was.” I flashed her a grin. “In a good way, though.”

“Ah, one of those weekends. Well done, McNeill.” She elbowed me and winked.

I laughed. “Thanks. I really am okay. I promise.”

“Okay.” She smiled. “As long as everything’s all right.”

Oh, everything was all right.

I smiled back, spinning my key ring around my finger.

Everything was great.

*

Back at the office, I tapped into every last reserve of focus I had and got back to work. Some of my work was fairly mind-numbing, though. Cutting pieces. Arranging them. Painting them. Gluing them. Yawn.

Finally, I had to give up and step out for some air. The park across the street was a good place to walk and clear my head, and it woke me up a little, but there was no busting me out of this funk until it was good and ready to let me go. I’d be all right, and the drop was well worth it for the high, but man, this part sucked.

On my way back in, as I headed through the parking garage, a voice stopped me in my tracks: “Jon, there you are.”

I turned around as Rick came around the corner.

He glanced around as he stepped closer. “Are you okay? Every time I’ve seen you today, you’ve been out of it.”