Page 14 of From Our First

I let out a breath. “Okay, who’s next?”

“You sound eager all of a sudden.”

I ignored the curiosity in Paris’s words.

“Let’s get it over with,” I said.

“Now that’s the Myra we know and love.”

I was ready for my next step. Because the more I tried, the farther away I could get from Nate. And in the end, that was all that mattered.

* * *

“Brian,what is it that you do again?” I asked, looking across the table at the man in front of me. I took a sip of my club soda and lime, wishing it was wine. But I planned to have a glass of wine with dinner, so I didn’t want more than one while out with a person I had never met before.

Everything was a bit scary because I was on a date with a stranger.

I hadn’t thought too much about it before during my dinner with Nate. But now that I knew I would never be on a date with him again, any sense of familiarity was gone.

“I work with Paris. You know that,” he said, smiling at me with his perfectly white teeth, his eyes a delicate hazel. At least he had kept his gaze above my chest line. I’d put that in the plus column. Most men couldn’t keep their eyes off my ass or my tits. Yes, I had curves, but I didn’t want the world to look at only them.

“Oh, I know. But I know she and Prior do completely different things even when they work on the same projects. I just wanted to know what you did.”

He smiled again, perfectly pleasant.

Hewaspleasant. He had a friendly, soothing tone. He didn’t stare too long or venture onto any topics that could become perilous.

He was entirely sensible.

And I was bored out of my mind.

For all I knew, it was me. Brian would probably have a great time with anybody else. He’d likely laugh it up, tell jokes, and give the girl tingles to the point where she’d want to crawl across the table and rip his tie right off his body.

That was not going to happen with me.

Maybe itwasme. Perhaps I was the dud and not the man in front of me.

But as he began droning on about programming in a monotone, I was terrified that maybe it was both of us.

I didn’t know what had happened. I used to be good at dating. Not only before Nate but also after him. I had never been one to shy away from or hide from the opposite sex. If I wanted to go out on a date, I did. Men asked me out all the time.

Or rather, they used to. Now, guys hit on me awkwardly or made me feel like they didn’t want to get too close because I was the icy bitch queen.

I had to stop that.

I needed to be more personable.

But right now, I was genuinely bored.

And I hated it.

“That’s so interesting,” I said as Brian finished his explanation.

He smiled softly and shook his head. “It’s not. My job is tedious, but I love it.”

That made me pause. “You can love what you do and still find it tedious?” I asked, confused. I didn’t like to do boring things. I did the tasks I needed to do that weren’t the most energetic or interesting. Yet I didn’t know if I could ever do those tasks for my livelihood. I had walked away from the things that had been set out in front of me and had found true joy even if I was having problems with my current project.

“I don’t know if I’m saying it quite right,” Brian began. “I enjoy what I do. But I know that not everybody does. I love playing with numbers and trying to find answers. But at the end of the day, I have to look at a specific number and decide if that is the right one or not compared to all the other ones next to it.”

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