Page 23 of Walking Red Flag

“Who is she?” she hissed, sounding pissed now.

Cutter’s devastatingly brown eyes came to me as he said, “She’s beautiful. You’d probably hate her.”

Beautiful.

I blushed profusely.

He was being awfully nice…

“I’ll bet she’s hideous,” she snarled. “Does she know that you’re cheating on me?”

“Dorie,” he said patiently, “I’m going to explain a few things to you very carefully. One, we broke up. Two, we were never serious. Three, I always used condoms, and you were on birth control. Four, if you’re five weeks along, that means that you fucked someone…”

He proceeded to give the best biology lesson he could ever give.

He was very knowledgeable, and I couldn’t stop the smile that lit my face at his explanation into how the female reproductive cycle worked.

After a bit more screeching, he said, “I’m blocking you now. Have a nice life.”

Then he hung up.

He shoved his phone back into his pocket, and it immediately started to vibrate.

Instead of reaching for it, he turned to me and said, “I have a few questions to ask you about the bathrooms.”

I followed him to the bathroom, still thoroughly embarrassed about what he’d likely heard me doing in my office.

“All right, Go. Tell me which one of these is the men’s bathroom. Then tell me if you’re going to have a urinal in it or not.”

I scrunched up my nose. “I’d planned on putting the men’s bathroom farther down the hall. I hate when I have to walk all the way down long hallways that are dark. It’s scary for women. And…urinals? Why would I put a urinal in?”

He looked at me like I was adorable, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

He then went on to explain the importance of urinals, and before I could stop myself, I blurted, “If you’d put one in, I’d better go with your professional opinion.”

He winked, and I reacted with a start.

He pushed into the men’s bathroom and said, “You’re cute.”

“What does ‘Go’ mean?” I asked to satisfy my earlier curiosity as he pulled out his tape measure.

He’d called me ‘Go Go’ last night, too.

I remembered it specifically because it was an odd thing to call me in the middle of a breakdown.

“Hold that, would you?” he requested as he gestured to the tip of the tape measure.

I caught it with my fingers and stood awkwardly.

“Hold it up against the wall,” he instructed.

I did, giving him the best hold job I’d ever done in my life.

When he was finished, he turned and indulged me, “Go. Indigo. The color of your eyes.”

Then he left me standing there in the bathroom, feeling…weirdly warm.

The first thing I did when I got back to my office was text my best friend.

---