Page 42 of Keep Your Friends Close and Your… Work Enemy Closer?

"The woman wants to walk in the rain," Jared answered. "So I must oblige."

He nodded his head at us before walking away and leaving us, probably muttering under his breath about our lack of common sense. But I didn't care. It felt good. It felt like just what I needed after the strange Venus incident.

"Which way?" Jared asked.

I pointed in the direction of my apartment, even though it was quite a few blocks away. At least we could maybe walk part of the way, until the rain lost its charm or my feet started to ache.

Jared held out an elbow, and I only hesitated a fraction of a second before taking it, because really, I did need a steady arm in these shoes, especially with the wet pavement. And I most definitely wouldn't think about how solid and muscular Jared felt any time I touched him, or that little spark I'd tried desperately to douse when he'd held me close while dancing.

"I love the smell of rain," Jared said as we started off down the sidewalk.

"You know there's a word for it," I said, leaning in to the distraction of a conversation, trying to take my focus off the feeling of Jared's strong arm.

"Word for what?"

"The smell of rain. It's called petrichor."

"Petrichor? How do you know all these things? Semantic satiation... petrichor..."

"I have no idea," I admitted. "But do you want to know my favorite word ever?"

He squeezed my arm as we dodged someone with an unwieldy umbrella. "Of course."

"Have you ever heard of sonder?"

"Uh, no. What's that mean?"

This was possibly the strangest night I'd ever had. Walking in the rain with my annoying co-worker, arms linked, both of us ignoring the fact that we were getting drenched and now delving into a discussion about vocabulary.

"Sonder is that profound feeling you get when you realize that every single person you see has their own rich life, one as real as yours, one that you're just a brief passerby in. Or you're just a person in the background of their photo. A voice they hear as you walk by on the sidewalk. You know what I mean?" Maybe he didn't. Maybe Jared never had a deep thought in his life.

"Yeah, I totally know what you mean. I get that feeling a lot in the city. Like who are all these people? And where are they all going? And the fact that I'll never know them and they'll never know me. Yet for one second, they were a part of your life while you waited for coffee together and you listened to them talking to their wife on their phone. And then, you'll never see them again."

Okay. So there was something deeper to Jared than I'd previously thought.

"It's weird to think of how many people are on this planet at the same time as you," he went on, "and you'll never even know them. And living and growing up here, it just magnifies that fact."

He paused and shrugged off his suit coat, draping it over my shoulders. "You don't need to do that," I said.

"Yes, I do. I should have done it sooner. Now your dress is all ruined."

"This old thing?" I joked, attempting to change the subject to hide the fact that a ruined dress wouldn't ruin me.

I tried to hand him back his coat, but he turned forceful about it. "Don't argue with me, Cordelia."

Damn. Why was that kind of hot? For one brief, unhinged moment, I had the urge to tell him my real name, just so I could hear the way it sounded from his lips. Would he say it all deep and growly like he'd said my fake name?

"Take my arm again," he said, interrupting my strange train of thought, only to lead me to a different one as our arms connected once more.

And now, my mind went back to that dance we'd shared earlier in the evening and how good Jared had felt... surprisingly. I'd been alone for so long, I'd forgotten what it felt like to be held by a man. To be wanted. To be cherished. To be protected.

I liked going it alone. I really did. But my God, sometimes it'd be nice to have a person to share it all with, someone to talk to in the dark of the night when I woke up from a bad dream, someone to sit across from me during dinner, someone to vent about my day with while we cuddled on the couch and watched a movie.

"Did you grow up in the city?" Jared asked.

"Yep. Did you?"

"Yes."

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