Page 17 of Love's a Glitch
A shaky exhale escaped,equal parts relief, a laugh, and a sob.
“Eloise?” I glanced over my shoulder to see Marge studying her phone.She knows.Our gazes connected as she lifted her head and then slowly tipped it in the direction of her open doorway. “In my office.”
Like a woman rising to meet her executioner, I pushed to my feet. I’d always hated getting in trouble, even back in my grade school days. It’d kept me in line when everyone else had brazenly broke the rules, and don’t even get me started on the unfairness of group punishments. Given that Marge and I were the only two females in a sea of dudes, I didn’t want to be the grown woman who burst into tears at work, but I could feel them rising, clogging my throat and burning my eyes.
Most of the time, my coworkers and I were hunched over our computers, lost in our own worlds of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc. As I started down the open walkway on autopilot, my associates popped up their heads like curious meerkats who’d failed to warn me of the danger but didn’t mind watching me get devoured by a predator.
Seconds before I reached the threshold, my phone buzzed. My heart leapt, and I quickly slipped it out of my pocket, praying Luke’s message would be amazing enough for me to endure the next few minutes and whatever happened during them.
But it wasn’t Luke.
It was a message from one of the dudes the dating site had matched me up with. Nick and I’d gone out on three dates before I’d decided he wasn’t motivated enough for me to pursue a relationship and our conversations sort of just naturally petered out.
Nick:I thought about that text you sent me out of the blue over the past week and a half, unsure how to respond. While we look good on paper, and you’re one of the few women I’ve met up with who looks almost as pretty in person as in her profile picture, all I really remember about the times we went out was how bored I was. I’m afraid there’s not anything between us to explore. Best of luck, though.
Bored.Almost as pretty. Nothing between us. So many insults at once. Talk about kicking a gal while she was down.
“Have I given you the impression that I have all day?” Marge asked in a voice so sharp it raked across my too-tight skin.
“Sorry,” I said, jamming my phone into my pocket and rushing inside the lion’s den. Not that Nick’s lame “best of luck” softened much of the blow, but as I sat across from Marge and took in the disgruntled look on her face, I figured lame or not, I was definitely going to need all the luck I could get.
* * *
“I wanted to call you earlier,”Luke said. “But I forgot about a meeting and had to rush to make it. Then it ran late, because of course it did. Do I still need to grab a ski mask and a shovel, or did you do the deed without me?”
The cold container of rocky road ice cream I’d been eating directly out of while watching trash TV hit my thighs, and I didn’t even bother moving it, frostbite be damned. I gave up on today. Not even Luke’s voice could break me out of my melancholy mood. I scooped as much chocolate and marshmallow swirl goodness onto the spoon as I could and shoveled the giant bite into my mouth. “The hit’s off,” I muttered. “Everything’s all off, including me. There was this whole thing at work…”
As if she could sense my distress, Dottie jumped up on my lap. I shifted my spoon to my other hand to pet her, but she dodged and sniffed at the carton. Strike that thought about her coming to soothe me. She’d merely sensed I had food and wanted me to share.
“Sorry to hear that. Wanna talk about it?”
“Not really.” I suppose I should just be happy that I wasn’t fired or even removed from the account. Instead, I’d been delivered an ultimatum. Play ball and impress the client or find another job. Part of me thought I should use my distress as a jumping off point and spring into running my own business. Catalina could help me dot and cross all the legal i’s and t’s, and Penny already threw clients my way whenever she could. I’d hoped to have more of a nest egg before going that route, though. Then again, nothing was as motivating as no-choice-but-to-succeed.
“Ellie?”
“I’m afraid I’m not going to be very good company tonight. I can’t seem to shake myself out of this funk.” As stupid as it was, the thought weighing heaviest on my mind wasn’t about my career. It was that text from Nick. “Am I boring?” The question blurted from my growing-numb lips, vulnerability surging forward along with the inquiry.
Luke laughed.Laughed.
I froze, stiffer than my melting ice cream.
Then he said, “That’s thelastword I’d use to describe you.”
A bit of the ice thawed, my blue mood lifting a shade or two. “Thank you. But the thing is, we only have short conversations here and there.”
“And I’m not bored. I feel like I could talk to you all night. What more proof do you need?”
You asking me out. Suggesting we meet up. Admitting you’ve wondered if there could be more between us, the way I constantly do.
“One of the guys I hadn’t heard from since the phone update from hell texted me back today.” While Luke climbed rocky hills and mountains, I braved a bite of rocky road that many people wouldn’t attempt. “To tell me how bored he was on all our dates.”
Silence met my confession.
“I started thinking about how my days are basically a repeat, nothing much changing from one to another. Which led to mulling over the way I rule out dudes because I think they’re too this or that. Then it hit me that several of the guys I was interested in did the same thing to me, and ruledmeout because they deemed me uninteresting or dull, and maybe I am.”
Luke’s sigh carried over the line. “Trust me, Ellie, you’re not. There are a ton of reasons guys don’t call back, and very rarely do they have much to do with the other person. I’d bet a lot of them just got confused between whatever dating app you’re on versus Tinder or whatever and were just using it as a way to hook up.”
“But they didn’t even try to hook up with me. I mean, a few did, and I’m not saying that I would’ve slept with them if they had, but…” All my jumbled thoughts, emotions, and insecurities crashed into one another, not coming out right. “All this time, I assumed it was them, but what if it’s me? Truth is, I wish I was more adventurous. I’m not talking your level, because that’s insane—”
