Page 7 of True Sight
It’s idiotic. Just take the five seconds to write it out.
You really need to get up to date with how people communicate these days. You’re sounding a little like an old man.
Add it to the list of ways I could improve.
Not wanting the email to linger in my inbox too long, I set my phone down and type a response letting him know I’m free to meet on Tuesday next week. I hardly ever meet my clients face to face as so many of them lived outside ofthe Charleston area. I guess things will be different with this Henry Baker.
Pulling my coffee cup to my mouth, I take a sip and lean back on the bench I’ve been sitting on for the last several hours. I scrub my eyes with my hands after staring at my screen for far too long and push out a heavy breath.Only a few more hours until you can log off for the day and head to campaign night,I think with my eyes closed. Digging my palms into my eye sockets one more time for good measure, I open my eyes to discover there’s a stranger standing on the other side of my table. I can’t stop my face from screwing up in confusion as I take in her image.
“Hello.” The mystery woman smiles widely at me. She has short blonde hair, similar to Bailey’s, and is leaning her hands on the back of the chair that’s tucked in under my table.
“Hello,” I reply, trying to be polite. There have been enough times where my true thoughts have slipped out and resulted in one of my friends scolding me for being too blunt. Their favorite thing to do is smack me upside the head when I’ve said something out of line so I’m trying to be better about choosing my words wisely. ‘Hello’ seems like a perfectly appropriate response.
“Is anyone sitting here?” Her voice perks up at the end. Before I can answer, she pulls the chair out and takes a seat. The screeching sound of its feet scratching against the old hardwood floors causes some of the people around us to stare.
“Uhh, I guess you are.” I look around the coffee shop and count at least three open tables. Why the hell did she ask to sit at my table when she could have chosen any of the other open ones?
“What’s your name?” Her voice is light and energetic,almost like a child who’s been given too much sugar. With her arms crossed in front of her on the table, she’s nearly bouncing in her seat as she looks at me.
“Why do you care?” I gruff, annoyed that she’s cutting into my work day. I’m hoping to finish this coding project before leaving to head home and get ready for game night.
“My name is Allie.” She extends a hand across the table and smiles even wider.
I don’t offer her my hand in return. “That’s nice.”
“Can I buy you a coffee?” She recovers quickly and tucks her hand back under her other arm. The smile she’s giving me never fades as she waits for me to respond.
“I already have a coffee,” I explain, lifting up my coffee cup to show her. My eyebrows push into the center of my face as I do.
“Oh”—her shoulders droop—“well what about a pastry? They have some really yummy baked goods at the counter. We could go look together.”
“And why would I want to do that?” My voice comes out flat with a tinge of annoyance in it.Don’t be an ass, your friends would tell you you’re being an ass. Her face falls at my words and I realize I may have hurt her feelings. “Look, it’s nice of you to offer, but I’m really busy trying to finish up a project before the end of the day. Thank you, though.”
The stranger—Allie—purses her lips together and ‘humphs’in her seat. Without saying another word, she stands from the chair and walks away. As she goes, I wonder how my friends would think I handled our exchange. I thought I was plenty nice and upfront with her about the fact that I’m not interested. I’m unsure why I’m not interested; she’s pretty enough compared to the other women in my life. She just isn’t my type, I guess, seeing as how my body had no physicalreaction to her when she sat down. That wasn’t unusual though, I rarely have any kind of similar reaction that my friends do when there is an attractive woman around. Sure I have questioned it before but just chalk it up to being the kind of person who doesn’t do emotions in general.
Emotions lead to disappointment.
And I, for one, have experienced plenty of disappointment to last me a lifetime.
“Connie,”Malcolm’s voice booms from down the hall as I approach the dining room table we spend every Wednesday at. It is nearly seven thirty and traffic has made me late which always annoys the hell out of me. My friend calling me the nickname I hate most doesn’t help my irritation level.
“Dude, you know it’s almost seven thirty, right? Like, you’reone minuteearly, what do you have to say for yourself?” Malcolm looks at his watch and then to me with a sly expression.
“I say that you’re an annoying prick for calling me Connie even though I’ve asked you for years not to and that it’s traffic’s fault. People here don’t know how to drive and there was an accident on the bridge,” I grumble, yanking a beer from the fridge and popping the top off.
“Hey, it’s no sweat, dude, we’re just happy to have you here,” my other best friend, Kolbi, says, clapping a hand on my shoulder. Beer in hand, we both move towards the table and take a seat.
“Something else bothering you? You look, well, you look even more out of sorts than normal,” the third and finalfriend in my little group, Hank, asks from across the table. I force out a breath and take a sip of my beer.
“No, I’m fine. Just annoyed by the traffic is all. I had a weird day, I guess.”
“What kind of weird day?” Hank’s wife asks, coming into the dining room with two of her favorite companions. Magnolia follows close behind her and goes to stand behind Kolbi and Ophelia closes out their group before confidently sitting herself in Malcolm’s lap. What was supposed to be ‘boy’s night’ has quickly become ‘boy’s and the people they’re sleeping with’ night. Over the last two years our weekly Dungeons and Dragons campaign has grown to include several extra attendees, or ‘non playable characters’ as I once referred to them as.
“I just had a client ask me to meet in person for the first time which never happens and then had this really weird exchange with a girl while I was working at a coffee shop.”
“What kind of weird exchange?” Ophelia asks, leaning forward on Malcolm’s lap. His hands instinctively grip her waist and thigh tighter so she doesn’t slip.
“Well, I was working and then all of the sudden she was just standing in front of me asking if she could buy me a coffee. When I told her I already had a coffee, she tried to ask me if I wanted apastry. Why in the world would I want a pastry? I just wanted to be left alone to work.” I scoff with a shrug of my shoulders. When I look around the table, everyone is staring back at me with matching stunned expressions.
