Page 51 of Up In Flames
“Okay, Simon.” There was no point in arguing with him.
He grinned at me. “Good. Glad that’s settled. I’ll be back in ten minutes for a coffee.”
Simon got to his feet and gave Hal a nod before leaving the room. Hal looked like the cat that ate the canary.
“Are you happy now?” I asked him.
“Ecstatic,” he shot back, still entirely too pleased with himself. “You needed an intervention.”
“I needed no such thing. I needed something to do.”
“Go home, Oren. Sleep. Clean. Rest. Eat pizza and watch bad disaster flicks. Compose dirty text messages to a certain someone.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to start. I haven’t watched a movie in so long.”
“Have you seenSharknado?”
“Shark-what-o?”
“It’s likeSnakes on a Plane, but you know… with sharks in a tornado.”
“You got me out of work so I could go home and watchSharknado?”
“Do you have a better plan? Clearly not, because you said you didn’t know where to start. I gave you a place to start.”
“You gave me sharks in tornados.”
“Well, if sharks aren’t your thing, you could always watchSnakes on a Plane.”
“I can’t believe that’s a real thing.”
“It’s a classic.”
I scoffed. It was not. Maybe classically bad, but not a classic.
“Byron used to make me watch Tommy Lee Jones movies. He was obsessed with him.Men in Black. The Fugitive. Batman Forever.”
“I’m sorry you lost such an important person to you.”
“Thanks.” I stood and headed for the door, suddenly willing to get out of here when I had been reluctant only a few minutes ago. Maybe I would go home and watch movies. NotSharknado, but something. “I’m going to go home.” I gave Hal a smile, the best one I could muster. “Text me some more movie suggestions. Nothing with sharks.”
“How do you feel about piranhas?”
“As in the tiny fish that eats you? I’ll pass, thanks. On second thought, no ocean movies. Or movies with large bodies of water. Nothing aquatic.”
Hal sighed. “You’re no fun.”
“Maybe Simon will watch them with you. But I am not the one.”
Hal opened and closed his mouth, then narrowed his eyes at me. “I’m going to send you every oceanic horror movie I can find.”
“See you later, Hal.”
I was halfway out of the office before I realized I was smiling. Before I realized that Hal really was a friend and not just a guy Iworked with who was nice to me. The concept of having a friend shouldn’t have shaken me, but I rode the elevator to the ground floor feeling like my knees were jelly.
By the time I reached the front doors and stepped out into the fresh air, I felt better about it. Leave it to me to have a little bit of a panic about making a friend. I couldn’t keep myself apart from people forever just to protect myself. My therapist would be proud that I’d come to that conclusion all by myself.
The worst part of the accident had been losing Byron and Rita. And then the months of nothing and no one. A brief interlude when I’d had Liam around, but then I was too raw, my grief too fresh for me to process anything.
