Page 51 of Buried Treasure
"Not nothing," she replied. "Do you want to start talking now, or do I have to wait until you get to your third pint?"
Sydney shrugged. "I guess we can start now," she said. "Should we talk about the job or the men first?"
"Wait, you're being serious."
Sydney simply nodded.
"Well, who the hell cares about the job?" Lucy said incredulously. "Besides, you don't really have one of those right now anyway. So start talking about the men."
Sydney took a deep breath and took a large pull from her pint glass. There was so much she could say about Andy, so much she could tell Lucy. And yet, there also wasn't that much considering there's not much to tell when you don't talk to a man you slept with. Sydney stared down at the pint glass in her hands wondering how her life had become so complicated.
"I don't know where to start," she finally told Lucy.
"Well, last time I talked to you about Andy, it was after you had a one-night stand with him in the middle of the day."
"It was morning."
Lucy waved a dismissive hand in the air. "Whatever," she said flippantly. "What happened after that?"
"It wasn't a one-night stand," Sydney explained. "I slept with him again."
Lucy gave her a mischievous grin. "I like where this is going," she said.
"And then he walked out without saying goodbye, but he left his number on my counter, and I haven't called him."
Lucy's face went from happy to sad. "When was that?"
"Monday morning."
"Oh, honey."
Lucy gave her a sympathetic look, and Sydney could only drink more beer to pretend she couldn't see it. She already felt sorry for herself. She just wasn't sure about how she felt if other people felt sorry for her in the same way.
"So what happened that made you not want to call him?" Lucy asked. "I mean, was it bad with him the second time around?"
"No!" Sydney took a deep breath to calm herself down. "No, it's not that at all. In fact, it was good. Really good. But then he left."
"He left?"
"He just left," she said simply. "I mean, he put his card on the counter with his number, but what guy doesn't say goodbye?"
Lucy gave her a skeptical look, one that Sydney could tell probably had a more thoughtful lawyer-like approach behind it than Sydney's ignoring-the-issue method.
"Maybe he didn't want to wake you," she said.
"But it was a business card," Sydney said, ignoring Lucy's response. "It's just so formal. Like all we had between us was a business transaction."
"Maybe that was all he had on him."
"And he said I could trust him," Sydney replied. "But how can I trust someone who just sleeps with me and leaves?"
"Sydney, stop." Lucy reached across the table for her friend's hand. "Just… stop. Take a breath for a second and think about all of this."
"Thinking has been my problem," Sydney said glumly. "That's all I've been doing."
"OK, so then let's talk. Calmly this time?"
Sydney nodded and poured herself some more beer from the pitcher. She would need it. Lucy was a good person to get a different perspective from. She was someone who saw things differently. It was what Sydney needed at this point even if she didn't want it.
