Page 40 of Two Marlboros

...Too bad that the mere sight of me gave him hives.

I wanted to retort in some way, but I remembered once again why I was there and the favor he was doing me in staying even longer than the allowed ten minutes. He was so polite that he didn’t even look at his watch - but maybe he had peeked at the one in the library. It was time to offer that apology I had been trying so hard to put off, partly out of embarrassment, partly because I didn’t know what to say.

I cleared my throat. “Listen...”

“Yes?”

I took a deep breath and jumped in.

“I’m sorry for everything that happened, I realize I was stupid. I didn’t do it maliciously, and as for the party, it just seemed like a good idea to invite you, but maybe at this time it’s not appropriate. Sorry.”

I came to the end of that speech with a slight apprehension on me, mostly because I couldn’t read any emotion in his cryptic gaze. Suddenly, his face calmed down.

“Did you catch your breath?”

“Yes.”

“Did you take these 20 minutes just to apologize?”

It wasn’t easy to decipher the tone in which he spoke; I couldn’t tell if he was being ironic or serious. His expression was somewhere between the two extremes, and he was really good at not leaning to either side.

“Yes.”

He crossed his arms. Still no clue.

“I appreciate the gesture, you’re forgiven. For at least ten minutes, actually.”

I restrained myself from giving him a friendly kick on the shins: I’d been in pain all that time, churning the words, squeezing them out to get a few good sentences out of them, and then,poof, the whole thing had slipped away from him for ages.

“Thank you. I thought I had made one of my usual messes.”

“Yes, indeed. But I’m feeling especially good today.”

A giggle escaped me. I didn’t want to know what he was like when he got pissed off.

“If you ever change your mind about the party, anyway, give me a shout. You have the number anyway.”

“Alright. Do you plan to ask someone else?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I might hear from Ash, what do you think?”

His face stiffened. I thought it was because of my proposal, but I was proved wrong a second later: his phone was ringing.

“Excuse me a moment.”

As soon as he answered, his expression became tense. He turned to look at me.

“He’s here with me,” I heard him say to his caller.

He emitted a few whimpers and gave nods of assent, interspersed with a few “Alright”, not too convinced. When he hung up, he gave a deep sigh, then looked at me with a defeated look.

“I’m coming to the party.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “Are you okay?”

He slipped his cell phone into his pocket and began to walk in the direction of the station, back to the car.

“Bye, Nathan. See you Saturday.”

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