Forcing yet another smile, I reached for my fork. I placed a wedge of potato in my mouth, only to look up and find Kira staring at me.
“You sure everything’s okay?” she asked. “You seem…I don’t know…distracted? Are you stressed about the meeting tomorrow?” She was genuinely concerned.
I shook my head. “No, the meeting’s not really a big deal. I just have to be present.”
She tried to smile, but I got the feeling she was worried. “Is it something else then?”
I almost confessed right then and there – that’s how heavy my heart was. My stomach turned and I acknowledged again that I wasn’t cut out for this lifestyle. “Everything’s fine,” I lied, continuing to chew. “The food’s good, though.”
She nodded, accepting my compliment with a smile, and finally started eating from her plate. There were very few words exchanged between us, making for one extremely awkward ‘welcome home’ dinner. I accepted the blame for that one-hundred percent.
Kira collected the dishes and I went up to shower, using that time to detox as much as possible. Naturally, my thoughts drifted to Sam – wondering what she was doing, hoping she knew that this visit was strictly work-related. Sure, I was sharing a space with Kira, but that was merely a default arrangement. I couldn’t very well come into town and go to a hotel instead of the house I was still technically paying the mortgage on. But I was dead-set against being intimate with Kira. Not just now, but while Sam and I were involved. Period. That I couldn’t do. It was bad enough that I was stringing Kira along emotionally. It’d be on a whole different level of douchebaggery to be sleeping with them both at the same time.
I turned off the water and dressed quickly in the bedroom while Kira finished up in the kitchen. I put my phone in the pocket of my sweats so I could sneak away to make a call as soon as the coast was clear. As if the universe was answering my silent prayer for just a few minutes of solitude to talk to Sam, Kira came in and gave me the out that I needed.
“Be back in a few. I’m gonna go shower, too.” She smiled and then took her robe into the bathroom with her. As soon as I heard the water turn on, I raced down the stairs to the living room with the phone already ringing.
“Hey,” Sam answered, trying to hide how happy she was to hear from me.
“Told you I’d call,” I replied just above a whisper. She giggled quietly and I found myself wishing I could’ve been sitting there beside her.
“You did say that, but I honestly didn’t believe you,” she admitted with another soft laugh.
“Why not?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said dismissively. “But either way, I’m glad you made good on your word. How was the flight?”
I sat back and sighed. “Fine. No problems.”
“Good.”
We were plunged into silence after she replied, so I decided to pick up where our conversation left off before we got caught up in my office. “I know I already apologized, but…I really am sorry for not calling those few days. It – ”
“Don’t even worry about it,” she interrupted. “I get it.”
I smiled. “But I’m glad you came to see me today.”
She hesitated, which made me look down at my phone to make sure the call hadn’t dropped. “Yeah…me too,” she finally answered.
Did she really think I was gonna let that go?
“What was that about?” I asked, casually, leaning deeper into the couch.
She sighed heavily into the phone and confirmed my suspicions; something was wrong. “Can I be honest with you about something?” she asked.
I frowned at the question. “Of course you can. What is it?”
She released another breath before going on. “Okay…..soooo…..what would you say if I told you that my reason for coming to your job today wasn’t what you thought it was?”