I let her wear her intrigued grin and turn back to my phone to finish my message as we walk.
A little bird from the office told me you went on a date last night…very interesting.
Once again his reply is quick, and I ignore Louise’s sideways glance to read it.
After you, it could only disappoint.
I try not to smile, try not to feel fluttering in my chest, heat in my gut. I try to think of the message as cliché, trite, another bar-crawling, skirt-chasing guy’s pithy one-liner, but I can’t. Owen is acting like he’s still into me, like he still wants me, like he can’t forget what happened. This isn’t right, isn’t what I expected, isn’t at all how things should be going…
“So…Owen, huh?” Louise says, noticing how much I’m struggling to keep my blushing cheeks hidden. “You guys seem to have gotten close.”
I roll my eyes in self-defense. “We’ve always been close, Louise. I mean, and we’re co-workers now, you know? So of course we’re close,” I say, evenly. “We sit next to each other at work. We’re in each other’s faces all the time. It’s not a thing.”
“But you’ve hang out at his place all the time, right?”
“What? No…okay, sure, I’ve dropped by there to pick something up…you know, like you do. But it’s not like I go over there just to see him,” I splutter, stumbling over myself. Not because of Louise’s tone, but because of my own confusion. “Why do you ask?”
“Well you seemed to know what kind of furniture he likes. Seemed to have a pretty good idea of it, as a matter of fact. And here you are, freshly single and blushing up a storm and for some reason you can’t seem to say his name without smiling.”
“Yes I can!” I squeal.
“Prove it,” she says with a smirk. “Say ‘Owen.’”
But I can’t. Every time I try, I find my lips curving up into a smile, no matter how hard I try to force my mouth into a straight line.
“Ha! I knew it!” she crows.
“Christ, Louise,” I say, shaking my head a little at her. “You’re only supposed to pretend to play detectives.”
Louise laughs, and I laugh too. We reach her car and when she leans back on the hood I know she wants the whole story. To be honest, I want to tell it to her, and the only reason I’m reluctant is that I’m scared that saying it out loud might make it even more confusing than it already is in my head, make it even more impossible for me to pretend it never happened. Plus, Louise has a habit of always saying exactly what she thinks, with complete, brutal honesty, so her opinion could either be extremely helpful or utterly soul-crushing.
“Come on, Margo. Spit it out,” Louise says, pointing a Columbo finger in the air. “I want names, dates, places.”
I nod as if admitting defeat and ease myself back onto the car beside her.
“Basically,” I begin, feeling like I’m at confession, “we sort of, accidentally, had kind of a one-night stand.”
“Whoa!” Louise exclaims, face like she’s riding a rollercoaster for a second, before pulling back and frowning. “I don’t know why I’m surprised—that’s pretty much what I figured, but…still…that’s a surprise. How? I mean, what happened?”
I take a deep breath and clear my throat before I continue. “We went out for drinks—like we usually do, no big deal—just to sit and talk. I was pretty all over the place. What with Carl being such a dick, and the phone interview, and then the whole cat video thing. I just needed to get my head straight. I guess Owen was kinda pent-up too about this project he wants to get off the ground at work. He doesn’t show it—of course—but I can tell he really wants it, and he’s been in kind of a tense mood all week.
“Anyway, we both got really drunk, so I couldn’t drive home. Owen invited me back to his place and…” I trail off and shrug, trying to act nonchalant even though I can feel my cheeks burning as the scene replays itself in my mind.
She gasps with delight. “He made the move on you?”
I tilt my head as I think about it, trying to remember, but my memories are too drunk, too loaded with emotion to recall clearly in hindsight.
“I guess it just happened. From both of us. It wasn’t like he just came onto me and I let it happen. I wanted it to.”
Louise puts a hand on my thigh and gives me her serious face, to emphasize how important the next question is. “Was it good? How was he? Are the rumors true?”
“Yes. It was good…really good…” I start, but I’m smiling so hard again that I have to cover my face as Louise bursts into giggles. “He was…he likes to take control.”
I leave it at that and don’t mention the blindfold, the spanking, or how hard he made me come—because I love my little sister dearly and I don’t want to scar her for life by putting those pictures in her head.
Louise sucks breath through her teeth, then exhales slowly.
“You lucky s.o.b…” she says so softly it sounds like she’s thinking out loud. “Oh my god. You guys are gonna make such a great couple!”
“No!” I say suddenly, as if the suggestion might make it a reality. “We’re not a couple. It was a mistake, and we’re just going to have to move on from it. It’ll be hard, but we have to.”
Louise looks at me like she’s trying to judge whether I’m stupid or telling a bad joke.
“Margo, get real. You were just texting him with the kind of smile you only get on your face when you’re eating street tacos or getting all swoony over a guy—and I’m willing to bet he wasn’t talking about Mexican food. That certainly didn’t look like the expression of a girl talking to a platonic work friend.”
I push myself off the car to stand in front of her, pacing a little as I shake my head.
“No. It can’t happen. I won’t let it happen. The whole reason I didn’t hook you two up was that I know how much of a player Owen is.” I turn to her quickly as if remembering a killer point. “Listen: this all happened yesterday, and last night he was already on a date with another girl.”
“Ouch!”
I shrug as if the point has been made.
“I mean, he kinda had to for something he was doing at work—it’s complicated. But the point is, does that sound like the action of a guy you would actually want to date?”
“Guess not…what a jackass.”
“And then you add in all this other stuff, like the fact that Carl is determined not to let me have a clean break, and the fact that I’m so close to nabbing my dream job in New York, and the whole ‘online celebrity’ thing I’m dealing with and it’s just…there’s no way me and Owen could work together.”
“Not even as fuck buddies? No-strings attached fun? Could that work?”