Page 73 of Not In The Contract

Thankfuck.

I hurried inside the restaurant, telling the maître d' the name on the reservation and following a waiter to our table. The waiter offered me a drinks menu and I took it from him with a smile, a little too wired to even read the menu options. Katya had suggested the restaurant, apparently it was owned by a friend of Alex’s and she enjoyed visiting to help unwind.

I didn’t have much time to take the beautiful decor in, though. The moment Alex stepped in my eyes zeroed in on her dark ruby curls. I swallowed nervously. Try as I might, the flutter of butterflies in my stomach was all I could think about as she walked toward me, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Hey,” I said as she sat down, lifting a feeble hand in greeting.

“What’s going on?” she asked, setting her purse on the other empty chair.

“I thought you could do with a break,” I explained. “Even if it is a tiny break.”

“A break from what?” she asked, her brows bunched.

I chewed on the side of my tongue, wondering just how far I should go considering I’d already crossed a line. “Avoiding me,” I chuckled finally.

Alex’s eyes widened a little, a faint rose climbing into her cheeks. “Ah, I wasn’t exactly avoiding you, I just,” she paused with a wince.

“It’s okay,” I said gently. “I kind of get it; talking about the heavier stuff makes me feel pretty gross sometimes. It’s easier to try to forget it ever happened. But I don’t want you to feel bad about talking to me. Like I said, I just want to be your friend.”

I ignored the part of me that hoped for something more.

Alex smiled, albeit reluctantly. “I’m grateful for that,” she hummed. “I don’t talk about the heavy stuff much so the after effects are a little new to me.”

“That’s understandable,” I said. “And we don’t have to talk about any of that stuff at all if you don’t want to. In fact, Katya added this as a meeting so we don’t have to talk about work or my research.”

“You and Katya did this?” She laughed, and the sound warmed my chest.

“It was Katya’s idea to make a reservation here,” I explained. “I figured you need to unwind and at least you can do it some place you enjoy. Not on those concrete blocks you call sofas.”

“I’ll have you know that I’m having those replaced,” she quipped playfully. “I gave my interior designer an earful about them too.”

I blinked at her in surprise. “Does that mean you plan on using your living room for its intended purpose, then?” I teased.

”When the schedule allows for it, I suppose.”

“You don’t have a schedule for your time at home, do you?” I grilled, hoping she’d laugh and tell me I was ridiculous.

“I feel like I shouldn’t be honest about that.”

I gaped at her. “Alex, I want to tell you that I won’t judge, but having a schedule at home is overkill, isn’t it?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.” She sighed. “It’s so ingrained in me that it’s difficult to imagine not having time blocks for everything. It helps me stay level-headed. The anxiety can be stifling and the schedule helps me keep it in check.”

It made sense, even if it was a wild, unhealthy way of coping with anxiety. But I’d promised not to judge, and even if my head was spinning with the idea of scheduling what should have been leisure time I couldn’t make her feel uncomfortable about it.

“Does that include weekends?” I asked, trying my best to sound intrigued rather than horrified.

Alex turned sheepish. “Sometimes it helps me get things done when there’s a time limit,” she said. “If I have errands to run, I can get through them efficiently.”

“You know me well enough to understand how that would be pretty much impossible for me to do.” I laughed, and it seemed to ease the tension around her mouth. “I’d probably forget I set a schedule at all and just leave the house without a plan.”

Her eyes turned almost tender, and the air in my lungs rattled free.

“How is it that you’ve managed to get so far in university if you have the time awareness of a pet rock?”

A startled laugh bubbled up my throat and I slapped a hand over my mouth in surprise. “A pet rock?” I giggled. “That’s a fair approximation, I guess. I don’t know, to be honest. I can’t tell you I’ve never been late to class or forgotten to submit work on time. But that doesn’t mean I don’t work my ass off. I know it comes with the territory of being bad with time, but I’m not lazy.”

“I never once thought you were lazy.” She shrugged. “Although you could probably do with a smartwatch or something.”