Page 2 of Text Me A Kiss
“David?” I asked.
“Probably. Do you want him fired?”
Blunt, but that was one reason I’d hired Tracy. I shuffled the two reports in my hand, considering the situation. David had been a model employee for two years, then suddenly begun to slack off. So far, his dwindling work ethic had only affected minor things like this monthly report, but how long would it be until the problem escalated?
“Not yet. Talk to him and let him know deadlines are deadlines.”
Tracy made a note on her work tablet. “Got it. Do you want coffee today?”
“Make it a large with a bagel. Late night last night,” I added.
She just nodded, her stiff blonde bun hardly even bobbing at the motion. Most of my co-workers and employees had stopped asking about my nights, probably preferring not to think about the connotations. Or, maybe they had just learned to go out and get some themselves.
Tracy had long ago perfected the mix of coffee and cream she presented to me, and the bagel took the gnawing from my stomach until the head of graying brown hair of the man from my 11:45 appointment disappeared out of my office door. I tapped the complicated little metallic structure on the corner of my desk, setting its little arms spinning and twisting in a pleasantly symmetrical dance, then reached for my phone and scrolled until I found my text conversation with Mary Winston.
Are we still on?I typed, then hit send.
Obviously.
I shook my head at the reply, gathered my wallet and keys together, and threw on my heavy coat in preparation to brave the chill wind that tunneled between the high-rises. Mary Winston was a creature of habit and punctuality, a fact I had learned well during my time working as her account executive.
I allowed myself a small smile as I made my way out onto the bustling streets. Account executive. That hadn’t been all I was to Mary, and she hadn’t just been my boss. Of course, that was all behind us now, and we still kept in touch. Nothing wrong with me having lunch with a loyal brokerage client now and again… or so her husband would agree.
A round shadow sped across the ground, accompanied by a shout of “Watch out!”
I flinched away from the projectile, reaching out to shield my face with my hands at the same time. A weight struck my outstretched palms and stayed there, trapped between them. Opening my eyes, I bounced the soccer ball I had miraculously caught.
“I’m so sorry! Alex is too.” A woman jogged over under the weight of a heavy fur coat and took the ball from me, glaring sternly at a young boy standing behind her in a small park next to the road.
My first instinct of annoyance flooded my mind, but the sheepish, cold-reddened face of the young boy softened my response. “No worries. A little cold for soccer, isn’t it?”
She tossed the ball back to her son and laughed. “Yeah, but his dad just bought him new cleats and this ball. He just had to play with them today.”
I smiled at that. “Kids don’t feel the cold like we do.”
“That’s tr—Alex!” the woman cried in exasperation as the ball bounced down a hill toward another street. “Excuse me,” she said to me, taking off after ball and boy.
Kids don’t feel the cold like we do. Where did I get that from?I wondered as I continued on my way, burrowing my hands into the warm, lined pockets of my coat. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had anything to do with children. Really, I could hardly remember being a child. With poor parents who hadn’t meant to have a son at all and had constantly told me they wanted me out of the house when I turned 18, I hadn’t had much of a childhood. The day I’d left home to work and scrape my way through an MBA in Business Administration had been one of the happier memories I had with my parents.
Once, as I waited for the orange hand to blink into a white walk signal, I glanced back. The mother was hugging Alex and he was embracing her back, ball forgotten a few feet away. An emptiness in my stomach reared its head at the sight, but I attributed this to hunger a moment later when I opened the door of Little City Lasagna and bathed in the rush of warm, scented air.
“Marcus isn’t coming today?” I ask, spotting my friend sitting at a booth with her typical perfect posture, stern expression, and omnipresent glasses.
“No,” she said, pushing the menu toward me with one manicured hand after I laid my coat over the back and sat down. “He’s actually on a business trip at the moment. As I thought you would be this week,” she added.
I could never decide if she looked at me with a motherly gaze or the kind of suspicious stare a trainer would give an extremely well-trained dog that had just done something unexpectedly wrong. “That deal fell through.”
“Hm. If you say so. I can give you some statistics CEO performance levels over their years at the job.”
Good thing I was too engrossed in the menu to answer.
“Don’t ignore me, Graham. You’ll order the lasagna. You always do.” Mary took the menu from me and handed it to the waiter who had just approached. “He’ll take the lasagna, and I’ll have a bowl of tomato soup and the Caesar salad, please. Garlic bread with both orders. Thank you,” she added, her drawn brows daring me to contest her will.
The lasagna herewasreally delicious. Leaning back with a roll of my eyes, I rubbed idly at the three scratches on my wrist. If anything, the marks had gotten redder since this morning.
“You’ll make them worse,” Mary pointed out, sipping her water.
“The jacket covers them well enough,” I told her absentmindedly. An idle smile crossed my lips at the sight of a couple two booths down arguing about who should eat the last bite of a piece of apple pie.