More Awkwardness
“Got it!” Matt said, barging into Tyler’s office. “I just needed a few days to sleep on it. I’ve got the perfect plan.”
Tyler got a sinking feeling in his stomach, a sensation he only felt when his day was about to snowball downhill at the speed of light.
“This is a brilliant plan, so I need some type of compensation.”
“What kind of compensation?” Tyler asked with a marginal amount of interest.
“There’s a three-day conference coming up in July. Updates on reporting standards. If you go in my place, I will not only tell you the plan, but I will be the one who executes it.”
The word hate was too mild to describe how he felt about conferences. They were long and boring and he found them to be of little value, but it was a small price to pay for a solution. Although still skeptical, he nodded. “Deal. But only if I like the plan.”
An excited grin split Matt’s face. “Okay. So I’m gonna call Trisha.
Just a little courtesy call to congratulate her on her engagement and while I’m talking to her, I’m just gonna casually throw it out there that you’re dating Jordan.
If we can at least plant the seed, we can buy more time before she actually sees the two of you together. ”
“There is no way that can be done casually,” Tyler responded, a look of panicked horror on his face. “Let me rephrase that. I don’t trust you to do that casually.”
Matt took out his cell phone. “C’mon. When have I ever steered you wrong?”
Tyler didn’t answer, not because it had never happened, but because he had lost count. There was no point in arguing, though. He liked this idea. Get the right reaction and simultaneously delay asking Jordan out again.
Matt dialed her number and pressed the button for the speaker phone.
“Hi, Matthew,” Trisha said and hearing her voice after such a long time struck a nerve inside him.
“Hi, Trisha. Sorry for calling so out of the blue like this, but I heard you got engaged. I mean, I was a little…shocked, considering you just up and left Tyler three months ago.”
Tyler stared at him, slowly shaking his head with the sheer loathing he felt for his best friend. Matt’s words were laced with venom.
There was nothing casual about that.
Trisha didn’t retaliate to that statement. She was the type of woman who would willingly take a verbal punch without complaint if she was wrong. Her silence told Tyler that she understood the depth of her wrongness in this particular situation.
“I’m just calling to congratulate you,” Matt said after the stilted pause.
“Thanks, Matt,” she said, her tone indicating that she doubted his sincerity.
“I’m so happy for you. It’s great that you and Tyler have both moved on. You’re happy with what’s-his-face and Tyler is happy with Jordan. We’re all happy after that less than amicable break-up.”
So not casual. “Stop!” Tyler mouthed.
“So Tyler is dating Jordan?” she asked, ignoring his last statement completely. “I heard he might be…Stacey saw them together.”
Matthew’s eyes widened in surprise and a smile of sick delight lit up his face.
“I just didn’t know if I should believe it,” Trisha continued. “I mean…it’s Jordan.”
“Yeah, she’s a little rough around the edges, but Ty is trying to school her on the finer things in life. He’s actually taking her to the International Dance Festival on Saturday.”
“No! No! No!” Tyler mouthed frantically, waving his arms in wild abandon in front of Matthew. “Abort! Abort!”
“Oh…” Trisha said, sounding more despondent than jealous. “That’s great.” Another stilted pause. “Well, Matt, thanks for the call. Give Tyler my regards.”
“I will,” Matthew said with an imperceptible sneer and hung up the phone.
“What the hell was that?!” Tyler shouted.
“It didn’t go the way I planned, but this is gonna work, Ty. Did you hear how crushed she sounded?”
“It wasn’t necessary to hurt her feelings. You know I take her to that festival every year.”
“It kinda was,” he said with an unapologetic shrug. “And that’s precisely the point. So now you gotta take Jordan.”
“What? No!”
“Ty, I’m ninety percent certain that if Trisha knows you’re gonna be there with Jordan, she’s gonna be there too.”
“The whole objective of this plan was to buy us some time so that I wouldn’t have to take Jordan out again for a while.” He shut his eyes, pressing two fingers against his temple. “And I would rather go swimming with an open wound in a tank full of sharks than ask her out again.”
Matthew rolled his eyes. “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”
Yeah, it was that bad. “You’re not a good friend. The predicaments you put me in are not indicative of best friend behavior. What if Trisha doesn’t go on Saturday?”
“Look, if you go and she’s not there, you’ve lost nothing, but if she goes and you’re not there, you’ve lost an opportunity. You said you have one more shot. Take it.”
Matt was right. As dumb as this plan was, it seemed to be working. It was obvious that his supposed relationship with Jordan had a negative effect on Trisha and maybe all she needed was a little push.
“Fine.” Tyler stood up with a groan. A few deep, therapeutic breaths were required before the execution of this soul-shattering exercise.
Please just let her say yes.
If he’d been presented with a choice at that moment to either drown in quicksand or ask Jordan this very awkward question again, quicksand would win hands down. There was a word for what he was feeling right now. In fact, there were several. Dread. Trepidation. Anxiety. A small dose of Terror.
His legs were so heavy as he walked to her desk, he felt like he was trudging through three feet of marsh.
“Hi…” Just breathe. “…Jordan.”
She looked up from her paperwork. “Hi…Tyler.”
“So…you remember when we…went to Giovanni’s?”
“Yeah, it was only five days ago.”
Five days weren’t enough for him to forget how she looked that night.
Visions of her in that cocktail dress flashed through his mind.
Don’t think about it. “And remember…when you said…” To avoid a repeat of their last encounter, he actively tried not to look at her breasts. “…I still owe you dinner?”
Her eyebrows twitched with uncertainty. “Yeah.”
“So I was thinking…maybe…” God, this is painful. “I could make it up to you…on Saturday.” Eyes up. Don’t look at her breasts.
“Saturday?” She was genuinely confused by this. “You do know Saturday isn’t a working day, right?”
“I am…aware.” So painful. “Um…it’s just that there’s this thing…” His voice was faltering, becoming unsteady with nerves and humiliation. “…like a festival…of dance. I thought maybe we could go…and afterwards I could…take you to dinner.”
She smiled. “Is this your way of not asking me out on a date again?”
Quicksand, anyone? Sharks? His eyes shut for a brief moment as he tried to regurgitate some of the pride he just swallowed. “It’s not a date.”
“Is it a bet?”
“Nope.”
She gave it some thought, still looking skeptical about his motives.
“Okay. I will go with you on a non-working day to a non-work related festival…of dance and then I will accompany you to a non-work related dinner – all of which sounds eerily similar to a date, even though it’s not.
I will do all of this if you tell me what your hidden agenda is. ”
He hated lying, but it was just a tiny white lie.
After Saturday, all of this would be over and she would never have to know the truth.
“I don’t have a hidden agenda.” She looked up at him with questioning eyes.
“Really. I just feel bad about what happened last week…with the pasta. I want to make it up to you.”
There was a flicker of doubt, but it disappeared quite quickly. “Alright, Mister Evans. I’ll see you for our agenda-free not-a-date on Saturday.”
* * * * *
Strike two! That’s it. Operation Cupid is officially a FAIL! Why do I listen to Matthew?
Trisha wasn’t there. Sure, it was pretty packed, but she had the ability to stand out in the crowd and Tyler was more than ninety percent certain that he hadn’t seen her.
The contemporary dance show had just finished and as they filed out of the Broadway Performance Hall, his eyes were still searching for her.
She would’ve loved this year’s show. It was passionate and electric.
The dancers were flawless and graceful, the entire act filled with the type of zealous energy that left the entire audience in awe.
All except one.
While this was something he and Trisha both enjoyed, Jordan neither liked nor appreciated this form of art.
She hadn’t said anything, but her small gestures spoke volumes.
Staring at the ceiling instead of the stage.
Pursing and un-pursing her lips. Playing candy crush on her phone.
All of that indicated that she had reached a stage of insufferable boredom before the show was even half-way through.
He’d promised her dinner and now he was stuck with her for at least another hour or two. Stuck was maybe too harsh a word. She wasn’t that bad.
Although asking her out proved to be painfully difficult, the actual not-a-date was surprisingly very easy.
Though her unhappiness with the show caused high levels of awkward tension, she was very easy to be around – nice even.
He’d noticed it at their last dinner. She had a lightness about her, never taking anything too seriously and he was starting to see that there was more to Jordan Shepard than schedules and sarcasm.
“So how bad was it?” he asked as they stepped outside into the warm evening air.