30 - Lucas
30
Lucas
I still couldn’t believe Haley had visited me at work last week. One moment I was giving a stressful presentation to a lot of people at my company, and the next moment she was standing in the hallway outside, watching me.
She’d brought me lunch. Such a small gesture, but it gave me a burst of confidence that lasted the rest of the presentation.
But then I spent all weekend analyzing it. Did that mean she was interested in me? Surely that kind of gesture meant something. She was trying to give me a sign. Yet I was full of doubt and indecision.
It didn’t help that Jordan had come over on Sunday to tell me that he and Haley hooked up. I wasn’t actually upset about that, which surprised me at the time. Instead, it made me feel hopeful, because it meant the night of fun we’d all had together wasn’t just a one-time thing like Haley had originally insisted. If she was having fun with Jordan, then she might be interested in me.
That information, paired with her surprise lunch visit in my office, left me feeling excited for the future.
By the time I met her for our make-up lunch on Tuesday, I was a wreck of nerves. That didn’t change when I saw her sitting in a booth at the sandwich shop, the sun shining in her blonde hair. The butterflies swirled, but I was also filled with a sense of certainty.
I desperately wanted more with Haley. Whether it was a repeat of the sweaty night together with my friends, or something more romantic.
I admired her for a heartbeat longer, then she glanced over and smiled when she saw me. She hopped up from the booth and hugged me the way she used to, when we were dating. I inhaled deeply, taking in her orange scent.
“Glad you could make it,” I said, sitting down.
“Sorry I couldn’t do yesterday,” she replied, foot brushing against my leg for a glorious moment as she slid back into the booth. “Busy day.”
“Lots of home showings?” I asked.
She blushed, which surprised me. “A few. One of them was actually for Shay.”
“Oh?”
“I showed him a few condos in the new building on the river,” she said.
“He’s been wanting to buy another place to rent out,” I replied. “Did you two get lucky?”
For some reason, her blush deepened. “It’s a nice condo, but not what he was looking for. We’re meeting again next week to look at more options.”
I felt a momentary flash of annoyance. Jordan had hooked up with her, and was teaching her son to play baseball. Now Shay was going to look at property with Haley. Everyone was spending time with her except me.
You’re having lunch with her , I told myself. This just proves you need to make the most of it .
We ordered food and she talked about her job for a little while. I was a terrible boyfriend back in high school, but now I was a much better listener. I nodded along, asked questions, and was genuinely interested in hearing about her life.
“Tell me about your job,” she finally said. “Wait. No. Tell me about your career . All I really know is that you moved out to Detroit.”
I spent the rest of lunch catching her up on my life. I worked at the auto shop after high school. Eventually I realized that was a dead-end job, so I went to a trade school to learn how to weld. That led to an internship working at a Ford manufacturing plant in Detroit.
“They had an internal contest to design a new concept car,” I told Haley. “Everyone at the company was allowed to enter.”
“And you won?” she asked excitedly.
I shook my head. “I lost to two mechanical engineers. But I got third place, and enough attention to snag an assistant job in the design department. I did that for the next two years before Nissan dangled an offer in front of me that I couldn’t refuse. I accepted the job and moved back.”
That last part wasn’t the truth. I’d been the one to search for a job back home, and got lucky that Nissan had an opening. But I couldn’t tell Haley that.
Haley was actually frowning down at her sandwich, deep in thought. “Is something wrong?” I asked.
She sighed, and pushed her plate away. “Yeah.” She dragged her eyes up until she met my gaze. “I have to confess something to you.”
I swallowed. What was she going to say?
“Last week,” she said slowly, “when you had to cancel lunch at the last minute. I didn’t believe you.”
“You didn’t?”
“The only reason I showed up at Nissan was I was trying to catch you in a lie,” she admitted.
I blinked. “Why would I lie?”
“Because as a teenager… you kind of… sometimes…”
“I was an asshole who nobody could trust,” I finished for her.
She winced. “Yeah. You had a bad habit of bailing on plans at the last minute, and you always lied about it.”
I chuckled. “Wow. I spent the whole weekend thinking about how nice it was for you to bring me lunch while I was stuck at the office.”
“I know!” she whined. “You have no idea how guilty I’ve felt about it. I’m really sorry, Lucas.”
“Don’t be. I can understand why your first instinct was to doubt whatever I said.” I sipped my water. “But I’m definitely not that asshole anymore.”
Haley’s eyes filled with warmth. “I can tell! Your career path is inspiring. I’m really proud of you, Lucas.”
It felt like someone was squeezing a vice around my heart. I didn’t realize how deeply satisfying it would feel to have her say those words. For her to finally get a glimpse of the man I had become, rather than the fuck-up she had known back then.
“You’ve grown up a lot, too,” I said to cover my own embarrassment.
She tilted her head. “Oh?”
I shrugged. “The way you carry yourself is different than I remember. More confident, more sure of yourself. Like you always know exactly where you’re going.” I smiled at her. “But everything else about you is the same. You still half-smirk whenever someone gives you a compliment—like you’re doing right now. You have the same intensity in your eyes while carrying on a conversation, like you really care about what you’re hearing and want the other person to know it. And you tap your feet when you’re happy.”
Her foot abruptly stopped tapping. “I didn’t realize you remembered so much about me.”
“Are you kidding?” I said. “You were such a great girlfriend back in high school, Hales. I was the fuck-up. I’ve always kind of thought of you as the one who got away.”
I hadn’t intended to say that to Haley today, but something pushed me to say the words. To make the admission.
She blushed again, and gazed down at the unfinished half of her sandwich. “That’s really sweet of you to say.”
There was a vacuum hanging in the air left by my admission. Had she felt the same way? If so, now was the time to say so.
She gave me a caring smile, and reached across the table to squeeze my hand, but didn’t say anything else.
We chatted about our jobs for the rest of lunch, then left. We lingered on the curb outside, her car being in one direction and my office in the other.
“I had a really good time catching up today,” she said. “ Actually catching up, I mean…”
Instead of having hot, meaningless sex , I finished in my head.
I grinned at her. “Yeah. Me too.”
We both went in for a hug at the same time. A good hug, pressing our bodies together warmly. For a few heartbeats, it was like the past seven years hadn’t happened. I was struck with the overwhelming sense that Haley felt right in my arms, like that’s where she belonged.
She pulled back, hands lingering around me. We smiled at each other, faces mere inches apart. I desperately wanted to kiss her, to get some sort of release from the complex swirl of emotions inside me.
I desperately wanted to know .
But the context was wrong. It was the middle of the day. It was lunch, not a real date. And with pedestrians walking past us, it wasn’t exactly romantic.
I pulled away, said goodbye, and walked toward my office building.
Ugh. I wish I had kissed her .