Chapter 21 Business Lunch #2
While I didn’t have anything in particular that I needed to stay late for, so many things had gotten away from me in the last week during my and Hudson’s sexual bliss-out.
I hadn’t kept up on any of the follow-ups and double-checks I did on my team’s work…
Hence my lunchtime review of Addie’s marketing schemes. “I’ve been slacking—”
“You mean you’ve been working normal business hours, but go on.” She dropped her chin into her hands and batted her eyelashes sarcastically. “Please. More excuses.”
“I need to stay on top of things, that’s all,” I grumbled after a beat.
“Jesus, Scout! This isn’t fucking rocket science. It’s not fucking science, either! Just text him right now, tell him you’re not working late, and ask if he has room on his scorecard for you. Literally and metaphorically.”
“I’m drowning in work. Speaking of, when are you going to send me that data we were discussing earlier?”
“I’m not. And you’re not working late tonight.”
“But I’m looking through the marketing concept Addie is drafting up with the PR team.
They’re just not getting it right. I wonder if I should start sitting in on the meetings.
Maybe I should call a few, just to make sure I’m getting my two cents in.
And I would just feel more comfortable if Terrence—”
A small, soft, perfectly manicured hand, with each nail painted like Warhol’s soup cans, came to rest on top of mine, weighing it down until it came to rest on top of the notebooks stacked up in my lap.
Until that moment, I hadn’t even realized that I’d been gesticulating like a malfunctioning armature robot, frantically cutting through the air with each word, letting my stress carry me away.
“Addie and Marketing are perfectly capable of doing their own jobs, Scout,” Leelah said, her voice full of empathy.
Care. “Just like I’m capable of running my own numbers and Terrence is capable of running his own tests.
And if you weren’t trying to do everyone’s job on top of your own, maybe you wouldn’t be so freaked out about failing all the time.
Maybe you’d have more time for sex and friends and lunch and Hudson. ”
It was so tempting. I’d already gone this far, after all.
But old habits died hard. And old fears died harder.
What if, one day, after BuzzCorp shuttered and I was the laughingstock of the mechanical engineering world (again), and Lloyd Exeter was dancing on my grave (again again), I looked back on this moment and regretted my choice?
What if letting myself go on a date with Hudson was the decision that ultimately ruined everything?
“I’m responsible for The Fantasy, Leelah. Everyone’s jobs. Everyone’s futures. Clara’s money. The investors’ money. My own reputation. I can’t risk it.”
She assessed me. All around us, workers laughed and chatted and devoured oversized sandwiches and coffees, enjoying the sunshine tainted by the first throat-clear of fall. But she did not look at anything but me. I was under her microscope.
For years, I’d looked at people like complex machines. Ones that I could figure out and navigate if only I could study them long and hard enough.
Was this what other people felt when I looked at them? Like they were being unraveled?
“Now, I know this is going to sound cheesy,” she began, thinking through each word before carefully releasing it like a test balloon between us.
“But you are your most important experiment. One that you’ll be iterating on forever.
You have a handsome, smart, thoughtful, funny—if a little personally reserved, for reasons we have yet to discover—guy who wants to spend time with you.
Dating is just data. You find out what you like, what you don’t, what makes you happy, who makes you happy.
That’s data for the experiment that is your life.
Data that could make your time on this rock better.
You don’t have to go steady with him. You don’t have to get emotionally involved.
But you should let yourself try. At least for the purposes of science. ”
Her microscope intensified around me. I struggled under its white-hot light.
“Just think about it. You’d never deny yourself the opportunity to learn about anything else. Why deny yourself this? Especially when you can let the rest of us pick up the slack. To help you at work so you don’t have to worry so much. So you can have a real existence outside of these walls.”
I was used to people knowing more than me. About pop culture, about driving cars, about how to interact with other human beings.
I was not used to people knowing more about science than me. Or at least seeing science in a more accurate way.
She was right, of course. I did owe it to myself to learn. To indulge my curiosity. After all, I’d never been on a date before—or anything that even looked like a date.
It was…nice to think of myself as an experiment to cultivate, to nurture, to feed and cherish.
I took such care with my experiments. Why didn’t I ever take care of myself?
Besides, Hudson had taken my virginity. Why not my date virginity, too?
“And barring that,” she said, tossing a piece of gum into her mouth, “I’ve read plenty of peer-reviewed articles that say work performance significantly improves when one has fresh air and exercise.
What’s mini golf if not highly concentrated fresh air and exercise, hm?
You might actually be imperiling your work projects if you don’t indulge this one little outing. ”
She popped her gum. I said nothing. She did me the solid of changing the subject.
With casual offhandedness, Leelah passed along tidbits of office gossip, pitched some ideas for a new twist on a sex machine we were brainstorming, and got in a few sharp digs about her ex-boyfriend for good measure.
It was an unconventional lunch for me, but at least I didn’t look down at my laptop anymore.
At least I spent a good twenty minutes handling something other than work.
That pleasant joy ended when, horror of horrors, Hudson showed up to interrupt our little luncheon.
“Hi, Scout. I—” He waved at me, then stopped when he saw that I wasn’t alone.
For the first time, I got to see the subtle differences in how Hudson treated me versus other people.
He was always polite to a fault, but when he saw Leelah, a veneer fell over him.
It wasn’t fake, per se, but there was a shift.
It was the difference between the cozy warmth of a fireplace and the artificial hum of a space heater.
“And Leelah, it’s so good to see you. How have you been?”
Leela waggled her eyebrows. “Hello, loverboy.”
Hudson tipped his head, but there was no mistaking the beginnings of a blush at the tips of his ears. I swooped in to rescue him, tossing her candy bar wrapper at her.
“Can you be somewhere else, please?” I asked.
She took the dismissal in confident stride. “Sure.” Before she left, though, she tossed Hudson a piece of her gum. Spearmint. “Take this. You’ll need it. You’re welcome, by the way.”
He blinked at her. “For what?”
“For whatever is about to happen here and whatever amazing sex you get out of it later. Ciao.”
And then, she was gone. With a flounce of her oversized Fleetwood Mac sweater, she disappeared, leaving Hudson and me alone.
“Sorry about her,” I said.
“Don’t worry about it. I interrupted.”
“No, we were wrapping up.”
“Cool.”
Everyone around us carried on their conversations. The food pop-ups slung their final meals. A fountain trickled slowly. All as if to highlight our awkward silence.
But then, at the exact same moment, we said:
“Anyway, I wanted to apologize for this morning—”
“Were you trying to ask me out?”
His eyes widened. He’d been caught.
“I didn’t want to scare you off. I know we talked about getting to know each other better, but I don’t want you to think I’m rushing or pushing you.
It’s one thing to be confident in the bedroom, you know, but another thing to ask a girl out, believe it or not, especially when she’s said she isn’t interested in that kind of thing—”
“Yes. I want to go.”
I forced the words out, but as soon as they were, I realized how much I loved saying them.
Yes, it was terrifying, thinking that I was, little by little, relaxing my white-knuckle grip on all aspects of my life.
But hey…it was one outing. One night with Hudson that wasn’t one hundred percent focused on sex.
Problem: I’ve never been on a real date before. And Leelah was right. That was a missing data set.
Proposed Solution: Go on a date with Hudson. Simple as that.
Hudson eyed me, surprised by the sudden change of heart. “But what about work?”
“I’m researching better work-life balance. Among other things. Cursory exploration of the studies in this area have informed me that it’s beneficial for my in-office performance.”
His chuckle moved through my entire body, making me glow from the inside out. He liked it when I talked nerdy. “Whatever you say, boss.”
Boss. The way he said it—or maybe the way I heard it—came across like beautiful or lovely or woman I can’t wait to kiss again.
My walls shot up again. This would not be another Lloyd Exeter situation.
I would not let myself fall for a guy in the office.
I would not give someone else the power to destroy me.
Even if Hudson somehow didn’t ruin my career like Lloyd had, he was going to leave at the end of his contract.
No point in getting attached. Sex was fine.
Surface-level enjoyment was perfectly acceptable. Feelings were not.
“But let me reiterate…This is one date. We aren’t dating. The rest of our rules and guidelines are still in effect. I just want to make that clear.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched, causing his smile to falter for the briefest of moments. After all my study of him, I still didn’t know what that slight gesture meant. “Crystal.”