Chapter 33 - Normal Again #2
We were alone.
Actually alone.
For the first time since yesterday.
All day there had been someone else around. Maya. Claire. Ben. Nicole. Daniel.
Now there was just Adrian.
And me.
In his car.
Neither of us said anything.
I looked out the window.
Adrian drove.
This was ridiculous.
Yesterday I'd cried in front of this man.
He'd held me.
Today I apparently couldn't ask him where we were going.
I lasted four minutes.
"Where are we eating?"
"Japanese."
"Oh."
Silence again.
Excellent conversation.
I looked out the window.
A few seconds later, Adrian said, "Have you had Japanese before?"
I turned toward him.
"Yes."
"Okay."
And that was apparently his contribution.
I almost laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because this was terrible.
Twenty minutes later, we arrived at a Japanese restaurant considerably nicer than anywhere I would've chosen for a Wednesday-night dinner.
Inside, everything was dark wood, warm light, stone, and quiet music.
We were shown to a table.
Adrian sat across from me.
I opened my menu.
He opened his.
And for a while, we both became extremely interested in Japanese food.
I read the same section three times.
Eventually, I looked over the top of my menu.
Adrian was still reading his.
"You already know what you're ordering, don't you?"
His eyes lifted.
"Yes."
"Then why are you still looking at the menu?"
A pause.
"Why are you?"
I lowered mine slightly.
Fair.
He lowered his too.
For one second, we looked at each other.
Then both of us looked away.
Oh, for God's sake.
The server arrived before either of us had to acknowledge how stupid we were being.
We ordered.
The server left.
Silence.
I reached for my water.
Adrian reached for his at exactly the same time.
We both stopped.
I stared at him.
"This is getting weird."
"Yes."
I laughed.
He almost did.
And somehow that helped.
A little.
"So," I said.
"So."
"Good dinner."
"We haven't eaten yet."
"I'm reviewing the conversation."
His mouth moved.
There.
Better.
The first few dishes arrived.
For several minutes, eating gave us something to do.
Then Adrian pushed a small plate toward me.
"Try this."
I looked at it.
"What is it?"
"Try it."
"That wasn't an answer."
"You'll like it."
"You don't know that."
"I do."
I looked at him.
Then at the food.
Then back at him.
"You've gotten bossy again very quickly."
"I never stopped."
"True."
I tried it.
He watched me.
I chewed.
It was good.
I reached for my water.
"Well?"
"It was okay."
"You liked it."
"It was okay."
"You're taking another one."
My hand stopped halfway to the plate.
I looked down.
Unfortunately, he had evidence.
I took it anyway.
"Don't monitor my food."
"You're eating mine."
"You gave it to me."
"One."
"You failed to specify a limit."
Adrian stared at me.
I took a bite.
"I regret asking you to stay."
I looked at him.
"No, you don't."
The answer didn't come immediately.
His eyes stayed on mine.
Then, quietly-
"No, I don't."
And there it was.
Yesterday.
Not discussed.
Not named.
Just suddenly sitting between us again.
I looked down.
Adrian did too.
For a few seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then I pushed the plate back toward him.
"You can have the rest."
"You already ate half of it."
"I had two."
"There were four."
I stared at the plate.
"That is half."
"Yes."
"Why are you counting?"
"Because you ate half my food."
And just like that, I laughed.
Actually laughed.
Adrian looked at me, and this time the smile came before he could stop it.
The awkwardness didn't disappear.
Not completely.
It came back in little places.
Whenever our eyes stayed together a second too long.
Whenever the conversation stopped.
Whenever one of us seemed about to say something and decided not to.
But gradually, there were other things too.
Work.
The food.
An argument about whether something I ordered was better than something he ordered.
Adrian disagreeing because apparently being wrong was one of his hobbies.
Me stealing another piece from his plate purely because it annoyed him.
Nothing important.
Nothing we needed to define.
And maybe that was why, sometime near the end of dinner, I finally stopped thinking about what I was supposed to do next.
There was no next step.
There was no deadline either.
No number sitting in the back of my mind.
No last coffee.
No last argument.
No last dinner.
I hadn't realized how exhausting it had been to attach an expiration date to every moment with him until there wasn't one anymore.
I looked across the table.
Adrian was looking at me.
Neither of us looked away immediately.
Not comfortable.
Not yet.
But maybe we didn't have to be.
We had time.
Thursday morning, Adrian and I walked into Vale Architecture together.
I was holding my coffee.
Of course I was.
I had been promised coffee.
And apparently Adrian Vale understood the seriousness of that promise because he'd shown up with it when he picked me up that morning.
Everyone looked at us.
Maya.
Ben.
Nicole.
Daniel.
But this time, nobody went completely silent.
Nobody stared like Adrian and I had walked into the office holding a newborn baby.
They looked.
Registered the fact that we had arrived together.
Registered the coffee in my hand.
And then-
Went back to work.
Huh.
Apparently everyone had accepted this now.
I wasn't entirely sure when Adrian Vale picking Angelica Stone up for work and bringing her coffee had become something people could simply accept before nine in the morning.
But apparently it had.
And over the next two days, something else happened.
Everything became normal again.
I worked.
I complained.
Ben annoyed me.
Nicole asked questions that were none of her business.
Maya continued to know things she had absolutely no reason to know.
And Adrian and I argued.
A lot.
By Thursday afternoon, we were standing over a set of drawings disagreeing about a circulation problem.
"No."
"You didn't even think about it."
"I thought about it."
"For two seconds."
"It only required two."
I stared at him.
He looked completely serious.
"You know I said that first, right?"
"No."
"Yes, I did."
"I don't remember that."
"You stole my line and now you're denying the crime?"
"It's not a particularly original line."
I gasped.
From somewhere behind me, Ben said,
"Oh, thank God."
I turned.
He was sitting at his desk, looking genuinely relieved.
"What?"
"You two are fighting properly again."
"We've been fighting."
"Not like this."
Maya looked over from her desk.
"Nature is healing."
I looked at Adrian.
He looked at me.
"Apparently."
Maya nodded solemnly.
"Beautiful."
"Go back to work."
She did.
Still smiling.
I looked around the office.
People were working.
Phones were ringing.
Someone was printing something.
Ben and Daniel were arguing about something completely unrelated to me.
Nicole was drinking coffee.
Claire walked past carrying a stack of drawings.
Adrian was standing beside me being irritating.
Normal.
I liked normal.
And apparently everybody else did too.
They looked relieved.
Maybe we all were.
The weekend was even less interesting.
I did absolutely nothing.
And it was wonderful.
For the first time in what felt like forever, I didn't have plans.
No Solara.
No grocery shopping with Adrian Vale and his children.
No broken Candy.
No mysterious Sunday errands.
No resignation countdown.
No emotional disasters in parking garages.
Just me.
My apartment.
My sofa.
And the television.
I spent most of Saturday stretched across the couch watching TV and accomplishing absolutely nothing.
At some point, I realized I'd been lying in almost the exact same position for three hours.
I considered moving.
Then decided against it.
Sunday wasn't much more productive.
And somewhere between another episode of a show I wasn't even particularly invested in and deciding that getting up for snacks counted as physical activity, I remembered something.
I liked this.
My normal, boring life.
I'd missed it.
Not because the last few weeks had been bad.
Some of them had been.
Some of them had been very, very good.
But everything had felt enormous.
Every coffee meant something.
Every touch meant something.
Every dinner meant something.
Every day had a number attached to it.
Now-
Nothing was happening.
And nothing needed to.
I stretched farther across the sofa and pulled the blanket over my legs.
My phone was somewhere on the coffee table.
Candy was downstairs.
Work would still be there Monday.
So would my coworkers.
So would Adrian.
I smiled.
Then turned my attention back to the television.
Apparently, boring was underrated.