Not My Valentine's Date

There was nothing to hurry Nicholas along as he filed away the last of his documents for the day and began on the labors of returning home. He sighed, leaning back in his office chair, impeded for the knowledge that there were yet plans that wouldn't be going his way today, all that was left was to go home and try to sleep despite it all. Around him, everyone else had gone home hours ago while he buried himself in paperwork for its own sake, dotting the I and crossing the T in a plodding and humorless fashion so that it would take just that little bit longer and be just that much more correct.

It was quiet, without the dull sound of workers going to and fro. One didn't really notice it in the moment, but it was deafening when alone enough to notice its absence. The air rang with the faint buzz of electricity, of computers put to sleep for the night, punctuated by the printer in the corner asserting itself with some preparatory cycle. This would have been pleasant, he thought as he forced himself out of his chair and into his coat, but for the things he was forcing to the back of his mind. On his desk, the flowers... it would be too much to see them in the trash bin on Wednesday morning before another full day of work when he would already have his hands full not thinking about things.

He took them with him, the half-dozen roses along with the small box from the chocolatier. He'd have to find someone to take them off his hands, maybe leave it at the front desk for whoever cared to have their pick. Tomorrow was half-price-heart-shaped-chocolate-box day anyway. It felt like too much of a waste to throw away fifty dollars like that.

As he left the elevator on the ground floor, the silence was broken by the clack of keys; someone else was burning the same midnight oil as him it seemed. Well, another reason to distract himself was another reason, he pressed back into the building and came to one of the stupid, new, open-floor-plan spaces, where someone sat bathed in the glow of their laptop from within a self-made cubicle of propped-up binders.

She didn't seem to notice Nicholas come closer and take a nearby seat and that was alright by him. He was certain he would spook her either way, no matter whether he announced himself or she turned to see him. Not his type anyway, he tried and failed not to think.

Not that she wasn't cute enough; he knew that things as they were had primed him for these kinds of intrusive thoughts. Fighting it would only make them assert themselves that much harder. Not at all tall, blonde, or stacked, (he was very aware of how pedestrian his tastes were). She wore her dark hair in a plain, messy bob, long bangs held out of her face by a paper clip of all things, the light of her laptop reflected in under-rim glasses and allowing only brief glances at weary eyes with dark bags. She'd relieved the top button of her dress shirt for comfort since nobody was supposed to be here to see her, and kept herself warm in an earthy cardigan. Then blue jeans and sneakers that squeaked a touch as she idly tapped her left foot. Slender, sharp chin, freckles; no, not really his type at all...

Nicholas didn't work on this floor, of course, but he thought he got around enough that he should know who this was. Not a clue. She wouldn't be all that noticeable to him on a normal day so it made sense. Ah, that mystery would be solved very soon anyway, as she brought her arms above her head to stretch and nearly fell backwards out of her chair when she caught sight of his 'menacing shadow' in the shine off her glasses.

"Ah, fuck!" he cried, lunging to try and catch her before she kicked and righted herself in her chair, she took a pen from the desk in a white-knuckled grip and he slowly backed away. "Sorry, are you alright?"

The woman put her hand to her modest breast to calm her heart and slowly, one finger at a time, released her erstwhile weapon. "Mister Pellsson, I thought I was alone... J-just shocked I think..."

Fuck, she knew him... And the floor plan meant there wasn't even a name plaque to look for so he wouldn't seem like an ass...

"No, it's my fault," he said. "Sorry, I was in my own little world, not even sure why I was in here in the first place." He chuckled to try and dissipate the uncomfortable air between the two of them; it worked well enough, he thought. "You sure are here late, anything I can help with?"

She blinked away tiredness and rubbed her eyes to relieve some of the stress built up from looking at a screen for hours on end. But she shook her head. "Only finishing up some of these expense reports from the guys we sent to the conference last week. They all filed in today and I can't deal with leaving an inbox filled."

"Ah," he said, nodding, feeling a little guilty for the half-filled box he'd left behind despite his best efforts to carry on all night.

"And... I mean, shouldn't you be going soon, too?" she asked.

"Not as such. Really, I can run a copier just fine; do those reports have to go to HR?"

She leaned in conspiratorily, cupped her hand to her mouth and said, "Don't you think you should be getting along for your date?" She pointed at the flowers and chocolate which had morphed at some point in his mind to meaningless objects. Then, a cautiously shy smile lit on her face. "Don't worry, nobody's waiting on me."

"Me neither." Nicholas set the things aside on the unclaimed desk space next to him. "Started the day with a girlfriend."

"I see... Sucks."

"You can say that again."

"That again," she said, turning to hide her grin, and the two shared a sober moment of humor. "Suppose you could walk me out to my car when I'm done, then?"

He leaned back in his chair thankful to have a reason to prolong being away from home a little longer. There were picture frames to change after all that he didn't feel quite like taking care of that very day. "So," he said, "I'm going to sound like an ass, here, in a second, so forgive me. What's your name?"

She stifled a laugh and ended up with a little snort instead. "Theresa. That's my fault, I'm one of the ones who makes name badges, so don't worry about it. Nobody can be expected to know everybody else."

"Except you?"

A subtle shrug. "I'm just good with names and faces. It's nothing special."

"I'll say it is! I barely have time to put one to the other before some of our new guys up and quit on us," he said. Was that a touch of blush he caught in the glow of her screen on her cheek? "Anyway, you sure seem to have eked out your own little space down here. Can't stand the open floor plan either, can you?"

Theresa spun in her chair, nearly knocking down her privacy binder wall and slapped her hands down on her knees. "Don't get me started on this! Someone upstairs found a magazine from the nineties and thought it was just the best idea ever, took away our cozy cubicles and made us all breathe the same air as everyone else!" Then, suddenly self-conscious again, she slowly turned back to her work.

"Right? It's one thing to be in your own box all day; it's another thing entirely to never once in your day be out of someone's sight. The office they've put me in has a glass wall looking out into the same kind of thing, but at least nobody's walking behind me and looking at my screen while I'm working. That sort of thing will drive a man mad sooner rather than later."

"And it isn't even more productive," she quietly agreed. "Less, even, since we had to move all of our things to a satellite office for months while they made the transition, then move everything back over here, but they've taken away the desktop computers! This laptop isn't even the company's, the one they wanted me to use couldn't smoothly run spreadsheets of all things."

"And let me guess, they almost wouldn't let you buy your own equipment and run company files on it?"

She sighed and nearly collapsed into a heap over the laptop in question. "I had to wheedle them for a month before I.T. would give it the go-ahead, and even then I had to install a kill switch so they can wipe it remotely. Their luck I had an old PC that I could sacrifice to the cause."

"Yeah, I had to do some of the purchasing on that, sorry." Nicholas rested his head on his crossed arms over the shared desk. "You would be surprised just how much they are willing to spend on some things, and leave peanuts for necessary equipment. Those desktops weren't even sold or anything, they're either in storage or donated to the schools nearby."

"Those poor kids."

Again, they shared a silent moment of humor.

She went back to her documentation and spent a good, long while on it before social convention demanded that one of them speak. "Do you, um, want to talk about it? I mean, uh, what happened with her."

"Came out of nowhere... No, no it didn't, but I'm only seeing the cracks now, looking back on things. All I got was a text around lunchtime, and then she blocked my number when I responded... then I got a text from her friend to stop trying to reach her." Fuck... not here; if he could keep it together while he was alone earlier, he damn well wasn't going to let himself break down now... "Pretty sure she's been cheating for a while, didn't want to believe it."

"What a cunt."

He sighed. "Better to find out about it now, I suppose."

"Not hard to find someone better than a cheater... especially one who'll leave you high today of all days. Fish, sea, you know..." In her own way, he could see she was being supportive.

"I'm sure. But for now, that's a couple hundred down the drain for reservations and all... then the other things..."

"They made you pay just for the reservation?"

"Bribed the concierge for special treatment."

"Concierge? Fancy."

"Bosquet Glacee. I wanted the nice table facing the pond, and for Valentine's I really should have reserved it last year. A few months in advance was a little too much to swing for free."

"Heh heh, bet they'll be confused when nobody shows up. It'd almost be worth the money just to see their snooty faces."

"Want to go?"

Where the hell had that come from?

"What?" Theresa turned her head with a face like she must have heard that wrong.

Whatever, full steam ahead.

"You don't have plans with someone else, do you? The table's already paid for, they couldn't possibly care who's coming with me."

Her hand went to the paperclip holding her bangs up. "No, I mean, I'm not supposed to be anywhere... Are you sure? I don't really have a dress for something like that."

"With a two-hundred dollar bribe, there better damn well not be a dress code," he said. "I'm not trying to rebound or anything, don't get me wrong. We can just go as friends."

"Are we friends?"

"Ouch." He exaggerated holding a broken heart.

"I didn't mean it that way."

"Then, like to become friends, over dinner?"

She said quietly, as if someone could hear despite how secluded they were in the dark office, "You hardly know me..."

"Rather the point, don't you think? Should I not want to? Don't make me beg." He put on his best puppy-dog eyes, to no audience as she'd turned ruddy cheeks back toward her monitor. "I guess it is a little weird to go on someone else's date, huh? Forget I brought it up."

Theresa yawned and raised her arms overhead to work some strain out of her shoulders. "Okay, but I can't promise I won't get the chicken fingers instead of escargot."

--

They went in his car.

There were no chicken fingers to be found on the menu, Nicholas did in fact check with the maitre'd to Theresa's barely-disguised combination of mortification and honest hope.

"The steak, then," she said, "medium-well."

"Same, rare," Nicholas said, holding back giggles until after the man had gotten out of earshot to relay their orders to the kitchen. "Did you see his face!? Might as well have ordered it boiled in ketchup, haha!"

Theresa had made a concession to 'snooty fashion' by removing the paperclip that had been keeping her bangs from hanging halfway in front of her eyes, with the unfortunate loss of some of her expression. Blush ran from one cheek to the other over her freckled nose and she'd pursed her lips in a childish pout. "It's not that weird, people go all sorts of places with their kids, so why not have chicken?"

"They did, in fact, have chicken," Nicholas said.

"No, they have squab. If I wanted to eat pigeon I would have gone camping with my dad."

There were couples all around, filling the room with the dull roar of a few dozen quiet conversations politely fighting to be heard over each other despite the best efforts of the establishment to provide an intimate atmosphere with concealed noise-abatement, then the clinking of glasses. Theresa was sticking out, as she'd feared, and Nicholas was considering his complicity in her discomfort. Though the staff hadn't turned them away, there had been a quickly-resolved argument between him and the concierge, who had the makings of precisely the anal-retentive type who would make street clothes an issue. And then there was the fact that she was shivering just a little despite her cardigan, feeling the chill rising off the lake through the glass separating them from the outside.

"Do you want my coat?" he asked.

She said, shaking her head, "I'll be fine."

Regardless, he came around behind her and draped his blazer over her thin shoulders. "If you're going to be stubborn, you might as well also be warm."

Thankfully, rather than becoming offended, she pulled it into place and rested her elbows on the table to a passing waitress' obvious distaste.

"Well," she said, head dipped so that her blunt bangs cut off all sight of her bright grey eyes, "there is a silver lining, that she broke up with you today, before all this."

Ow. "And what's that?"

"At least you know she wasn't a gold-digger... I hear that's something to watch out for these days... sorry."

"You sure it doesn't just mean she couldn't take looking at my ugly mug anymore? Even gold-diggers have limits." He laughed in defiance to how firmly not-funny it was.

Theresa brought her gaze up and met his eyes from across the table, embarrassment temporarily banished and replaced with sternness. "Aren't you better than fishing for compliments?"

"Am I? Maybe I could use one right now."

Her stern expression faltered and she cast her gaze off across the shimmering surface of the lake. "You're handsome? Your name comes up a lot with the secretaries."

"Oh..." Great, now he was embarrassed. Time for another topic. "Your father eats pigeons?"

Her laugh was a single, sharp puff heard clearly above all the din for being so quiet. "My dad would eat anything and spit out the birdshot later. You should have seen it when I told him I was a vegetarian in middle school."

"But not anymore?"

Theresa wavered. "I just hated the idea of eating fish, at all. when I found out what fish sticks were made of, I didn't talk to the man for a week. They're just so wiggly and stupid, and I know that they're not really slimy, but when you've just taken them out of pond water, that's just as bad. Still..."

"I was trying to figure the accent," Nicholas said. "You're from somewhere with good hunting, then?"

"West coast," she said with a faraway look.

"Pretty far, why did you choose to come all the way over, then? Not to be rude, but you could do your job just about anywhere."

She shrugged, taking up her water glass and twirling the ice within before a sip. "Because it's so far," she said eventually. "I think I must have lived my whole life within fifty miles of my doorstep, except for camping and once you've seen one forest, you've seen them all."

"They're apparently good for hiding trees."

That earned him a little smile. Good, things were getting a little too introspective.

"I don't mean to pry," he said.

"There's nothing chasing me, if that's what you're worried about." She sighed. "Mom and dad don't like that I'm so far away, and it was scary for a while being somewhere that I didn't know anyone. But you know how that is, you end up knowing people no matter where you go if you stay a while. I do still call every week, mom likes to know that I haven't 'vanished in the night'. Some day she'll have to come to grips with the fact that I'm a grown woman."

"We're all always going to be our parents' children," he said for something to say.

The two awkwardly fumbled with silverware as they searched for something to talk about that the other would care about without bringing forbidden topics to bear.

Theresa broke first, looking over the lake but still meeting his eyes in the reflection in the glass. "Was she good for you, I mean, before today?"

"That's hard to say."

"I mean," she continued pressing, "you obviously cared for her... Nick, I'm sorry."

He blinked purposefully and steeled himself so nothing would well up. "It doesn't have anything to do with you, Theresa. There's nothing to be sorry for."

Quietly, slowly, she pulled her hand from the inside pocket of his blazer and set the little velvet box he'd kept there in the middle of the table. "No, really, I'm sorry." She still couldn't meet his eyes, but was she tearing up herself in the candle-lit reflection? "I should have taken my own coat with me... I knew it was going to be this chilly at night, but I thought I would be home by now..."

Nicholas took a few measured breaths, leaving the box where it was. He hadn't dared to touch it during the day, the weight against his hip like a shackle. He knew that brushing his fingers against it would be too much to bear, would bring too much to the surface. In it there was some small hope that things weren't truly over.

"Suppose I'll have to get a refund," he said, forcing a laugh.

Theresa leaned over-top the table and took his hand in hers. She had such cold, thin fingers, but an ember of comforting warmth inside. In her eyes, determination. "It'll be okay in the end, I think," she said.

He felt his face scrunch into an ugly mess as he narrowly avoided crying again, but the mask was broken either way. "I was going to ask her after dessert, on a walk around the lake," he was able to squeak. He had to look like a loser, a grown man breaking down in public, his eyes closed so tightly against the possibility of tears that he didn't even notice as Theresa stood and came around the table, hugged his head against her warm, soft belly.

It took a minute to calm down, she took her seat again and said nothing about it.

"Can I see it?" she asked.

He nodded.

She opened the case carefully, might as well have been wearing linen gloves for all the care she took out the thin, silver ring with. "Topaz?"

"It would have gone with her eyes."

Theresa stifled a little laugh, setting it back in its case when she had gotten a good look. "Inset stone, classy."

"I didn't like the idea of her catching the stone on anything. It always seemed off to me that women just accepted the possibility of their jewelry snagging their clothing or anything else. There was one time, actually, that she was wearing these weird, thorny-looking earrings and didn't want to take them off before pulling off her shirt." Nicholas caught himself smiling slightly. "It took half an hour to get her out of a cocoon of shirt because of the way it bunched up in that spot. And then the whole evening was just ruined because it took another half hour again for her to work the barbs out of the cloth. She thought there would be wrinkles if she just left it like that until the morning."

"Oh, I think I might know who you're talking about now."

"How?"

"Well..." Theresa scratched her cheek. "She's visited you at work before, and we talk. Tall, blonde, stacked, doesn't wear much?"

He just nodded. Having one's type thrown in their face really wasn't pleasant, it turned out.