Page 5 of Battered & Broken
He looked up, surprised by the offer. Or maybe suspicious. The poor guy had barely escaped an aggressive boyfriend, and I was already moving in on him. "Why?"
Excellent question. "Because it's lunch time and we could both use some fresh air." I held up the new set of keys and put them on the counter beside him. "And because I'd rather not leave you here alone right now, if I can avoid it."
He looked at the keys, and then back at me. "You don't even know me. Why do you care?"
I didn’t have a real answer for that, so I gave him an honest one. "I just do."
“Fine.” Cedric uncrossed his arms and pushed off the fridge. "But I'm buying."
3
CEDRIC
The diner Ozzie picked was only three blocks over, so we walked. I’d been there a few years ago, but it wasn’t one of my usual spots. When we got there, he held the door for me without making it weird and waited for me to slide into the window booth before taking the seat across from me.
"So, tell me about yourself." He glanced at the menu for a moment then put it aside like he already knew what he wanted. "What do you do for a living?"
"Purchasing. For a medical supply distributor." I picked at the edge of my own menu with my eyes glued to the list of burgers. "Mostly I sit in front of two monitors and argue with vendors about payment terms and bulk discounts."
He raised an eyebrow with a hint of amusement in his eyes. "That sounds soul-crushing."
"It is." I almost smiled too, but the strips on my cheek pulled when I did, reminding me not to. "But I’ve got a ton of stock options, so I’m just waiting for them to go public. What about you? You said you’re in banking, right?"
Ozzie nodded and leaned back as the server put two glasses of water in front of us. I ordered a cheeseburger with fries, and Ozzie ordered a wedge salad. As boring as it was, I was curious to watch his technique for eating it.
When we were alone again, he finally answered me. "Yeah, basically. I’m in commercial lending, so I help small businesses get loans they probably shouldn't get." He winked when I met his stare. "I'm kidding. Well, mostly."
"I bet you are." It was nice to have a normal conversation with someone. He didn’t know my secrets or my past. Well, not all of them. Just the most recent incident…and he still wanted to hang out with me.
"What can I say? I'm good at my job." He chuckled and took a sip of his water. "It's not exciting, but I enjoy it.”
“You like spreadsheets and risk models?" I took a drink too. “What kind of monster are you?”
He shrugged and lowered his voice. “Solving problems is fun for me.”
I was just kidding, but his confession hit me in the gut. Was that what we were doing? Was I a problem he was trying to solve? If so, he was gonna be disappointed because I wasn’t the kind of problem that a pep talk could just fix.
He must have felt the air between us changing because he cleared his throat and changed the subject. "How long have you lived in the building?"
"Couple years now." I leaned back, deciding how much I wanted to reveal. Then I remembered that it didn’t matter what I said. He already knew one of the things I never would have admittedto him, so everything else was inconsequential. "I moved in right after college. Never got around to leaving.”
He ran his finger through the condensation on his glass. "You went to school here?"
"Yeah, I got a business degree and got a job at the company where I interned. That’s how I got into purchasing. It's not glamorous, but it pays the rent." I opened a straw wrapper and dropped it into my glass for something to do with my hands. "What about you? Did you grow up around here?"
"Nah, I’m from a small town about two hours north. My parents are still there." He smiled when he mentioned his family, which probably meant they were good to him. "I moved here for the job and stayed because I never had a reason to leave."
I grinned. "Same energy as me, basically."
"Basically."
The food came a few minutes later, and we stopped talking while we tucked in.
When we were about halfway through, Ozzie put his fork down and wiped the corners of his mouth. "Can I ask you something?"
I braced a little for what was coming. "Um, sure."
"That guy last night." He chose his words carefully, like he'd been rehearsing how to bring up the topic we’d both been avoiding. "Who was he? To you, I mean."
