Page 32 of Shades of Grey & Gold

“Are you even listening to me?”

I stand up straight, my smile dropping, as I come back to the room.

Patrick is looking at me.

And I laugh.

Not a polite laugh. Not a contained, I’m-in-control-of-this-situation laugh. A real one, the kind that comes from somewhere unexpected, the kind that takes a second to understand. My free hand flies up to cover my mouth in shock.

“What—” Patrick starts. “Did you just laugh? What’s funny about what I just said?”

I press my lips together. Press them harder. It doesn’t work.

“Nothing,” I say, but it rides out of my mouth on another laugh that I can’t control. “Nothing about what you said is funny.” I take a breath and he frowns at me.

He shakes his head, opening his mouth to say something else but I don’t let him speak.

“No, you know what? Yes. What’s funny is the number of times that exact sentence left my mouth while we were together.” The air between us shifts. “‘Are you even listening to me.’ It’s funny hearing it from the other side.”

There’s a long stretch of silence. Something crosses his face. I think my words land harder than I intended them to.

“I didn’t say that to hurt you,” I tell him, slowly, and I mean it, which surprises me a little. Two months ago, I think I would have said it to hurt him. I would have curated it, sharpened it, said it at exactly the right moment to draw the most blood. I would have bathed in the reaction he’s having right now.

But no, I mean it the way you mean a simple fact.

“I said it because it’s true. I don’t think I want to hurt you, Patrick.” I pause. “I don’t think I care to hurt you, because I just don’t care about you.”

I’m not making it better. Not that I need to, but I see the hurt in his eyes get deeper. I move closer, keeping the couch between us, and walk toward the window because I need to be moving and I need to be looking at something that isn’t his expression.

I need to find Cal before nine o’clock. I want to walk into that office and lean on his desk the way he leans on mine and say,you said if I wanted to call it a date…I need to stop spending any more of my Monday morning on Patrick Ellison and give every available minute of it to whatever is happening with Cal because I’ve waited too damn long for whatever that is.

I turn around.

“Thank you for the coffee,” I say. “I’ll allow it.”

He blinks. “Allow what?”

“Your presence in the same room as me. At the office.” I hold his gaze. “I’ll allow it.”

He nods slowly and stutters, “O-okay.”

“Anything else?”

“So we’re—I mean, not okay, but—”

“We’re fine, Patrick. It’s whatever at this point.” I gesture toward myself, the pajamas, the general state of seven-thirty on a Monday morning. “But I need to get ready for work, so…”

He looks around the room one more time—at the invitation on the desk, at me, at the coffee cup in my hand—and whatever he’s looking for, he doesn’t find it or doesn’t say it.

“Right,” he says. “We got your RSVP. It said you were bringing a date? So, you’re seeing someone? Or should I save Becca a chair with her name on it?”

“Yep,” is all I give him instead of an answer. If he’s trying to be friendly, he fails.

He nods slowly. “I’ll—yeah. I’ll see you at the office.”

“See you at the office.”

Helets himself out. The door closes.