Page 23 of Semantics

“Honestly, me too. I’m stuck on the new brand colors. I want to go with something in the orange family, but I’m not sold,” Sarai added.

“Want help?” Enya offered. “I could use a break from what I was working on before we left.”

“Sure.”

Stella liked where this was going. The three women all seemed to be heading out the door, which would leave her alone with Violet for some actual conversation, but then, she watched Violet down the rest of her martini.

“I just remembered.” Violet cleared her throat. “I need to get back to the office myself. There’s that contract that came in, and I need to review it. They wanted it first thing.”

“What new–” Arlowe started, but Violet glared at her, and she wasn’t hiding that glare from Stella, either. “Oh, right. That new contract.”

“God, be more obvious, Arlowe,” Sarai whispered.

“I thought we were having a drink,” Stella said to Violet.

“I know. Sorry. It just came in, and I should’ve canceled tonight, but I didn’t want to be rude.”

“Leaving right now isn’t rude?” she asked as Violet motioned for Enya to slide out of the booth to let her out.

“Sorry, Stella. You can send that agreement over, and I’ll take a look at it tomorrow.”

“Right,” she muttered and took a long pull from her beer.

“It was nice to see you again,” Enya said.

“You too.”

“Night, Stella,” Sarai added, patting her on the shoulder as she got out of the booth.

Then, Stella watched the four women walk around her and out the door of the bar. She stood, put the chair back, and sat down in the booth. Deciding that she didn’t want to drink alone, she called Amber to see if she was interested in joining her at Buddy’s.

“Hey, Stella.”

“Hey. I’m out right now, and I thought I’d call to see if you wanted to join me.”

“Oh,” Amber said.

“You can say no. I was supposed to meet some people here, but they canceled, so it’s just me and my beer.”

“I was going to text you, actually.”

“Yeah?”

“To ask that we meet to talk. But I guess I can just talk to you now, huh?”

“Sure. About what?”

“Stella, I don’t think we should see each other anymore. It’s why I haven’t called to set up another date. You haven’t, either, so maybe you’re on the same page.”

“Oh,” Stella spoke, taken aback. “You don’t want to go out again?”

“No. I’m sorry,” Amber replied.

“Okay. Well, can I ask why? You don’t have to tell me, but–”

“You got pretty drunk on our second date and just kept bringing up a woman named Violet. At first, you being tipsy was kind of cute, but I don’t know… It felt odd that on our second date, when I cooked for you and thought you might stay over at least to sleep, even if it was in my guest room, if you weren’t ready for anything else, you only talked about work and about this woman you knew in college.”

“I talked too much about Violet?”