“If it was you, Danny,” I said and left the sentence unfinished, leaving and shutting the door behind me. Nothing else needed to be said.12AmandaI woke up the next morning with my mouth feeling sticky and parched.
I spent the first few moments of being awake with my eyes closed, not wanting to move too much just in case a raging hangover was waiting in the corner of my head somewhere and would get shaken loose and attack if I moved too fast. After a few seconds of lying there without any pain taking over, I braved opening my eyes.
Everything still felt pretty good, so I went through the slow, painstaking process of climbing out of bed. By the time I got my feet on the floor, I was pretty confident I had managed to avoid feeling too horrific this morning. It felt like somewhat of a miracle considering how ridiculous things got the night before.
I’d needed that time off and a bit of fun, but maybe it had gone a little bit too far. Once out of bed, I cautiously opened the door to the bedroom and looked for Tom. When I saw he wasn’t asleep on the sofa bed, I checked the time. It was far later than I usually slept. By this time back home, a good portion of my work for the day was already done.
It was disorienting having slept so late, and at first, I didn’t know what exactly to do. The room was quiet, so it seemed Tom wasn’t there. I was considering calling him when I found a note telling me he had gone to meet with his brothers again.
In a way, that was a relief. I didn’t exactly feel presentable at the moment, and I really needed to focus on getting work done.
After a shower to cut through the fog and a quick breakfast, I sat down at the desk and settled into work. My productivity kicked in, and I was getting things done when my phone rang. Without looking at it, I scooped it up and answered.
“Hey, Amanda,” Tom said. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”
I was about to answer him when I realized he was teasing me for being asleep when he left.
“Very funny,” I said.
“What are you doing right now?” he asked.
“I’m working.”
“Would you want to meet my mom?”
My heart fluttered in my chest a little. “Sure. I’d like that.”
“Good. Go ahead and get ready.”
“Get ready?”
“Yeah. I’m going to come pick you up, and we are going to have dinner with her,” he said.
Meeting his mother shouldn’t seem like that big of a deal. It probably would have been stranger if he didn’t ask me to go with him to see her or bother to introduce me to her at any point while we were in Astoria.
And yet, there I was. A bundle of nerves.
My mind drifted back to the night before and the tripping incident. The memory of stumbling into his arms and the way Tom had looked at me gave me a little shiver and brought a whole new wave of butterflies. I needed to call Emily.
I dialed her number and put the phone on speaker as I looked at all my clothes.
“I was wondering if you were ever going to call me,” she said rather than greeting me. “What’s going on? Tell me everything.”
“Actually, I just have a question for you,” I said. “What should I wear to meet Tom’s mother?”
Emily gasped so loud it sounded like she might inhale her phone. “He asked you to meet his mother?”
“Not like that.”
“What do you mean not like that?” she asked. “Did he or did he not ask you to meet his mother?”
“He did,” I admitted. “We’re going to have dinner with her, but I’ve already met everybody else in his family. His brothers and his sister-in-law. Doesn’t it make sense that since we’re in town, I would meet his mother?”
“You know what I think,” she said. “I’ve said it before, and I’m going to say it again. The two of you need to stop hiding your feelings for one another. Yes, it makes sense for him to introduce you to his mother since you’re in town. Does that mean having dinner with her? That’s up for debate.”
“Debate with who?” I asked.
“I’ll find somebody if I need to,” she said, making me laugh.
“As compelling as your arguments are,” I said, “you’re wrong. There are no feelings for us to hide because there are no feelings. Tom is my boss. I am his secretary. That’s it. No feelings.”
“Liar,” she said without hesitation.
“How about you?” I asked, giving up on getting any recommendations from her in favor of changing the subject and choosing an outfit. “How about your love life? I haven’t heard any updates from you recently.”
And just like that, any need for her to talk about me and what feelings may or may not exist between me and my boss were gone.