“You didn’t. It’s a crappy situation, and my life has been a bit of a mess in the last year with the divorce and then losing my job, but I’m trying this new thing called positive attitude, so everything’s going to work out. Maybe.”
I try to keep a straight face, but then Ryan chuckles, and I can’t contain my grin.
He holds up his hands. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t laughing about your situation.”
I shrug. “It’s better than crying about it, trust me.”
“I bet it’s been a lot.”
“Definitely not one of my best life experiences.”
“What kind of job did you have?”
“Accounting.”
“A numbers girl, huh?”
“I guess.” I’m distracted for a moment by Ryan’s dimple. As far as I can tell, he’s only got one, but it’s so cute. Superhot actually.
“You didn’t like your job?”
I think about that for a moment, about the big firm where I was a little worker bee in a cubicle like hundreds and thousands of others.
“Not particularly. I mean, I didn’t hate it, and it paid the bills, which is always good, but I didn’t love it either.”
“Why didn’t you do anything else?” The curiosity is easy to hear in his voice.
“I’m not sure.” I pick at the energy ball on my plate, putting little morsels in my mouth to give myself more time to think. “I guess it was the adult thing to do?”
“You never had a dream job or anything like that?”
“Not really. I never particularly excelled in anything, but I was a decent student and good at math. I just didn’t like it enough to actually study it.”
“That makes sense.”
My fingers are suddenly the most fascinating thing, and I stare at them like it’s my new mission. “Is it weird to not have any special interests or dream jobs?”
Ryan’s quiet for a moment. “I don’t think so. I’m not sure what I would have done if I hadn’t gotten into swimming. And that’s something that happened by chance for me, and only because my first swim coach was a friend of the family and thought I was good in the water. Thankfully, it turned out I liked it, too.”
His words pull me out of my weird moment. Listening to him talk about his life and career is way more enticing than my embarrassment over the lack of talent or career in my life.
“That’s awesome. I’ve always loved swimming but never enough to even consider anything professional. I’ve tried a million different activities growing up from ballet to piano, and from soccer to softball. Nothing ever stuck for long. I was driving my mom nuts.”
“I think a lot of people are like this. We just usually see the ones on social media who follow their dreams and pursue their goals. It’s easy to think everyone feels like this, even if that’s not the case.”
“I never thought about it that way.”
“Not to mention, the ones who don’t have huge dreams or goals probably don’t broadcast it either.” He ends his sentence by reaching out and squeezing my knee.
The contact is familiar yet strange but definitely not unwelcome.
Calm down, hormones. It was an innocent knee squeeze.
I smile at what he said. “You’re right. It might be a bit odd to talk about not having any dreams or goals for the world to see.”
“Maybe a little. On the other hand, it would normalize it more, I guess.”
“True.”
Ryan picks up his water and drinks half of it. “So, are you planning on staying in New York, or are you considering moving out here?”