“I’ve got some leftovers if you’re hungry,” Charlie offers. He genuinely means it too, by the step back toward his car he takes.
“No, I don’t mean eating lunch. I mean, I missed a date with my girlfriend for lunch.”
He makes a sympathetic sound and pats me on the back. “Tough break,” Charlie says, and I roll my eyes.
I feel like shit about it. This is the second time I’ve let her down, and lunch was my idea.
“I’m sure she’ll understand. She knows you’re working hard.”
I nod and he makes himself useful by leaving me alone. Don’t get me wrong, I like him a lot. He was a hard worker and helped me make this transition to boss slightly easier.
But I need a minute to figure out how I was going to make this up to her. I hate letting her down, but at the same time, she probably would understand that I was just working my ass off.
She knows how much this job meant to me, to my future. I want her to understand that I want to make this work for our future.
If I want to make a home with her, have kids with her and live a comfortable life, I have to work harder than ever right now to make that happen.
But… I don’t know if that’s what she wants either, and we should probably talk about that.
And tell her brother that we were together.
The amount of talking we need to do is giving me a headache, so I tuck my phone away and get back to work.
When I arrive at her place, she’s curled up on the couch, arms crossed, watching TV. She doesn’t get up to greet me and that sinking feeling in my stomach riots again.
“Viv?” I ask softly.
She doesn’t stir. She’s sleeping.
I let out a sigh and stalk over to her, sitting on the couch by her feet and pulling them into my lap. Fuck. I leave before she’s up, then come back and she’s asleep again.
I pinch her toes gently. “Baby, wake up.”
She blinks her eyes and turns to look at me, a slightly startled expression on her face. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her softly, then twist, leaning over her a little. “I’m so sorry I missed lunch.”
“Oh, it’s… it’s okay,” she tells me hesitantly. “I know you’re busy.”
“Yeah.” I sit back against the couch, letting out a bone-weary sigh. “It’s been chaotic.”
“Yeah.” We fall into silence, the only sound coming from the show she’s watching on TV and I can feel exhaustion overwhelm me.
“So, what happened today?” Her voice is soft and a little sad. Hell, I never want to make her sad.
“We had the insulation people there, now we can get the rest of the drywall up and start working on fixtures.” Like it’s on automatic, my brain starts filtering through the huge tasks coming up.
“So, you were too busy for lunch?”
“Honestly, I was working so much that I just forgot altogether.”
My eyes snap open at that and I turn to her, knowing immediately by the look on her face that that was the wrong thing to say. “Viv—”
“Maybe we shouldn’t try for midweek lunches.”
“No,” I say quickly, my brain sluggish to respond. “I like the idea of lunch with you in the middle of a workday.”
“Yeah,” she replies softly, but her eyes tell me she’s not sure what she wants to say—or, she knows and doesn’t want to say it.