I laughed and settled into the couch next to him. “Fuck off.”
For a while, the two of us lost ourselves in the game we were playing. My friend had me laughing at the constant string of creative curse-words he unleashed every time he died in the game. That was the thing about August: he was great at helping distract from whatever was bothering me. He always had been. That more than made up for his abrasive personality. Or maybe the two characteristics went hand-in-hand.
“Daddy Cunningham is annoying you?” I asked after a while.
“He wants me to do something stupid at work,” he replied while mashing the keys on his controller. “Something I don’t want to do.”
“Then don’t do it.”
“I mean, yeah, that’s what I’m doing,” he said. “But now he’s on my ass about it.”
“Okay,” I said. “Going in the other direction: is what he’s asking really so bad?”
“Yes,” August insisted. “It’s a stupid request for a whole slew of reasons. Trust me: you don’t want me to do it.”
“What is it?” I asked. I died in the game, so I turned to face him. “Does he want you to fire me or something?”
August laughed. “Your job is safe, Mikey. I’d take a bullet before letting you get fired.”
“Thanks, man.”
“A bullet in the videogame, I mean,” he clarified. “Not a bullet in real life. Jesus, no. I’d hide behind you and hope the bullet bounces off your armada of muscles.”
“That sounds more like the August I know.”
“Seriously though. What’s up with you and Ginny?”
“There’s nothing up,” I replied. “She’s cool.”
“You two had major chemistry in the conference room today.” He reached into the chip bag. “Sexual tension thick enough to scoop with a tortilla chip.”
“She’s getting settled in. She’s not as nervous as she was last week.”
“Why can’t you admit that you like her?”
“Okay, fine. I kind of like her.”
“Thank you!” he cried out. “Was that so hard?”
“She’s really cool. I’m… intrigued by her,” I said. “She has a way about her that I’m drawn to. I can’t quite place it.”
“Yeah, she’s smoking hot,” he agreed.
It’s more than that, I thought to myself.I feel like I know her already.
“Speaking of hot,” August said, “I got stuck hosting that bullshit cocktail hour at my place tomorrow night. The one for the sad fire toddler thing.”
“The college fund for the children of firefighters who were wounded in the line of duty?” I said.
“Yeah! That one.”
I chuckled to myself. “Sad fire toddler thing.If Allison could hear the way you describe some of these groups, she’d pitch a fit.”
“I’m a perfect beacon of tact and sympathy when it matters,” he said defensively. “I just have a dark sense of humor. It’s only around people I like that I can be myself. Regardless, can you make an appearance? You’re good at those kinds of things, and it takes the pressure off me.”
“I’ve got nowhere else to be.”
I spent Tuesday at work holed away in my office doing paperwork for the next quarter. At lunch, Ginny invited herself into my office with her bag lunch.