“Uh…should I go?” Jane says with a straight face. “Let you guys get a room or something?”
“We’re not like that,” I say.
“Yeah, we’re not.” Chris taps his chest. “She broke my poor little heart, so I’ve been trying to fill it with stuff.”
“Stuff like clubbing?” I ask.
“You don’t have the right to judge, babe.”
“Wait, you guys were a thing?” Jane stares between us.
“A tiny little thing that Gwen murdered mercilessly. Don’t be fooled by the innocent look. She breaks hearts.” He feigns a sad expression and waggles his brows at me. The dork.
“Yeah, I realized Chris is too good for me. But hey, I can matchmake you guys.”
“What the fuck? I’m wounded, Gwen. You think I’d need your help to hit it off with Jane?
“Maybe you need encouragement or something.”
“Thanks, guys, but…my tastes are different.”
We both turn toward her at the same time and she just drinks from her water nonchalantly.
“Do you veer in the other direction?” I ask, then blurt, “Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that. You don’t need to answer.”
“I’m not a lesbian. I just…like older men, I guess.”
“Oh,” both Chris and I exclaim at the same time.
Jane is actually my age, not mid-twenties like I thought. But she’s a genius—graduated college early and started working here not long before I came along.
But all those details fade into the background. Only one is important and sticks with me; the fact that she likes older men. I knew I found her interesting for a reason.
“I’m slightly wounded,” Chris breathes out. “Now I need to get older fast to get on your radar, ladies.”
“What do I have to do with it?” I whisper, taking a large bite of my burger.
“Come on, you have the hots for Nathaniel.”
I choke on my mouthful and Jane pushes the bottle of water into my hand. I nearly guzzle it all down, but it doesn’t remove the burn in my throat. I stare at Chris as if he’s grown two heads. “Why the hell do you think that?”
“You look at him as if he’s your custom-made god that you can’t survive without worshipping at his altar.”
“I…I do not.”
“You kind of do,” Jane confirms.
“You guys knew this all along?” I hang my head. “I can’t believe I’m that obvious. I wonder how many others found out.”
“They’re not as attuned to you as we are, so they probably have no clue,” Chris says.
“But I think Nathaniel is getting obvious,” Jane says.
“Yeah, he keeps calling her any chance he gets.” Chris steals more of my fries and I don’t even have the will to stop him. “He has better control of himself, though. So I’d say she’s the one giving it all away.”
“And not so subtly either. She’s all depressed because he’s not around this morning.”
“Right?”
“Hey! Can you stop talking about me as if I’m not here?”
“Only if you tell us when it started.” Chris narrows his eyes. “It was before you broke up with me, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Chris asks while Jane retrieves another bottle of water and drinks from it with a straw. She can act like a real princess sometimes.
“I don’t. It just happened. I’m not sure if it was all in one go or gradually, but it just did, and I actually realized it when I was fifteen. I also realized it was impossible to fight it. I tried at first. I really, really tried. He’s Dad’s best friend and partner and the same age as him, so it should be wrong. It felt wrong, and that’s why I did my best to forget about him. But I wasn’t able to.” And it kind of hurts sometimes. Like right now, when he isn’t around and I can’t call or text, because he’s in a meeting and I’m not supposed to be disturbing him.
“How about him?” Chris asks. “Does he share your feelings?”
“He…he’s just taking care of me until I’m twenty-one.”
Chris steals more of my fries. “So it’s unrequited?”
“I guess.” The crush and the stupid feelings are, anyway. The physical isn’t, because I can tell he wants me as much as I want him.
“That’s dependency,” Jane announces out of nowhere. “You like him, but he has some sort of guardianship over you. It’s not healthy.”