Page 37 of Meet You Half Way
I sighed deeply and then set the folder down on my nightstand and climbed out of bed. I needed a proper shower and then I needed to get back into the office and give myself some real perspective. It was not just me my decision would impact and I had to keep that in mind.
On Wednesday I cracked. Rob and Nick were working on a building site somewhere deep inland this week and I hadn’t heard Rob come home the last two nights. He’d been gone again by the time I woke up in the morning and I was feeling desperate for interaction with another human being. I was an introvert with the best of them at heart but even I couldn’t go three full days without speaking to another human being.
I opened my thread with Jamie.
Message
(Today) at 10:05am
ME:
Fancy a coffee?
JAMIE:
I’m working a shift until 2pm
I could do an arvo coffee?
ME:
Can we meet at Cat’s Cradle again?
JAMIE:
I’ll be there at 2.30.
I placed a love heart over his response, trying to tamp down my excitement at seeing him again. I mean, it wasn’t about seeing Jamieper se, more just my desperation to speak to another human being. Sure, Jamie was nice and all, lovely even, but I needed to get out of my head for a bit and really, anyone would have done just as well.
This had always been one of my issues with trailing around after Rob and Nick half my life. Those two could make lifelong friends with random people at the drop of a hat. The entire town knew them both and I had always just been the aloof third wheel who followed them around. I didn’t have any of my own friends outside the two of them.
Which might have also helped to explain why I’d held so tightly to Nick’s friendship even when my heart was shattering with sadness.
I made it to the café first, just a short ten minute drive up the road at Ives Inlet. Rob and Nick had fixed my car for me over the weekend without it needing a costly fix and I was glad to have my wheels back.
The booth Jamie and I had sat in the first time we’d met here was free so I camped out there and ordered for us both. He arrived just at the same time as the coffees and I felt something squeeze inside me when he stepped into the room, like a breath of fresh air. His brown hair was damp and it looked like he’d just run his fingers through it. He was in those jeans that fit his frame to perfection and a grey t-shirt that squeezed all those lovely muscles.
“Mateo,” he smiled, sliding into the booth opposite me.
“Hello,” I smiled back. I let him take the moment as his gaze swept across my face and down to the lowriding top I was wearing. I had always loved attracting attention and his was always well worth the effort.
“It was a nice surprise to hear from you,” Jamie quipped, that lovely smile on his face as he took a sip of his coffee. “How has your week been?”
I shrugged, noting the way his gaze drifted to my shoulder and then down to my collarbone. “I think I’m struggling a little bit without Dante.”
“Any idea how much longer until he’s back on his feet?” he asked.
“I don’t even know. The doctor still hasn’t given him the all clear to return to work so now I’m worried that something is still wrong with him. Is it normal to take this long? It’s been weeks now.”
“It’s not outside the parameters of normal,” Jamie mulled. “Usually it’s around the six week mark before cardiac patients return to work. And often it’s not back to full time.”
I sighed. “That’s another thing I’m worried about.”
“What are you worried about, Mateo? You can talk to me.”
“I just … I feel like I’m getting too deeply involved at the firm. I mean, I’m basically running the place at the moment and I don’t mind doing that for Dante. I don’t want to sound ungrateful. But I …”
“It’s not what you want to be doing,” he guessed. I nodded, heart yammering in my throat at having said the words out loud. The words I’d been thinking about for the past few weeks, even more so the past few days. Since our weekend in Sydney.
