Uninvolved (7 page)

After he parked
,
neither of them moved to get out of his car
right away
.
Becka flipped down the passenger sun visor and reapplied her lip gloss
.
She took more time than normally needed to do this and exaggeratedly rubbed her lips together once they were coated in gloss
.
She then grinned in the mirror to double check that there wasn’t anything in her teeth.

"All set?"
Nate
asked
,
moving to unbuckle himself.

"Ready as I'll ever be
.
"

As they walked back towards the building
,
their hands brushed on accident a couple times
.
Each time Becka
’s
breath caught in excitement.

After he opened the
main
door for her
,
Nate
playfully punched her shoulder and said
,
"We should do this again sometime
,
kid" before heading towards his office
.

Becka
stood there for a moment before turning in the opposite direction towards her office
.
As she
slowly made her way back downstairs to her office
,
she replayed their lunch
outing
in her mind, focusing on moments like when he touched her knee or the look in his hazel eyes in the car.
When she got
back to her desk
,
she called Lilly
.

"Guess who I just went to lunch with?" she began and then proceeded to tell her about their excursion.

Nate
emailed her each day
,
and they would go back and forth
until
it was time for either lunch or it was the end of the day
,
only to pick back up
the next day
from where they
had
left off
.
She
was thrilled but annoyed that he hadn’t invited her out to lunch again
.
As they emailed on Friday afternoon
,
they
discussed any plans for the weekend
.
Becka
told him that since her roommate wasn’t working
,
she would probably be going out to a bar with him.

Him?
Your roommate is a dude?

Yeah, his name is Dave.

Interesting.

He's cool
.
We’ve
known each other forever.

He didn’t reply after that
.
Becka
pouted and shut down her computer.
For the first time ever
,
Becka was bummed about leaving work on a Friday. She had just grown to enjoy their emails so much.
Nate
was smart and snarky in a fun way
.
When
she talked to him over email
,
they joked
,
and she felt a feeling of excitement in their verbal sparring.
She
was used to flirting with guys she was attracted to,
but
this was different
.
They
talked about anything and
everything. It was fun that he
had the same weird sense of humor that she had.

When she got home
,
Dave was playing some single shooter Xbox game
.
He was so serious with his headset on
.
It always made her laugh when she heard him say stuff like
“
cover me
”
or
“
someone take out that
sniper.
”
Seeing her walk in
,
Dave
nodded in her direction
.
Grabbing
a bottle of flavored water
,
s
he came and sat down by him, kicking her shoes off then pushing
them under the coffee table.

Becka called L
ucy
but only got her voicemail
.
She left her a quick message about
Nate
asking he
r
to lunch and
all of the emails
back and forth
.
Afterward
,
Becka
picked up
her e
R
eader
from
the coffee table and
started reading
.
Getting up an hour or so later to grab some food
,
she motioned for Dave to pause his game.

"
What's up?
How's Lilly?"

"
I got her voicemail.
Hey
,
did you want to go out tonight or stay in?" she asked
,
walking towards the kitchen.

"I'm down with going out
,
" Dave said
.
"Let me just finish this up and we'll talk."

Becka
zapped a
microwave dinner and ate it at their breakfast bar
.
Dave came around and made himself a sandwich.

"Where did you want to go?"
Becka
asked.

With Dave
,
there were only three possible answers
.
There was a hole
-
in
-
the
-
wall bar around the corner from their place that they could stumble home from, an Irish pub where he could drink some
obscure dark beer on tap
, or
a beach
-
style bar that usually had a good live band and open pool tables.

"Let's go to O'Malley's
.
You get to buy tonight to pay me back for my beer you and your friends drank last weekend
.
" Dave pulled her ponytail.

"Whatever
,
"
Becka
grumbled
, readjusting her elastic
.

Beck
a took a shower before getting ready to go out
.
The
easiest way to get the bump from the rubber band out of he
r hair was to wash it. Waste of water, maybe,
but definitely
worth it. She and Dave ended up having
a great time
.
They
had their wingman/woman relationship down to a science
.
He would
act like
her boyfriend whenever someone she wasn’t interested in approached
.
Although
she
rarely had to pretend to be his girlfriend
because
Dave was almost always interested
.
Otherwise
,
Becka
would point out
the easy targets for Dave
.
She
needed less help being hit on
herself
.

The one thing that always made Becka nervous about this bar was the band that played. Their music was great
:
fun
,
loud Irish
drinking songs. What made her
paranoid was the lead singer would stop mid
-
song and randomly point to someone in the crowd. Whoever got pointed
at
was expected to slam whatever they were drinking. She stuck to cocktails in the smaller glasses just to be safe. It was Dave, not Becka
,
that had to slam a drink that night. An almost
-
full Guinness that he threw down like a pro. Someone at a table next to them asked if he was Irish
,
he drank so well.
He also caught the attention of
the red
-
headed bar tender he had been lusting after for months
and scored her number
.

"Don’t screw her over
.
I like that place and would like to keep going there."
Becka
said once their cab dropped them off at home.

"My interest in her is purely scientific
,
" Dave mumbled drunkenly.

"Huh?"
Becka
turned back him.

"Gotta find out if the carpet matches the drapes
.
"
H
e licked his
lips
suggestively.

"God, I am so sorry I asked
.
Night
,
Dave
.
I'm going to go barf now
.
"
Becka
continued on to her room.

Becka
was pretty hung over the next day, but Dave seemed to be in w
orse shape
.
Maybe slamming that drink had been his downfall.
After taking some A
dvil and drinki
ng a couple bottles of water
,
Becka
felt better
.
Dave
stumbled out of his room
at
mid
-
day and headed straight to the back porch for a smoke
.
She
followed him.

"When do you want to go pick up your car?" She asked since they had left it at the bar the night before.

"
Not in any hurry
,
" he said
,
shading his eyes from the sun
.
“
I don’t work tonight
.
Did you want to go out again?"

"I better not
.
I'm feeling pretty poor and don’t get paid again
until
n
ext week
.
Besides
,
I do not need to be drinking
again
after last night."
Becka
admitted.

"Did you get sick
last night?"

"Nope
.
I thought I was in trouble for a sec there when I laid down
,
and my room started spinning
.
I had to
fall a
sleep
with one foot on the ground
,
" Becka
admitted
,
laughing.

"
Dork!
I'm cool with staying in
.
I might play some COD
if that’s cool with you."

"Sure, as long as you have your headset on
.
I'll probably just re
ad my book and go to bed early
,
"
Becka
replied.

Becka
ran a hot bath and took her e
R
eader in with her to read
.
She
often read while taking a bath
,
and one of her bigges
t fears in life was the possibility
she could die by
electrocution if she dropped her e
R
eader
in the tub, or
,
worse
,
that she might
break it
.
She
hadn’t ever tak
en the time to actually Google
if death by e
R
eader tub submersion was possible
.
She
was just extra car
eful with it while it the tub
instead
.

Becka
took a lot of baths in general
.
She
just
loved to soak
.
Plus
,
she hated shaving
her legs
standing up
,
so she would shave while sitting on the rim of the tub once her soak was complete
.
She was walking into her bedroom wrapped in a towel when she heard her phone buzzing
.
She
didn’t recognize the number but answered anyway.