JAMIE

It had sounded like a great idea.
A week-long trip with Alex O Keefe, one of the hottest guys in my workplace should have been a dream vacation but it’s not. Okay, so Alex is a bit older than me, twenty-seven to be exact, and so he has this charm which women fall for, and so it might have something to do with the fact that he’s moderately rich—lives in a loft in Manhattan and owns a nice car and what must be a closet full of designer suits—which at twenty-seven is nothing short of a miracle. The first time I joined the firm as a temp, I thought it would be something exciting, that I would actually get to be with lawyers and that alone would benefit me somehow, but all I’ve been doing so far is run errands for people who are mean to me. Which is fine, I get it, I’m twenty and on a break from college because of money problems, so I’m actually worth nothing but if I wanted to excel at procuring coffee for mean people, I would have applied for a job at Starbucks. The pay is only just above what they pay at coffee houses anyway, so I don’t know why I’m still with the law firm.
“Jamie,” Alex says as he pushes me into the wall and starts kissing me. We’re barely ten feet away from the room but he feels the need to do this here. I don’t know what comes over him sometimes, I just don’t get him. This is technically our third date. When Alex invited me over to Vegas for a whole week, I was excited. Our friends were coming over too and it was supposed to be a good thing, fun. Well, I had never really gone anywhere outside of Springvale, Indiana so Vegas was a big deal for me. Apparently the company where Alex and I work, can afford sending their employees on expensive retreats, so long as they’re not interns like me, and he chose to take me along, which I suppose was great on its own but now that I think about it, I may have accepted the invitation too soon. He starts fumbling with my dress and I try to stop him because this really isn’t what I want, but he doesn’t listen. “What’s the matter, babe?” he says. “Don’t you want me?”
The first time someone told me about Alex, they said he was a womanizer. But I didn’t see it. He was pretty much the only guy at work who wasn’t mean to me. So I had to give him the benefit of doubt, I had to believe that he was a good person and not an adulterer or whatever the women in the lunchroom thought he was.
I decided to go with my own instincts.
So far, that wasn’t working out so great.
“Can we please go inside?” I say.
“Isn’t this fun, baby?”
“Alex,” this time I’m even more frustrated and just want him to stop.
“What is the matter with you?” Alex snaps.
“Alex—”
“We are here on this awesome retreat,” he says. “And you keep trying to ruin it! Why did you even come if you were going to act like you’re some kind of virgin, Jamie?”
I don’t quite know what to say to that so I have no choice but to wait for him to finish being angry at me.
“God,” Alex says and storms off.
Almost immediately, I start to cry.
I can’t help it.
The tears are just falling from my eyes without my permission.
I try to wipe them off but before I do I feel someone’s presence around me.
“Here,” he’s holding a bunch of folded tissues in his hand that look like they’ve been in his pockets for ages and they’re all crumpled up.
I know that face.
He has green eyes and long dark brown hair and it’s a handsome face if it wasn’t for the dark circles and bloodshot eyes that ruin the effect. He’s the same guy who crashed into me last night, when Alex and I were on our way to the party that one of his friends was throwing. Let’s not even get into how awful that was—an entire night of me standing aside like an idiot, because Alex was too busy getting himself drunk and he ignored me perfectly until it was time to go back. And then he was the fun Alex again. He was too drunk and passed out before I could be pressured into making out with him so that was a good thing I suppose, I didn’t have to face the dilemma of not being ready to ‘put out.’ But that wasn’t going to last forever. Naturally, ever since we woke up, Alex has been at it again.
“Thank you,” I say, taking the offered tissues.
“I’m Harry,” he says, extending a hand.
I take it. “Jamie.”
“Hello Jamie,” he says.
He looks more sober than he did last night.
Last night he looked like a total mess; now he looks almost happy.
Almost.
“We keep running into each other,” Harry says. “Thought we should at least get to learn each other’s names.”
“True,” I say. “And I’m sorry you had to witness this.”
“I’m sorry you had to witness that,” he says. “Whatever I was last night, had to have been a lot worse than you crying in a hotel hallway.”
I say nothing.
I don’t know what to say.
“I was trying to be funny,” Harry explains. “Guess I’m terrible at it.”
“Yeah well,” I say. “Don’t quit your day job just yet.”
“Duly noted,” he says and there’s a hint of a smile on his face.
“Well,” he says. “I would love to stay and chat, but I kind of promised someone I’d be at the bar in the next five minutes.”
“Of course,” I say. “I’ll just go to my room and see if they have something with Ryan Reynolds on pay-per-view.”
“You do that,” he says and casually smoothes a lock of my hair, tucks it behind my ear. The movement is so natural and unassuming I can’t think of a reason to stop him. “Try not to cry too much, Jamie.”
Of course that just makes me want to cry again but I don’t. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure,” he says.
I watch him leave.
And then, I head toward my room.

For some reason, this silly little encounter has put me in a good mood despite Alex’s behavior. And when I do find a movie on pay-per-view I know that I’m having more fun than I would have being anywhere with Alex.

Notes