Coming Back Home

Chapter 21

Over the next couple of weeks, I didn't go to Theo's coffee shop nearly as much as I had been. I didn't want to just ghost him, but I also really didn't want to spend much more time with him.

A great thing for me to decide after we'd slept together, I know.

It wasn't that I hated him or anything, but being with him had caused a lot of problems that I was now dealing with, and I didn't need any more of those.

He was always still sweet to me when I stopped by, which I was thankful for, but I had seen him sitting at tables with different girls a number of times when I walked in. I could be reading it wrong, but it seemed like Trevor was right. Guess it was fun while it lasted.

As far as Natalie went, I was continuing to give her space, but I wasn't sure how much longer I could handle it. At least she hadn't gone back to being a bitch to me, but things were definitely different again. She would barely look at me, and I was lucky if I got more than five words from her in a day.

I was so happy with how things had been going, and I had royally messed them up.

I got to work one Friday morning and walked towards the door of the building. I pulled it open and heard someone coming behind me, it was of course Natalie.

"Morning," I said with a slight smile as I held the door open for her.

"Hey Mads," she said, "thanks."

I was standing in front of the door to hold it open, and she awkwardly slid past me. We both walked on to the elevator and stood there in silence as it went up.

"Hey," I finally said, "do you think we could - " I was cut off by the doors opening and a few more people shuffling in.

Natalie glanced over at me, and we went back to the silence for the rest of the way up.

The tension between us was palpable. I wasn't sure if it sexual or not, but it was there, and it was thick.

When we got up to our offices we stepped out of the elevator and Natalie looked over at me again as we walked.

"What were you going to ask me?" She said.

"I was - nothing, don't worry about it," I muttered.

"Oh...alright," Natalie said as she walked past me and towards her office.

My first attempt to talk to her had obviously gone well. Maybe I'd try again later, I just couldn't stand the thought of screwing things up more than I already had. Maybe she wasn't even interested in me anymore and I'd missed my chance. I wasn't sure but I had to find out at some point.

***

Later that afternoon, I was standing out at the printer that was in the main part of the office. I grabbed my papers that I needed and turned around and almost ran into Natalie.

I quickly put my hands out to stop myself and grabbed on to her arms.

"Shit, sorry, I didn't hear you come up behind me," I said.

"It's fine," she said dryly, glancing down at my hands.

I realized that they were still grasping her arms and I slowly let them drop before I looked up at her.

"Sorry," I said again as I cleared my throat and quickly walked away.

I put my head down and rubbed my face as I walked back into my office. This was painful.

I sat down at my desk and stared at my computer screen, trying to figure out what I should do. Maybe I should just email her and ask her to talk. That might be easier considering the fact that every interaction between us was turning more awkward than the last.

I had to try something, I couldn't stand this anymore.

"Do you think we could talk after work?"

I hit send before I could change my mind. A reply came back from her quicker than I expected.

"Sure, you can come to my place and we can order dinner if you want," she sent back.

I can't say that I was expecting that invitation, but I was glad that I got it.

"Perfect," I responded.

***

The last couple hours of work went by painstakingly slow as I waited for 5:00 to hit. I had no idea how this would go, but it needed to happen.

I eagerly left my desk when it was time to go and headed for the elevator. Natalie and Ella both followed not far behind me and we all got on together.

"So," Ella said as she looked between the two of us, "you guys doing anything fun this weekend?"

I opened my mouth to respond but Natalie beat me to it.

"No," she quickly said, "just an uneventful weekend at home."

I gave her a side eyed glance without Ella noticing, but didn't say anything else. Once we got to the parking lot, Natalie slowed down her strides and let Ella leave before us.

"Any reason you don't want her to know that we're hanging out?" I asked.

"No, I just don't want anyone getting the wrong idea," she said, "and we're not hanging out, we're just - we're talking."

It seemed like a little bit of an odd response, all things considered, but I let it go.

"Come on, let's go," Natalie said as she walked over to the driver's side of her car.

I followed behind her and got into the car and started to get increasingly nervous. I really didn't want to mess this up again.

"What do you want to get for dinner?" She asked me.

"Umm," I debated, "doesn't matter to me, we could order pizza or something?"

"Yeah that's fine," Natalie said.

It was obvious that we were both uncomfortable with the situation, and I was thankful that the ride to Natalie's was a short one.

She lived in a nice apartment complex that was only a few minutes from our office. She pulled into the parking lot and I followed her into the building.

"I'm just up a few floors," she said as we got on to the elevator.

There had been way too many awkward elevator encounters for my liking lately. This ride was quite a bit longer than our usual one at work, she was up more than a "few floors."

I leaned against the wall and watched the floor numbers light up, wondering which floor she actually lived on.

My eyes wandered around the elevator, and I caught Natalie sneaking a quick glance at me before she looked away. She was so hard to read.

We finally reached her floor, which ended up being near the top of the tall building. I followed her out in silence and she lead me to her door.

"Well," she said as she unlocked it, "here we are."

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