Never Really Over

Chapter 7

Things between Otis and Maeve had been quite shit. Otis had tried to reach out to her over the next couple of days but she hadn't returned any of his calls. He would've left her a message but knowing their history with those, he figured it was better to just talk to her in person.

Otis was taking stuff out of his locker, getting ready to go home. The day had been absolute hell, he'd spent the whole day either overthinking about what to say to Maeve if he saw her or being completely ignored by her when he did.

"We have an appointment right now." Maeve said, appearing next to Otis.

"What?" Otis asked.

"We have an appointment right now." Maeve said, repeating the first words she had said to Otis in days.

"Oh okay." Otis said, awkwardly.

"Is that going to be a problem?" Maeve asked, crossing her arms across her chest.

"No no, I just didn't think you were talking to me." Otis said.

"We run a business together, that's all this is about." Maeve said, even though she didn't mean the words.

Otis visibly deflated, he kind of expected Maeve to shut him out but somehow hearing her say how little she seemed to care about him really broke his heart.

"Okay, let's go." Otis said, shutting his locker.

Maeve and Otis walked to the dingy bathroom they called an office. Not a single word escaped either of their lips but the tension was palpable. It almost felt like the weight of their unspoken words would make the old bathroom come undone.

In the time they waited for their client to arrive, Otis thought and rethought about making conversation, just anything to make him feel like their situation was salvageable. Just as he was about to gather the courage to comment about the weather the client walked in.

Otis had chemistry class with the tall guy standing in front of him, with blonde hair and blue eyes shinning in the sunlight. He looked a bit like an Abercrombie model and Otis was definitely not the only one who had noticed. Maeve was clearly checking the boy out.

"Hey, thanks for doing this." The boy said.

"No worries Chris, what's the problem." Otis asked, wanting to get on with it.

"So I've been hooking up with this girl." Chris said.

"Okay, what's the problem?" Otis asked.

"I think I'm in love with her." Chris said with a dreamy look on his face.

"And that's affecting your performance?" Otis asked. He was normally so awkward about everything, especially sex but whenever he was conducting a session, Otis was like a boy transformed.

"No." Chris said.

"It's affecting her then?" Otis asked, getting kind of confused and irritated at the same time.

"No, she's great and she seems to really enjoy it. We both do." Chris said.

"Okay, I'm not really sure I understand what's going on." Otis said.

"Well, I think I love her and we agreed that this was going to be a casual, friends with benefits kind of thing." Chris said.

"Okay, but you know that this is a sex clinic, right? I'm here to help you with sex related problems. Emotions aren't really my domain." Otis said.

Maeve scoffed at that. God did she know how pathetic Otis could be when it came to dealing with emotions.

Otis shot Maeve a look, partly because he was getting kind of sick of her being so mean but also because he was embarrassed at how true his statement was.