"Rory, you have a knack for picking out bars with no cute guys," Kieran sighed as he sat down at our table, bringing over our drinks with him.
I merely rolled my eyes at him as I took my drink from him. It was now Friday night and I had done pretty well to avoid Clarke. Thursday was easy as I didn't have work but Friday we worked together all day. Luckily Clarke was so busy with the deal he didn't have time to talk. He was barely in the office actually, he had meetings and actually even did some press for the deal. I knew it wouldn't last though and by next week I would have to talk to him.
"Cute boys are the last thing on her mind, trust me," Ava muttered.
Kieran raised his eyebrows slightly. "Does this have something to do with whatever you wanted to talk about?"
I rolled my eyes slightly and sat back in my chair. I was rather reluctant to tell Kieran, let alone say it out loud again.
"If you don't tell him, I will," Ava shrugged as he noticed my silence.
"She's making this out to be bigger than it is," I promised Kieran as he looked very suspicious.
"I'm really not," Ava disagreed.
"Well, you know, I think so," I told her.
"You are so stubborn," Ava complained.
"Will someone just tell me the hell is going on?" Kieran demanded.
"She had sex with Clarke," Ava said quickly, looking at Kieran and then glancing back at me. "...Twice."
I felt that feeling of shame roll over me and I just wanted to crawl into a pit. Least I knew I obviously wasn't proud of it.
"You classify this as not big news?" Kieran exclaimed turning to me. "Sleeping with your boss is not big news? What is then? Sleeping with the President?"
"Jesus, Ava thanks for throwing me in here," I rolled my eyes, sipping my drink.
"Well, didn't seem like you were going to say anything," she muttered, avoiding my eye contact.
"Whoa, whoa, okay," Kieran interrupted out little tiff. "Let me get a grip on what the hell is going on here. So your boss, the douchebag player, who you absolutely hate by the way....you slept with him? Like proper clothes off pen-."
"Yes, yes," I stopped Kieran from talking. "God, you don't need details."
"Well, I might if you want my advice which is why I presume I was asked here for this conversation?" Kieran guessed.
"Yes, well my advice ended up being useless," Ava explained. "She insisted she has zero feelings for him what-so-ever, but the sex seems to be great."
"Eh, I'm almost not surprised with him," Kieran admitted.
"That makes me feel so much better," I said, leaning back to sink into my chair more.
"Sorry," Kieran muttered, "but okay. When you say good you mean better than Isaac was? Cause you only said good things there."
I didn't answer him straight away and eventually just nodded at him which promoted him to mouth the word wow.
"In a different way though," I spoke up quickly, "and for different reasons."
"But you don't have romantic feelings for him?" Kieran confirmed.
"No, definitely not," I said immediately. "I don't think that would be possible if I tried."
"Yeah, well I think there's more to it," Ava spoke quietly.
I glanced over at her and while she seemed to be listening to our conversation, she seemed very involved with her phone at the same time.
"Is everything okay there?" I asked her.
"What?" she said, looking up from her phone. "Oh, it's just Parker."
"Oh! Things are still going well with him?" I suddenly felt so guilty. I had been so caught up in my drama I forgot she had something real going on. "Why didn't you say something?"
"I didn't want to bother you when you had so much going on," she sighed. "We've just been talking, getting along well."
"And he's texting you now because?" Kieran asked interested.
"Oh, we were going to meet up for drinks tonight before this came up," she brushed it off.
"Are you kidding me? Go," I said quickly. "I've got Kieran here. You deserve to go have fun, over listening to this."
"She is very right," Kieran agreed. "Go, I will try help this misguided child."
Ava was still slightly reluctant but eventually left. It was weird thinking she was going to see Clarke's friend, I wonder if he knew, they'd have something new to talk about now I suppose.
"Well, I'm kind of glad she's gone if I'm honest," he admitted.
"What?" I frowned at him.
"I love Ava and all, don't get me wrong, but she would not like what I have to say," he shrugged. "She's a hopeless romantic, she wants a prince charming to come along, and she wants you to create feelings with this encounter with Clarke because that's how she views the world."
"And you don't think I need to have feelings?" I asked him.
"No! Girl, I think having some meaningless sex with a guy you don't exactly like is exactly what the doctor ordered," he smiled at me as spoke.
"What the hell are you going on about? Was there something funny in your drink?" I enquired.
He playfully rolled his eyes at me. "I realised it the moment I thought about Isaac. I was reminded off how badly you took the breakup with him, and how you shut yourself away and didn't even rebound."
"Well, I didn't want to," I muttered. "Isaac was a big relationship for me, I just wanted to wallow in self-pity for a bit."
"And that's great all, but let me tell you meaningless sex is also a good cure," Kieran told me. "Plus this might help you."
"Help me how?" I frowned. "I'm more confused than ever."
"How has your relationship been with Clarke lately?" Kieran asked, sitting up straight, like he was showing dominance.
"I guess we haven't argued for a while," I said as I thought about it.
"When you talked about how much you hated him I could never quite put my finger, why you reacted to him so easily," Kieran explained to me. "I mean, you've never liked a jerk but not like this. So I started to wonder if you guys just had some...tension."
"You're saying Clarke and I have had sexual tension this whole time?" I said shaking my head.
"Well, Clarke probably did first anyway and then you did...so maybe having sex with Clarke helped with that tension and release it, making it easier for you guys to get along."
It was a crazy possibility I had never thought of. One that might not be so far-fetched when I think back to the club in Paris and our almost kiss. Had my hate not been hate but tension? Or had my hate transformed into someone else and having sex with Clarke helped destroy it.
"I seriously can't believe you're saying this right now," I told him. "I totally expected you to tell me I was crazy and that I made a big mistake."
He shrugged. "You were miserable when you broke with Isaac and I didn't want to say you didn't deal with it well, but you didn't. Why do you think I set you up on so many blind dates? I didn't want you to fall in love with any of them, I just wanted you to rebound and move on. So...what I'm saying is I think you should keep sleeping with Clarke."
"No, no, wait. You think I should keep doing it as well?" I stressed, adjusting myself on the chair to get closer to Kieran.
"Yeah, pretty much," he nodded. "I think this way you don't hate him as much so you might actually work well together, and then you sound like you have great sex which seems to be helping you. I mean, I can literally see how less stressed out you are. It...it can just be sex, nothing else. People do it all the time, no big deal."
"No big deal, expect he's my boss, Kieran!" I hissed at him.
"Yeah, so that complicates things a little, but will probably help you keep your work and....other life separate easier. Plus, you obviously seem to trust to him to some extent to sleep with him in the first place," Kieran told me calmly. "All I'm saying is think about it. If it makes you happy and makes things better for now then why not?"
"I can hardly wrap my head around this, let alone think about it, and keep doing it?" I asked him annoyed.
"You don't have to wrap your head around it, per-say. Honestly, it's just sex," Kieran shrugged. "Two people can just have sex, and since I don't think a relationship is going to work for you for a while, it's probably ideal."
"But-."
"Yes, I know Clarke isn't ideal, but if he makes you feel good then so what? I know you well enough to know you could separate that and your work life. I'm dead serious, I wouldn't suggest this if I didn't think you could handle it, or it wasn't right for you," Kieran finished. "So....actually think about it, okay?"
I had all weekend to think about it in the end. Besides my school work and Ava's update on her relationship with Parker I had nothing else to focus on expect that. If I did decide to keep it going with Clarke, I wasn't sure how Ava would react. I'm pretty sure she would protest it, tell me it wasn't good for me. Expect maybe it was good for me.
Kieran was right when he said I didn't handle my breakup well with Isaac. I pretended to and never got sad around people or talked about it, but I was cut up inside. I shut myself away, didn't really go to parties or hang out with anyone but Ava and Kieran. I wasn't going to allow myself to find another guy because I still wanted Isaac. Maybe I was finally ready for something different, but something fun instead. I didn't want to be a relationship right now.
It wasn't a realisation I had had before. I had always thought I just hadn't met anyone but I hadn't met anyone because I didn't want to meet anyone. I didn't want to go through the stress of a relationship and getting to know someone to see if they were right...and then to fall in love again only to have my heart broken again. I didn't want that right now, or for a while probably. I'm twenty-one I've got my whole life ahead of me, I've got time. Time I should be using to explore my options, like casual sex with a player.
I couldn't get past that he was my boss though. I couldn't deny the sex was good and whenever he got close to me I would freak out and not exactly be able to fight it, but I still needed my job, I mean I still had to pay rent even if college was paid off. So maybe what happened was a good thing because it made me realise what I needed in my life right now, it's just that Clarke wasn't the best guy to help me move on because of our work situation, otherwise he would probably be perfect for it.
I decided to not tell Ava about Kieran's advice and instead we talked about her all weekend and her relationship with Parker. It seemed like Parker was nothing like Clarke and was a lot like Ava in that he wanted love. It meant they connected easily and got along extremely well and they had a lot in common and it all sounded too nice.
Ava had had trouble with relationships in the past, to the point she would fall fast and hard and normally they wouldn't, which resulted in her heartbreak and me picking up the pieces. I loved her so I didn't mind but it also meant it was apprehensive whenever she started to get into that pattern again but I wasn't going to stand in her way...after all who was I to judge after what I'd be doing?
It was nice all weekend to not think about Clarke for once. I was weirdly in a place of peace with it all now I understood why it had all happened. Once Monday came around I was a little worried though because I still hadn't talked to him.
"I thought you would be celebrating," I said to Clarke as I walked into his office Monday afternoon.
He had been out all morning with meetings now that his deal had finally gone through. I hadn't actually seen him all day, only communicated by text.
He sighed slightly shaking his head. "Apparently even once the deal is done there's just as much work to do."
"That's kind of how business works," I told Clarke. "At the very least this should solidify your position."
He gave me another look before leaning back in his chair. "Not exactly. The board still aren't keen on me, especially because the company I picked is aimed at a younger demographic"
"Well, now you have one deal, more will come," I shrugged at him.
"Hopefully. Malcom can help more now. He didn't want it to seem like he helped me through my first deal," Clarke explained.
"Malcom wouldn't let anything bad happen to the company," I nodded at him. "Well, I better get back to-."
"You're not going anywhere, Rory. We need to talk."
I had turned around as I spoke but stopped when Clarke spoke. I had been dreading talking, but I couldn't avoid it forever, and I didn't seem like Clarke was going to let that happen anyway.
"Not here," I said, turning back to him. "I agree we need to...talk, but just not here at work. It's weird enough as it without bringing work into it."
"Okay, that I can agree on," he said, standing up. "Tonight...after work. Come to my place and we'll talk. We can't let this go on any longer."
"I agree," I said again. "Tonight then. I'll be there."