Comedy night ended up a pleasant delight despite Jamie's seemingly foot-in-mouth confession. The evening was spent laughing at the acts and sharing stories in between about our last summer holidays, our least-deserved high school detention, and even our favourite anime.
Or, at least, Jamie did as I didn't actually watch anime unless you could count the few episodes of Dragon Ball Z that I'd caught while babysitting a friend's child. Of course, Jamie didn't, and so promised he would introduce me to the world of anime himself, we just needed to arrange a date to meet.
We also talked about dreams, literal dreams, with Jamie narrating a few of his strange and oh-so-vivid ones.
It seems he has a lot of dreams about zombie apocalypses, which made me wonder if dreams could relate to anything deeper about a person, something I noted I would look up.
He also told me of his most recent dream where he had, of course, been chosen to travel to a far-off planet to make preparations for the rest of mankind to migrate thereto. However, rather than setting up a government post as he was instructed to do, the first thing he did was build a mansion for his mom.
So by the end of the night, I had the impression that Jamie greatly loved and respected his mother, thought of himself as a bit of an action man, and generally had an innocent outlook on most things related to day-to-day living which was something I hoped would rub off on me.
It was the most carefree and refreshing conversation I'd had in a long time, I'd almost forgotten what it felt like to just relax and enjoy the moment.
Jay and his friends often had similar conversations sitting around our kitchen table, I'd usually just laugh and think of them as naive fantasies. But listening to Jamie talk somehow brought me into his vision, and I longed to be a part of that carefree world again. Even as a university student, I had already been tainted by life and its hardships, and it was starting to dawn on me that maybe my fascination with Jamie may have been due to the fact that he reminded me of the youth I had missed.
Our said anime date, however, was never arranged and, similar to the previous week, numbers were not exchanged, so I didn't plan on holding my breath for the date. I was interested in introducing myself to anime though, just as soon as I had a break from a pretty intense team project we were handling at work.
"How you feeling about another week of underpaid overtime?" George, a work colleague asked.
"Not ecstatic," I replied. "But it's not like we have any other option."
"Oh Gawd," Kimmie moaned. "We have to beat the Friday deadline. I can't do this all week."
I worked for a pretty upscale marketing firm which often took on high-class jobs and had the knack for promising the world in the shortest time possible. None of the actual pitchers of the projects were responsible for completing them as the infrastructure of my company left a lot to be desired when it came to the dynamics between culpability vs authority which meant that it was my team that often got stuck with long, demanding hours once a project had been signed off on.
"We have a seven-strong team. We'll be fine," I said, trying my best to comfort Kimmie who had a strong anti-overtime stance.
"Rebecca can't take the overtime because of her children," Kimmie droned. "And John declined due to health reasons. So we have a five medium-strength team."
George clapped his hands together and continued with the enthusiastic vibe I had tried to instil. "We'll be fine. I bet we can top their deadline and get it don't by Thursday at the latest," he said, which gave Kimmie no choice other than to lighten up once George was on board. George and Kimmie were my favourite work colleagues, we all seemed to read each other well, and one of us would lead the support if the others were feeling down. That made this particular project harder to bear as it would be our final project as a trio before George transferred to a branch in another city.
"Are you all set for leaving us?" I asked after settling down with our notes.
"Nope, but a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do."
I gave a small wistful smile. Despite being my favourite work colleague I wasn't very interested in him for anything more than that due to my usual resilience to romance, and that was something he had expressed several times that he would have been interested in.
"It's not too late, you know?" he said. "A new city, new people, a fresh start."
New people, I thought and bit down on my inner cheek to prevent a smile from spilling out as thoughts of Jamie filled my mind. "You can have a fresh start and not leave your old city, can't you?"
"Hardly," he shrugged. "But we'll have to talk about that later if I'm to fulfil this brief. I'll catch up with you guys in a little while."
Right! That was George's way of avoiding the discussion. Throwing himself into his work was a surefire way of keeping uncomfortable situations at bay, and was one of his big motivations for transferring. Although, it seemed, I was one comfortable situation he would be willing to drag along with him.
"So," Kimmie said, sliding up next to me and digging me in the side after George had gone back to his workstation. "I saw that smile when he mentioned a fresh start. Who is he?"
"What?" I said, my pretence at being shocked only downplayed by the huge smile that had hijacked my face.
"Wow, you've got it that bad, and you haven't even told me about him. Once!"
"No, no," I said, waving my arms apologetically in front of me. "It's not like that. He's just a friend."
We are friends, aren't we?
"Or maybe just an acquaintance," I corrected myself. I mean we hadn't even swapped numbers yet.
"Mmm hm," she said, nodding her head sarcastically.
"No, seriously. We just hang out and talk. It's wholesome and without all that other stuff."
Kimmie's face twisted in the sheer look of disbelief. "For you, or him?"
"Both of us. Well, mainly him. I don't think he's interested in girls like that."
"Because he's gay?" she asked, pronouncing each word slowly and deliberately.
"No. He's not gay. Why can't a guy just not be looking for a romantic relationship without people assuming he's gay?"
"Hmm. I don't know," Kimmie said in a way that suggested she definitely did know, or at least had an opinion on it. "Maybe that's just your way of not dealing with the fact that you're ready to get back into the 'wanting a boyfriend scene'."
"Back into?" I questioned. I couldn't recall ever having been in it to start with.
"Fine. Back into or into, whatever you want to call it. Is he hot?"
I snorted a laugh at the suddenness of her question.
"I'm gonna take that as a yes," she said. "As if your smile earlier hadn't revealed as much."
"That's not why I laughed," I argued.
"Okay," she said, dismissing me with a wave. "Look, you've become 'acquaintances' with a hot guy who apparently is not interested in girls, though he's not gay," she confirmed, air-quoting the word acquaintances with her fingers. "What a way to dip your toes into the pool while remaining emotionally unavailable."
Urgh, I thought, throwing my hand over my face. "Kimmie, you need to back off the Tiktok, okay?" I said, referring to the type of self-help videos she liked to share.
That got a laugh out of her. "Okay, but seriously, give it a thought. Maybe he's into you, maybe he isn't, but you are most definitely into him. With all George's charms, I've never seen you smile so sweetly before. Anyway ...," she said, before waving her tablet at me and walking back to her workstation.
I let out a light sigh at her spot-on surmisation of my predicament. I really was into him, but I'd been off the boyfriend/girlfriend scene for way too long I had no idea how to navigate myself with the unfamiliar feelings that were securely nestling themselves inside of me. Only two weeks earlier I had been happy to live my days, at least for the next few years, devoting my life to Jay and his pursuits. Now I was spending my nights thinking about my next meeting with Jamie, and, truth be known, I wasn't ever even sure if there would be a next meeting.