The past few days have been spent in a blur of work, travel and fleeting moments of real human connection between the two. No matter what, she was trying to convince herself that it was no more than professional harassment or even worse, a transient phase he'd been demonstrating over the past few years was impossible to ignore.
It started with little things. That silent connection, the way he just kind of incorporated her into the conversation when she was quiet, or the few moments of togetherness when they caught a laugh in the middle of stressful work day. Especially, it was far more than that—there was an air to the way he felt about her. Some thing in his eyes, which caused a beat in her heart, when she wasn't looking. It was subtle, but it was there.
The figure would not cut Kasie, but it would not budge. She upped had, for the first time, never let herself become emotionally involved in the whirlwind of business. But with Jake, it was different. He had a way of getting under her skin—making her question everything she thought she knew about herself.
She slumped onto the bed frame, squeezing her temples as if it might be the magical cure to break through the fog in her mind.
Why was this so difficult?
One thing was not to be denied, Jake was handsome funny and, as it must have been obvious, attractive, but it was not the surfaces, but, something underneath. She'd always been quite disinclined to those folk who had it all mapped out, and Jake seemed as one would expect to have it all mapped out. He was a winner, a beloved person, and always at ease and grounded in the most natural way it could be. In contrast, Kasie went so far as spacetime, all dimensions that exist within it at equilibrium, and to repeat the process in order not to destroy it. Her professional persona was one of precision and control, but underneath that, there were insecurities, doubts, and a constant, unshakable pressure to prove herself.
Still, Jake had a knack for making her feel. seen. Understood. But it was, on the other hand, paradoxical to her, and whenever she really engaged with them, it felt as though they were discussing something beyond their usual routine. The moments, for reasons from which it is impossible to be unaware, in which he had, of his own accord, put to her, by an act of creativity, to dwell on some concrete question, or, in particular, when interrupted he held her company with a clever riposte.
Her phone buzzed, interrupting her thoughts. It was a message from Jake.
"Hey, we're heading out for dinner with the team. You in?"
She looked at the monitor for a second, squeezing her jaw. It would be a quick "no", just to stay in the room, and be tormented by overthinking. But something inside her—the part that had been slowly softening around him—knew that she couldn't keep avoiding him forever.
"Sure, I'll join."