Which I ignored. I kept my eyes to the floor and nodded.
Larson stood and took a step away from the desk, and I took my seat, turning my attention to Deb.
“Hey. How was your morning? How’s Owen?”
Deb was a single parent to just about the cutest seven-year-old I’d ever seen. Since I’d grown up without brothers or even male cousins, her tales of little boy mischief were equal parts frightening and entertaining—like a good horror movie.
And she seemed to have endless patience. Sometimes I found myself wishing she was my own mom.
“Oh, he’s great. He lost a tooth this morning when he was brushing. It went down the drain, and he was devastated for about five minutes until he figured out a solution.”
“A solution?”
“Yeah—for the tooth fairy. He finally asked me to cut his fingernails and left some in an envelope under his pillow as a substitute.”
“Lucky tooth fairy.” I laughed.
“You have no idea—you should have heard his first suggestion for what to leave under the pillow.”
We both laughed. “Don’t forget what I said about babysitting. Anytime. You need to get out and take a little time for yourself. Maybe even go on a date,” I said.
Deb rolled her eyes at me. “Says one hermit to the other. I’ll leave my cave when you do.” She picked up her perpetually-ringing desk phone and turned toward her monitor.
I logged on to my own computer, chuckling to myself and completely forgetting I hadn’t seen Larson walk away toward his own desk.
His shivery-smooth voice came from behind me. “Well, okay ladies. I’ll let you two get to work. See you at the team meeting.”
I lifted a hand in a wave behind me, but Larson came around to the front of my desk before leaving. He put a large hand on its surface and leaned down, dropping his voice.
“You really should come hang out with us next time. I know it’s hard to be new. I felt kind of strange when I got here last year, too. But everyone would love to get to know you better.” He gave me an encouraging smile.
Ugh. Why did he have to keep being so nice? Why couldn’t he just leave me alone?
The thing was—everyone wasn’t inviting me out repeatedly—only Larson. Had I not been clear enough over the past few weeks about not wanting to know him better?
“Okay, thanks. Maybe next time,” I said, my eyes darting away.
When he didn’t move, I risked another glance at his face. Those ultra-blue eyes were narrowed, his lips twisted like he was trying to figure out a particularly difficult-to-pronounce name on a script.
He nodded. “Okay,” he said and started to walk off. Then he stopped and turned around. “You look pretty today, by the way.” He turned and kept going.
My fingers stopped in place on the keyboard. My gaze stayed locked on his back. Though the newsroom was always ice cold, a heat spread through my body from my chest outward until I was blazing with it.
This had to stop—the invitations, the attempts to draw me into conversation, the compliments. Especially those.
It wasn’t that I felt sexually harassed or thought Larson was being a lech or something—it’s just that it wasn’t true. I’d made quite sure I didn’t look lovely or pretty before I’d left the house this morning, and I didn’t understand why he kept on saying such things, day after day.
Propelled by some kind of inner force, I rose from my chair and followed Larson’s path across the newsroom to his desk. He had an office, but for the most part, he just kept a change of clothes in there and sat with the show team in the large, open newsroom.
He’d already taken a seat but rose from his chair when he saw me coming, a half-smile starting to develop.
“Kenley.”
I waited until I got very close before speaking in a low voice. “I don’t.”
The smile morphed into confusion. “What?”
“I don’t look pretty. And I don’t appreciate your teasing or mocking or whatever it is you’re doing.”
And the confusion became shock. “Oh… I… I’m not sure what you…” He held his hands up in front of himself as if bracing for defensive wounds. “Listen, I’m sorry if I offended you. I won’t say it anymore if you don’t like it, but I was completely sincere. I definitely wasn’t mocking you. I just find you very… pretty—”
He winced. “Sorry—I said it again. I won’t say it. Anymore. Sorry.”
He stared at me, a bit wide-eyed, as if he expected me to start yelling at him or something. Instead I sighed.
What a bitch I must seem like. Poor guy. My stuff with Mark and Momma wasn’t his fault. He was just trying to be nice and didn’t know what to say to me.
It probably didn’t help that I was always so stiff and tongue-tied around him. He wasn’t the problem. I was.
I closed my eyes and took a breath. “No. I’m sorry. I’m just… a mess right now. That’s part of the reason I don’t go out after work. I’m not in a good place for anyone to get to know me. But thanks for asking. It’s very kind of you. Okay… I’ll see you at the meeting.”
I turned and left without allowing him a chance to respond. Way to make the work environment awkward, Kenley. Good job.
When I saw Larson at the afternoon team meeting, he didn’t look at me. In fact, he didn’t speak directly to me or look my direction all day. Or all that week.
The next week he spoke to me a few times about script questions, but there were no more compliments.
Which was great. Really, really super.
It was so much better to be amiable co-workers with a guy like Larson than to allow it to deepen into something like friendship, or worse, mutual attraction.
I mean, sure, I was attracted to him—so was every woman in the building and probably every female viewer WNN had.
But there were just different kinds of guys. Those I used to date, boys from prominent families with cushy futures and fat bank accounts— like Mark—the kind of guy I’d been trained since birth to seek, identify, and secure like some kind of cosmetic-enhanced, stiletto-wearing Navy Seal.
Larson, bless his heart, was the poster child for that group.
And then there were the guys I wanted to date now—nice, boyish, struggling to make their own way in the world.
Guys like Jason.
Four
Richie Rich
I met Jason downstairs in the WNN Center food court the following week.
The Center was huge, more like a mall than an office building, with an atrium ceiling, shops, and escalators. On the ground floor the bright, airy food court offered an array of lunch options as well as a brief respite from the tension of the newsroom environment, which had only grown since I’d warned Larson away.
As I stood in line reading the menu board at a sandwich place, someone leaned over my shoulder.
“I strongly advise against the barbeque.”
I glanced back at him. He was a young guy, a year or two out of school like me. He had floppy brown hair and huge brown eyes and wore a t-shirt reading: ALWAYS BE YOURSELF. UNLESS YOU CAN BE A UNICORN. THEN ALWAYS BE A UNICORN.
“Gas like you would not believe,” he said, somberly nodding before emulating a mushroom cloud with his hands and making a comical explosion noise.