Tessie D

I hadn’t been coming in early to the office and had been working through my lunch break for a few weeks now. But Angel came into the office at lunch today and asked me to join him and a few of the others outside, under the pecan tree.

“Come on, it’s a beautiful day, and you’ve been cooped up in here for weeks now. Join us outside.”

I wanted to say no. That I had too much work to do. That I wasn’t hungry. That I hadn’t brought my lunch. That I was still embarrassed about Thanksgiving and how I’d let myself be so vulnerable, how I’d exposed myself to him, and how I’d been rejected.

But I wanted to be near him more than anything else I was feeling. I looked for him in the barn when I was walking through, and I looked out the kitchen window to see if his truck was in the lot. I looked for him when I walked to my car after work to see if he was nearby.

So, I gathered my lunch and took it outside to the table and sat down with everyone else, and Angel sat down beside me. Several men were lounging on the grass under the tree, and a few others were sitting at the table; it was already a little crowded.

“Move down,” he said playfully.

I did, and when he sat down, we were so close that our bodies were touching on the bench. The feeling of his thigh brushing against mine. Being so close to him that if I listened carefully, I could probably hear his heartbeat.

I didn’t say much at lunch, but I felt myself relax as the minutes went by. Nobody had noticed — or at least didn’t say anything — about how I’d been avoiding everyone over the past couple of weeks. We just ate, and a few of the men talked to Angel about their upcoming trip back home to Mexico over the holidays.

I went back to work, and a few hours later, Angel came back into the office. His pants were dirty, like he’d been rubbing his hands on the front of his jeans.

He leaned against the doorway between my office and the kitchen. I looked up and was surprised to see him there, but he just smiled.

“Let’s go see a movie on Friday.”

I was taken aback and just sat there looking at him for a bit, trying to process what he was saying.

“Oh, okay. Sure,” I said.

“I’ll pick you up after work. You can go home and clean up, and then I’ll swing by. We can get something to eat beforehand.”

“Yeah, okay. That sounds nice.”

“It’s a date then,” he said, smiling as he walked back outside.