Coming Back Home

Chapter 6

I slowly walked the few blocks back home, feeling like this could be the new normal that I would have to deal with at work.

Something about the way Natalie was acting gave me a small glimmer of hope, but I wasn't going to count on anything.

I wasn't sure if I'd try to talk things over with her again, but at least I said what I needed to. It was on her now. Although I wasn't sure she cared.

My thoughts spun around in my head as I neared my apartment.

"Hey Madison," I heard a voice say.

I jumped back and put my hand on my chest as I looked up to find Theo. He was standing outside of the coffee shop locking things up for the day.

"Oh, oops, sorry I didn't mean to scare you," he said to me.

"No you're fine, I just seem to be jumpy lately," I said with a grin, "I was spacing off, but anyway, how's it going?"

"Not bad," Theo responded with a shrug, "just closing everything up for the night."

"I'm starting to think you're the only employee who actually works here," I said to him.

"Sometimes it does kind of feel that way," he said as he looked over at me.

"Hey," he continued, "would you maybe want to go grab dinner?"

"Oh, you mean like, right now?" I stupidly asked him.

"Of course you mean right now," I quickly said, "sorry, ignore me please, it was a long day at work."

"Sounds like you could use a nice dinner and drink then?" He grinned.

"You know what?" I said with a sigh, "you're right."

A large smile spread across his face and he motioned for me to follow him.

"My car is just around the corner in the parking lot. There's an amazing Italian place we can go to," he said.

"Now you're speaking my language," I told him.

We walked back to the parking lot and I got into the passenger seat of his car. This definitely wasn't something that I usually made a habit of, but with all of the tension between Natalie and I, maybe a little spontaneity is what I needed.

I wasn't really sure that agreeing to go to dinner with a guy I barely knew for the second time this week was a safe kind of spontaneity, but I guess time would tell.

Let's hope that this one would go as well as the one with Trevor had, although I was pretty sure that Theo had something else in mind.

"So what made your day at work so long?" Theo asked me as he drove us to dinner.

"It's uh - it's kind of complicated, but basically just a not so friendly coworker," I said hesitantly.

"Got ya, that's always fun," he responded.

"Loads of it," I said sarcastically.

He grinned over at me as we pulled into the parking lot of a small restaurant. I was thankful that it didn't look too fancy, since I was still in my work clothes and was pretty sure that I looked as exhausted as I felt.

We walked towards the door and Theo quickly stepped ahead of me and held it open.

"Thanks," I said as I felt my cheeks turn slightly red.

We walked in and got seated pretty quickly, and I began to look over the menu.

"What's your go to?" I asked Theo.