HOW TO BE SINGLE | SIDEMEN

TWENTY FOUR

t w e n t y  f o u r
" office flirtation "
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It was strange for Simon to find himself in a situation where he once again had a girlfriend. After a few months of being single, he'd found someone totally different to Adela and someone who he found himself wanting to spend more time with.

Catherine was actually the one who asked him out on the first date. It wasn't awkward, much to Simon's surprise, and they quickly arranged a second in between office flirtation, to which Cal rolled his eyes into the next room.

It was a quick kind of romance, but in all the best ways. He couldn't see it being anything like his relationship with Adela; maybe that wasn't such an awful thing.

After a month of dating, Simon finally bit the bullet and asked her to be his girlfriend, to which she responded, "I thought you'd never fucking ask."

In the moments of their embrace following her acceptance, he couldn't help but be thrown back in time to when he'd asked Adela the same question.

She'd reacted so differently. Sweetly, timidly, but lovingly. As if he'd given her the world in a few words that neither of them knew would mould into what they were today, whatever they were. He didn't even know if they were friends. They hadn't spoken since the day she'd moved out.

They'd gone out that night, him and Catherine, and spent the evening in a fancy restaurant with fine wine and full course meals. It was wonderful, but there was something about the way Catherine looked at him that told him she wasn't quite satisfied with red wine and pasta.

And so they spent the night together, finally reaching that end that weeks of office tension had built up. That in itself was entirely new for him. Not that he was a virgin before he'd been with Adela, but he was so used to what made her tick that it was strange to have to figure someone else out in that way. Although, Catherine didn't seem to have much trouble.

Waking up that crisp Saturday morning with someone in his bed was odd and not something that had happened since Adela. But he liked it, especially when she curled into him with sleepy affection, grumbling about it being too early.

"We should get up," Simon murmured, but she just held onto him tighter, nuzzling into him. "Cath, come on."

"No one ever calls me Cath," She replied quietly, voice muffled against the pale skin of his chest and vibrating against his rib cage.

"Sorry, should I not call you that?" He frowned, worried he'd offended his girlfriend of one day.

"I like it," She said. "It's what my sister used to call me."

"Does she not..." He trailed off, not really knowing what he was going to ask but feeling like he should ask. Not only to satisfy his curiosity, but to show that he cared about what Cath had to offer up, whether she wanted to talk about her past self. Everyone has something, but its whether they feel ready to express that something to the person that's asking.