Resist Me Not

4

"Do you have time for coffee?" Eric asked, wiping his mouth clean with the cloth napkin.

I glanced at my watch. "I think I can squeeze it in," I said, even though I was already running over my lunch hour by five minutes.

Eric waved over our formal suited server and ordered two cappuccinos. Once the server left to make the coffee, Eric leaned forward and stretched his hand palm up towards me. I reached back and enjoyed the feeling of his hand in mine.

"This was nice. We should have lunch together more often. My office is just three subway stops away."

"That would be nice."

"So, how are you liking working with Ryan?" And there it was, the topic that had loomed over me the entire way through lunch.

"He's fine," I stated without wanting to give more.

"I still can't believe I didn't realize that he was the Herman you mentioned you were going to work for," Eric chuckled.

"I know, you keep mentioning that." Referring to him making similar comments ever since the night at the bar.

"I do, don't I? I'm sorry. Did I ever tell you why we stopped talking?"

"I thought it was because you moved away," I said, just as the server returned with the hot beverages. Eric and I unclasped our hands as the cups were placed in front of us.

Once the server had left again, Eric continued, "Yes and no. Yes, I moved away, but we still talked. In fact, we still visited each other until our senior year in high school. D.C. has a great bus connection to the city, so it wasn't hard to take a weekend here and there to see each other." Eric took a brief pause to sip his drink.

I sipped my drink too and continued to look at him quietly.

"He even invited me to join him and our group of friends to go to their prom night. I agreed to go and went stag, and Ryan took his girlfriend at the time. Felicity, I think it was. We all had a great time, and I danced with countless girls and guys, and we all had a ball."

"I bet," I added a little commentary but was eager to hear more.

"Then came the After Prom." Eric paused for a moment, probably to add some dramatic tension. He always liked to embellish his stories. "We all went back to Ryan's house since his parents were out of town, and well, one thing led to another, and I ended up having sex with his girlfriend that night."

I choked on my mid-sip and slightly spat out some of my coffee, which sprinkled onto the tablecloth and Eric's blazer. I put my cup down and handed him my napkin. "Eric! You did what?! That doesn't sound like you."

"I don't think you would have liked me much in high school. I was more of a 'bad boy.' Especially after finding out my dad had a mistress, and my mom knew about it. I was all sorts of backward then. But since going to college and meeting you, I have grown up a lot."

"Did you tell Ryan about it?" I asked, needing to know more details.

"Well, the next morning, his girlfriend and I were in his kitchen, agreeing that what we did was a drunken mistake and that we should keep it between us. Then Ryan walked in mid-conversation and asked what we were talking about. His girlfriend blurted it out that she and I had sex. Ryan was livid, and he punched me hard. 

"I didn't fight back, because I knew I deserved it. He threw both Felicity and me out of his house. I'm guessing they broke up. I tried reaching out to him several times since, but it wasn't until the other night at the bar that I actually saw him. This is probably why he greeted me the way he did." Eric recalled the aggressive shove by rubbing his shoulder as if it still hurt.