I Hope He Is A Gentleman

Henry was back on Monday morning, but boy, did he look like he'd been to hell and back. "How're you feeling?" I asked as I sat down at my desk across from his. He had bags under his eyes and his face still seemed a little colorless.

"All in all, I feel better now, but I'm still exhausted." I nodded and reached over on to his desk to take a stack of his papers.

"I can deal with these today, you just take it easy." He didn't say anything, but I saw his shoulders relax slightly. I smiled, happy to ease Henry's workload when he was still clearly sick, and probably should have taken one more day off to get better. Besides, the way this flu was spreading around the interns (Henry was the third to come down with it) I figured it would only be a matter of time until I was sick -- I hoped that Henry would make my life easier when it happened to me, too.

With that being said, I reached into my purse and pulled out a small container of airborne and dropped one into my water bottle. You could never be too careful.

Overall, the day was pretty uneventful. Toby said Henry could leave early because by the time it was 2:00, it looked like he was only seconds away from falling asleep at his desk. I could tell he felt bad about leaving me with all the paperwork to do, as well as beginning to put together our presentation, but I smiled and reassured him it wasn't a big deal.

A couple hours later I stuck my head into Toby's office and told him I was leaving too. He gave me a wave and I then began to gather my things and walk down the hall. As I was only inches away from the door to the parking lot, a voice called me out. "Remy, wait up!" I scrunched up my face in frustration, but when I turned to face James, I was all smiles. He jogged lightly to catch up to me, wearing jeans and a Penguins sweatshirt with a baseball cap on his head. "You heading out?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I have Russian class."

"But not until 7:30, right?" How in the world did he know that?

I gaped for half a second, but composed myself quickly. "Uh, yeah, actually. I'm gonna grab dinner and then head over and -- "

"My treat, let's go." James walked past me and out the door, fully expecting me to follow him. Which, stupidly enough, I did. Normally, I would walk a couple blocks down the road to the nearest subway station and take the subway downtown to my university's campus, but tonight, I allowed myself to sit in the passenger seat of James's car while he talked a mile a minute about practice and the game tomorrow and dinner tonight and his car and his hair and about a million other things.

He was much, much different from Geno, that was for sure.

Eventually we made it downtown, and honestly, I was having a good time. We were laughing and chirping each other, and I felt much more at ease around James than I ever did around Geno. James parked the car behind a small diner down the street from my building. The woman at the front seated us quickly, but I immediately excused myself so I could run to the bathroom and change out of my work clothes. Because I always went straight from work to class, I had to keep all my books and an extra set of clothes in a backpack under my desk. Today, I found myself wishing I had packed something nicer than a pair of skinny jeans and an old T-shirt from some school event I participated in (though I begged myself not to care -- it was just James).

When I came back from the bathroom, James was in the middle of a conversation with two young children and their mother. I hung towards the back, not wanting to interrupt, and only made my way back when they had said their goodbyes. "That was nice of you to talk to them," I commented, sitting back down and picking up the menu.

"I like talking to fans," he responded, twirling the straw in his water around. "Especially kids."

"You like kids?" I asked, deciding on a grilled cheese sandwich.

James grinned and nodded. "Love 'em. Some of my cousins already have kids, and they're the best."

"You two ready to order?" One of the waitresses asked. James went first, ordering an omelette with a side of bacon and homestyle fries ("Breakfast for dinner is the best," he insisted) and I got the grilled cheese and french fries I was craving.

Again, the conversation continued, mostly about our families and what we did in our spare time. James didn't have much time outside of the Penguins organization, but he certainly had a lot of interests. We compared music tastes and I told him all about the history of architecture in the city of Pittsburgh (a class I took two semesters ago and absolutely loved). James was both an avid talker and a strong listener, and the conversation never lulled -- not even when the food arrived.

"What're you doing?" James asked as I mixed together a packet of ketchup with a packet of mayo.

"It's just like Russian dressing," I insisted, swirling a fry in it and handing it to him. "Try it."

"Not bad," James said, chewing on that single fry and then shoving in what seemed like half his omelette into his mouth. "Speaking of Russians -- " I felt my face pale. "Has Geno mentioned anything about me?"

Not much, I wanted to say. He just won't shut up about you.

"Not really," I said, refusing to make eye contact as I bit into the second half of my sandwich. "Why?"

James shrugged. "I just asked him to put in a good word for me, was all."

My eyes darted up. "How come?"

"I don't know," he replied, drenching his homestyle fries with ketchup. "You guys just seem to get along so well, and I just wanted you to pay attention to me."

I wondered what it would be like to have Geno talk about his feelings so nonchalantly, but I imaged he would rather get run over by a truck than have to do that. "I pay attention to you," I insisted, taking a sip of my water. "We're eating dinner together, aren't we?"

"So does that mean we can have dinner again?" James pressed.

I set down my glass. "Look, James, I -- "

"See, there you go," he said, biting into a piece of bacon. "You're ignoring the question."

"I'm not -- "

"You are -- "

" -- ignoring you -- "

" -- so why can't you -- "

" -- I just want to -- "

" -- just give me a straight -- "

" -- make it clear that -- "

" -- answer for once?"

" -- I'm into Geno!" I clamped my hand over my mouth. I didn't just say that. I didn't just say that. I didn't just say that out loud. James's eyes were wide, a piece of bacon hanging out of the side of his mouth. "I'm into Geno," I repeated quietly, pulling my hand away. "A lot." We were silent for a moment.

"Oh, that makes sense," James said softly, slumping back in his seat. "I mean, you guys hang out a lot, and you have so much in common, and he is Geno -- mysterious, foreign -- "

"Stop, James," I cut him off, reaching forward and grabbing his arm. "You're a great guy, and you're certainly nicer to me than Geno is. I just -- I can't explain it." I let go of his arm and sat back. "There are a million and a half girls in the world who would kill to eat breakfast for dinner at some random diner with you." Wasn't that the truth.

He just shrugged and pushed the remainder of his omelette around on his plate. "But the one girl I want, wants my teammate."

"If it makes you feel any better, he doesn't want anything to do me with like that, either." At that, James chuckled.

"What a fucked up love triangle this is, right?" I laughed, too.

"You can say that again."