The Tension's Like a Fire

Jodi felt the words hit her hard, and she still wasn’t sure what to do or say. She just continued staring at him, horrified and appalled that he’d actually had the common sense to seek her out. Maybe she’d let her guard down too much that morning and given too much information away. After all, she had thought he was totally harmless and a sweet guy.

But then again, that was before she found out who he really was. She’d only had an hour for the news to sink in, but it was still sitting on the surface, as hard to swallow as ever. As many times as she tried to tell herself that she wasn’t a fool, that she had no way of knowing who he really was when he made no indications, she still couldn’t convince herself to believe her words.

“She’d love to go!” Pat agreed, turning her lightly wrinkled face over to Jodi and winking. Like she was doing Jodi a favor by accepting on her behalf. Which certainly wasn’t going to fly with the redhead.

“I would not,” Jodi protested, finally finding her voice. She turned back to Jay, whose face was turning redder by the second. “I don’t want to go to a Halloween party with you. I hate Halloween.” Which was the furthest thing from the truth. She adored making her Halloween costumes, making them as frightening as possible. Revealing costumes were never for her: she liked to be a zombie that really looked like it crawled straight out of a six-feet-under grave.

Pat gave her a confused look, since she knew about Jodi’s undying love for the creepiest holiday, but Jodi refused to let her face give her away.

“Oh, that’s alright,” Jay insisted, forcing a fake-looking smile onto his face. “We could do something else. Coffee, maybe? Unless you have some kind of PTSD from the morning.”

Jodi felt her face heat up as she shook her head again. “No, I don’t want to go to coffee with you. As a matter of fact, I don’t want to go anywhere with you. Now please, leave.”

Jodi felt her stomach churn slightly at her overt rudeness, but she felt she had no other choice. It was obvious that Jay was the kind of guy who tried to find the best in everyone, and so he’d just keep trying and trying and trying to win her over until he got some blunt, if cruel, feedback.

Since Jodi’s shift was over, she finally stormed out, passing by him while being careful not to touch him. Pat called after her, probably apologizing to Jay for her employee’s rude behavior and explaining that Jodi wasn’t always like that and probably had a rough day. They were words Jodi wasn’t interested in hearing, and so she just focused on putting one foot in front of the other.

“Jodi, wait!” a male voice beckoned down the sidewalk, sending shivers up Jodi’s spine. “Please, just talk to me for a second!”

“What part of no don’t you understand?” Jodi snapped back as she turned around. Thankfully, the street was mostly deserted, so the two arguing adults weren’t attracting any unwanted attention.

“It’s not the no I don’t understand, trust me,” Jay explained as he walked closer to Jodi, as if approaching a wild animal on the verge of stampeding. “What I don’t understand is what happened. One second, we were having fun and making geeky jokes at each other, and the next minute, you’re ignoring me. Did I do something or say something to offend you? If I did, I didn’t mean to, and I’m sorry.”

“It’s nothing you did or said,” Jodi rushed. She wanted to be absolutely anywhere in the world just then other than where she was standing. “I just don’t want anything to do with you, okay? So I’d appreciate if you’d leave me alone before I get the cops involved.”

“C’mon, please,” Jay begged, hurrying up his steps to catch up with the retreating redhead. “The truth is, I have shit luck with girls. You’re the first one that’s even given me a chance, and now I’ve gone and screwed that up, too. If you don’t want to tell me then you don’t have to, but I just wish that you could let me use this as a learning experience of just rejecting me and crushing my soul.”

It was obvious the last bit was supposed to be Jay’s last grasp at humor to try to diffuse the situation, but it just made the girl more irritated. She let out a breath and stopped in her tracks, looking him dead in the eye. And that was when she saw the really hurt twinkle in his eyes, kind of like a puppy that had been kicked so many times that he didn’t know what was okay to do anymore. He really did feel like shit for their flirting to have gone so haywire.

And, after all, she kind of did owe him. He gave her a new shirt, made her coffee, and listened to her well enough to figure out where she worked. Maybe she would just have to shove her discrimination out of the way for a few minutes until she could tell him, as calmly as possible, to his face how she really felt.

“Fine,” she breathed, rubbing the back of her neck to try to calm herself down. “I’ll go out to coffee with you. But just this once.”

His face brightened as he nodded toward the opposite direction. “C’mon, I know just the place.”