I Don't Want to Fall in Love... With You

The day after Anya seduced me in my office, I was back there, wishing she'd do it again.

I was writing up the monthly turnovers when a knock sounded on my door. Silently pleading it not be Anika, I was only slightly relieved when the voice projecting from behind it was male.

"Quincy, open up for your pal!"

"Jeremy?" I was befuddled, surely it couldn't be...

Yet, when I opened the wooden panel, I couldn't be mistaken. There stood a man, only a couple inches shorter than me, somehow looking younger than when I saw him last.

He was dressed casually, as always. From the Gucci necklace to the white Vans he sported on his feet. Nothing about him had changed.

He catapulted us into a bro-hug and then sidestepped around me into the office. He whistled as he caught sight of my certification plaques.

"Somebody sure has climbed the ladder since we last saw each other. I heard you own like a quarter of the company, impressive!" He grinned madly.

I struggled to form any sense of words. It'd been years since I'd seen hide or hair of him, believing he'd left the city behind him and retreated to the countryside like he'd always dreamed of. At least, that's what Alyson had told me, confessing that he felt suffocated here and wanted to be somewhere else; somewhere brighter. Of course she'd known, they'd been inseparable.

I ached thinking about her and how upset she'd be with my current actions, but I had to put her to the back of my mind for the time being and focus on my old friend.

I never expected to see Jeremy again, never mind talk like he never left.

"Kate and my little cornflake were understanding. I'm back home, with my favorite ladies in the world and it's all so perfect." Laughing manically, without a care in the world, was not how I pictured he'd be.

Frankly, I hoped he'd never come back, with him gone Anya was finally developing, shaping into the wonderful lady I knew she could be.

A woman I was constantly drooling over, and wishing I didn't.

Conflict was nothing compared to what I was feeling when it came to her. She was young, beautiful and had her full life ahead – so what the fuck was I doing?

I must be crazy.

"So, tell me, Mr Big Shot... aside from conquering the world, what's been going on with you?"

I could tell him a hundred truths, but nothing compared to the weight of what I was doing with his daughter.

And I could never confess that. It sounded sick if he took it out of context, like I was a predator staking claim on his "cornflake". And I wasn't like that, my and Anya's relationship was purely consensual, I'd never pressure her into anything she wasn't comfortable with. I was a grown man, not a hormonal-driven teenage boy.

But, in the eyes of the law, she wasn't an adult. It made me even more confused about what we were when it came to that. I didn't see her as a kid, she was wise and mature, and she had to be.

Because of him. He abandoned his family, so she had to resort to picking up the pieces and, as a result, she had grown up fast. Maybe that's another reason why I didn't feel as guilty as I should.

Besides, I was done with beating myself up. I hadn't seduced or harassed her, what happened with us may not be deemed as appropriate, but I wasn't going to apologise for being human. Sometimes, there's just a person who walks into your life, at the right time.

"Nothing much, just working and making sure Emily stays in school."

He plopped himself down on a futon, as I perched on the one opposite. It wasn't till he started talking again that I remembered he was on the exact spot Anya was earlier today.

"Always with the grades, that one. You brought her up amazingly." He swallowed. "Alyson would be proud."

I nodded, trying to steer clear from talking about my dead spouse. It wasn't exactly a subject anyone randomly brought up.

She and Jeremy had been best friends since high school and, as luck had it, got accepted into the same college and worked together in the same firm. From the moment she and I begun dating, I was aware that they came as a package. Fortunately for her, I ended up counting him as someone my door would always be open for.

So, when she got ill, he was more broken than I was. The woman he'd spent half his life with wasn't going to survive and he acted out. He quit providing for his family and abandoned them to take time out for himself.

I didn't have a problem with that. Everybody grieves differently, I wouldn't condone the way I coped, either.

Obviously, whenever he was around, she was all that occupied my mind. That wasn't healthy, so I didn't look forward to being in his company.

"Since Kate has been pretty... distant," He licked his lips, hands clasping tight on his creased jeans. "Has Anya been doing okay? She didn't exactly roll out the welcome mat at the house."

He was visibly hurt, but I pretended not to notice and instead focused on his inquiry.

"Yeah, I believe so. She's transformed into an amazing young woman." I cleared my throat, although I was begging to scratch my chin, which he knew was my tell.

He grunted.

"She's stronger, more confident than before. I always remember her being timid and awkward." He laughed it off, but it was clear it was strained.

I tried copying, but found that, even though he'd been gone for years now, I could never lie to his face.

Instead I got up and fixed us each a glass of whiskey. My hand shook lightly, clanging the bottle against the rim louder than estimated. When I looked over my shoulder, thankfully it seemed like Jeremy barely registered it.

"Thank you for taking care of her. She needs a good male role model in her life."

I almost choked on my sip. Coughing, I turned to him, but he just raised an eyebrow, completely oblivious as per usual.

I cleaned my chin with the inside of my arm, handing him his glass.

"Yeah, of course. She's great."

I saw out the corner of my eye, as I reclaimed my spot on the sofa, that he grinned. The same way he used to all those years ago, but I hated that he did it in reaction to a (somewhat) lie.

"It's like she has two dads, eh?"

My God, just stab me to death while you're at it.

In the end, I made a sound close to a laugh and finally we began chatting about his life. Turns out, he did move to the country, now owned his own dairy farm and wanted to pull Anya out of school to go away and live with him there.

My eyebrows furrowed.

Before I had the chance to voice my thoughts, Anika came bustling in through the door, carrying an armload of paperwork. She winked at both of us before striding back out, leading to this being shortest encounter I had ever had with her.

Huh, maybe Jeremy should stop by more regularly, I teased myself.