She was at it again. Doing what I loved and hated all at once. Being completely sexy and desirable yet closed off and unobtainable all at once. We were at Norah's, the magazine we both worked for at the time, but somehow I was working and she was lying her head down on my shoulder.
"I don't know what it is about you but you are so comfy whenever I touch you," she said in her deep, country accent.
"I can say the same for you too," I said back.
"Mmm, I swear I could just fall asleep."
"With me or on me?"
"Heh. You're silly, Jerome."
"Yeah, keep telling yourself that, Lydia."
Somehow I tried to keep convincing myself that I didn't want this woman who was everything I wouldn't pick out in a lineup. She was short-haired blonde, a double no with me; she was my height, 5"9', another no no since I usually like my girls a little shorter than me; she was country as all hell and listened to Alan Jackson and Travis Tritt, music I couldn't stand; and no matter how many things I could put on a list of dislikes I would look into her eyes, that were so sky blue they were almost clear, and I would forget everything off-putting about her. Then I always looked at the bigger picture and realized that she actually was sexy, from her just right chest to her wide hips ("I have a black girls' ass," she always told me, "It's too big." To which I always replied, "Not if you ask a black man.") to that mesmerizing smile. Man, that SMILE. It looked like a dentists' wet dream gift wrapped in Estella Warren's lips; true brilliance.
And everyday that I saw her for the first time it always started off the same way. I would see her, say her name, she would pause in her tracks, turn around to me, smile that oh so beautiful smile and greet me with wide open arms. We ended up in these long-standing half-a-minute hugs, rocking back and forth just chit-chatting away as people walked by. And she always smelled so good! You recognize things like that holding on to someone for long enough five days a week.
Back to that day.
"Seriously, Lydia, don't you think you should be working on your story instead of slumping down here with the designer?"
"I don't know, maybe. But you aren't in my hole so I'm in here."
So many sexual comments ran through my mind with that one.
"Besides, you're working on the layout for my feature anyway so I figured that you're the best person to work with right now."
"But I do the layout for the whole magazine."
"Well, I know my feature better look better than everyone else's then."
"You know, if you weren't so hot I might think you were ordering me around."
"Jerome, you know we're friends. I would never do that."
"I have a list of things you wouldn't do with me."
"Oh really? And how do you know?"
I shrugged my shoulders and continued my cropping on the computer screen.
"Well alright then. Don't assume you know everything."
The discussion, if you can call it that, was over that quickly. Her head was back on my shoulder, close enough to smell just about every scent on her. I hated that she made me want her so much without trying but I loved the attention. It wasn't even like I was starving for it though. I'm not ugly and I got a fair amount of flirting done on a daily basis with just about every woman on my floor... but I loved what she did for me. Honestly, I don't think I ever saw her hugging any guys other than me and she went to lunch with me pretty consistently. I'm sure it was the fact that she gave me so much of her time that kept me in her orbit but the strange thing is that outside of work we barely spoke. On a couple of occasions I brought her Starbucks after calling her in the morning and I could probably count on both hands the number of times we spoke or text on the phone after hours.
But at work was entirely different. 1/3 of my texts were to or from her during work hours and it would be more except for the fact that any time she wasn't writing me, she was with me. We even took pictures together. We would break out the phones or every few weeks she would bring her camera in so we could bullshit throughout the day. I even had a picture of her for my phone wallpaper.
It was confusing because if we were going to be just friends, why couldn't we at least hang out when we left at night? She would always tell me she was sore in hopes that I would rub her neck or anywhere else on her body that seemed to ail her. She never objected to me holding her when she worked at her own desk and then there were the meetings.
We always sat next to each other at every meeting, which never started out as an issue, despite our minor contact each time. On one occasion I think we started crossing a line midway through our Editor In Chief, Rachel's briefing. We started off innocently enough sitting in the conference room with Lydia in front of me. Something compelled me to reach out and touch her hair to which she replied, "don't stop." I did as requested and started to stroke her hair over and over. Eventually Rachel broke us up after Lydia was found lying in my lap, almost asleep, feet on the desk and my hands playing in her hair like we were at home watching a movie. That's about when the rumors started, or at least when everyone could confirm thoughts they had on their own.
Problem is none of the rumors were true...no matter how much I wanted them to be. Dudes would come up to me daily and congratulate me for sleeping with her, then when I told them we were just friends they just approached her themselves. But like clockwork, she would brush them off in order to come be with me. I would have started blowing her off because of the confusion but she looked so good next to me everyday. Okay, so that part was my own doing but seriously, how many straight men don't like beautiful women hanging around them? Take your time thinking of that low number. I'll wait...
"So Jerome, why don't you have a girlfriend?"
"Because you won't be mine."
"You're cute darlin'. I'm serious, I wanna know."
"That wasn't serious?"
"I mean, I think you're a good looking guy and you're smart as hell. I'm just trying to figure out why you're not with anyone."