Page 71 of Error Handling
“She’s worried. You know how she gets.”
“Unfortunately.” I rub my forehead. “Let me know if it gets worse. I don’t trust Mom not to embellish it.”
“She will. That’s Mom.”
Kahlil walks in and salutes me. I return the gesture. “Keep me posted. I can come home if you need me.”
“No worries. We’re fine here.”
“If things get worse, I want to know.”
We hang up as Kahlil pulls a chair from my table. Its metal legs shriek against the commercial tiles.
“So, how’s the side project going?” Kahlil sits down and makes himself comfortable, leaning back with one elbow anchored on the table and the opposite leg outstretched.
I gave Kahlil minimal details about my job at Sarah’s. I left out all details of our more personal encounters, and I sure won’t tell Kahlil about last night’s handholding, or about last night’s...
Date.
As much as I told myself it was just a favor for Sarah’s boss, it felt like more than that. I know I upset her when I was vague about it in the truck, but she recovered and we had a nice talk on the ride home about the tour and about how we both love Charleston with all its charm, history, and its rumors of ghosts and hauntings.
But, yes, it was a date. A very good one. And if I’m not careful, soon I’ll be “dating.”
“The repair work is going slowly,” I say. “The subfloor is worse than I realized, and I shouldn’t have agreed to refinish the hardwoods. The vinyl is glued down, and Sarah has only scraped off about two-thirds of it.”
“But you couldn’t resist her big brown eyes when she asked you to refinish the floor?”
I shrug. A smile teases my lips. “Maybe.”
Kahlil laughs again. “You better watch out. Next thing you know you’ll have a mortgage, and kids with poopy diapers, and a wife telling you to do all kinds of chores around the house.”
“It’s not that serious,” I say.
Kahlil leans forward with both elbows on the table, opposite hand on the opposite elbow. “You think you can hide your emotions behind those puppy dog eyes of yours, but you’re not as good as you think.”
I look down at a crumb of potato stuck to the side of my glass container. While pondering how much I want to share with Kahlil, I grab my fork and deposit the crumb into my mouth, swallow it, and with my eyes still focused on the glass, I say, “I like her.”
“How much?” Kahlil asks.
“I don’t know. A cubic foot’s worth?” I look up at my friend.
“How much do you like her?”
“As much as I can for how long I’ve known her.”
Kahlil leans back in his chair again and crosses his arms. “Howmuch?”
“Is this a criminal interrogation?”
“No, it’s a counseling session. I have important letters after my name.”
“Like ‘J’ and ‘R?’”
“I have my daddy’s name.”
“That doesn’t qualify you to be a counselor.”
“I have three younger sisters. If that doesn’t qualify me, I don’t know what does.”