Impressions

"Hey!" I walked up to the table where James was sitting, waiting for me.  Our schedules at work usually conflicted now, so we didn't see each other often.

He stood up and enveloped me in a hug, kissing my cheek.  Then he pulled my chair out for me before sitting back down in his seat.  "Aleah, such a sight for sore eyes."  I rolled mine.

We briefly caught up, acknowledging that while I was in a relationship, James was once again single.  Never were we single at the same time.  We each ordered food and he dove right in for what to expect for the interview, what they were hiring for, and details about the actual position.  As we concluded our food, he finished with, "And please, for the love of all that is holy, if you truly do not know the answer to a question, do not ramble pointlessly.  It's painful.  That's a great moment for you to admit you don't know everything but that you're a quick learner."

I chuckled, "Got it.  Admit I'm not perfect."

"Close, but not quite."  He grinned.

He picked up lunch.  We were waiting for the waitress to return with his credit card, when I heard my name being softly called behind me.

I turned and saw Victoria standing there.  She shyly looked past me at James, then met my eyes.  Sheepishly, she said, "I'm a little early, sorry."

I had made plans with Victoria to go shopping/walk around downtown after lunch with James, and told her where I'd be and about when I'd be done.  I quickly looked at my phone, seeing that she was actually on time, our lunch was just going a little late.

"It's okay.  We were just finishing up."  The waitress dropped off the book then, and James filled out the receipt.  I stood up.  "Oh, and Victoria, this is my friend James, James, this is Victoria."

James stood and clasped Victoria's hand.  "It's a pleasure to meet you, Victoria.  Aleah never mentioned she had such a beautiful friend."

I rolled my eyes behind his back.  But Victoria was feeding right into it and giggled like a high schooler.  I noted she was blushing.  "Oh thank you.  But the pleasure is all mine!"

We walked out of the restaurant.  James pulled me into a tight hug, saying bye.  He told Victoria it had been nice meeting her, and he left.

Victoria and I started walking, in awkward silence, down the sidewalk, looking for a shop to go browse in.

"Sooo..." she started.  "Are you and James good friends?"

I glanced at her and saw her staring straight ahead, but blushing.  "Sometimes."

I saw her steal a quick glance at me, and she laughed.  "What does that even mean?"

I sighed.  "Well, we go in waves of talking and not talking.  We work together at the Racquet Club, but we've been friends since I started there.  Sometimes we are closer than others."

She then made eye contact at me.  "Did you two ever date?"

"Uh, no."  I raised an eyebrow at her.  "Why?"

She tried to hide her smile, but couldn't.  "Because he's hot!  And I'm single now... but, you know... given our history I don't want to immediately start off by stepping on your toes by maybe developing a slight crush on someone you may have dated."

"That's a very valid point."  I laughed out loud, but internally felt torn.  "I have no claim on him. Besides, I'm dating someone and am very happy."

She seemed to get even more excited.  "Oh, yeah! That detective guy, right?"

I grinned.  "Yeah, that detective guy."

We went in and out of several small shops downtown.  Our conversation actually flowed pretty naturally, and after the first awkward silence, we didn't have any.  I could see why Luke actually liked being around each of us.  We were pretty similar, after you got past Victoria's rough edges.  We liked a lot of the same music and types of movies and books.  Plus, we enjoyed a lot of similar activities.

"Oh, lets stop in at the bookstore," Victoria said.  "I've had quite a bit of down time and want to find a new series to read."

I shrugged.  "Okay."

We entered and browsed around.  She was reading the back of a book and I was glancing at titles, to see if anything struck my interest when I saw someone come down the aisle towards us.

I looked up, and froze, in surprise.