Defense

I spent all day Sunday writing and then deleting texts to Elena. I talked it over with Ash and after finding out that Elena had spent the better part of Friday evening texting Jeff, it felt wrong not to tell her.

By lunchtime on Monday I had made the executive decision to tell Elena what I had walked in on. I knew that if I were Elena, I would want someone to tell me. So I was going to grow a pair and fess up. 

"Okay, so I have something to tell you," I began as we headed back to the office with salads in tow. 

"That sounds ominous," Elena replied, keeping her gaze fixed ahead of us. It was 1 p.m. on a Monday and the streets were appropriately packed with people milling about on their lunch hour. 

"So I came into the office on Saturday to get some work done," I started.

"Yes I saw, you overachiever. I had about five emails from you," she looked over at me with a smile. "What are you telling me to step up my game or something?" 

The left corner of my mouth curled up in a forced smile, "No, that's not it." 

A serious look came over Elena's face. "What? Did you overhear Tom talking about something bad?" her words were laced with fear with the mention of our boss' boss, who had laid off three people in the last few weeks. 

"No!" I replied hurriedly. "Ah, I walked in and saw Jeff making out with one of the interns," I spat out. 

Elena looked stunned, but kept walking. So I continued. "It was that editorial intern, Becca, you know the one who always wears those ridiculously short skirts? I thought it was you two when I saw so I just walked over..." 

"They were just kissing?" Elena asked, hopeful.

"Um, yeah technically but he had her up on his desk and her legs-" 

"So just kissing?" Elena interrupted.

"Yeah, I guess," I said, confused.

She let out a small snort and kept walking.

"What?" I lengthened my strides to keep up with her hurried pace. 

"Well you had me all worried that I was going to be fired or something Danielle," she said with what I detected to be a condescending tone. "Please. So you saw the guy I was casually seeing, what? Kissing a slutty intern? Who cares." 

"Oh," I said, stung. "I just thought you should know, that's all." Elena and I had never so much as disagreed on what to order for lunch, so I had no idea how to react to her putting up this defense. 

She shrugged as we approached our building. We walked in wordlessly and stepped into the elevators. The silence was awkward and heavy and I stared at the numbers willing them to go faster.

I sat down at my desk holding my mostly-forgotten caesar salad and was overcome with confusion. I had just seen a side of Elena that I had never been exposed to before, and I had no idea what to do next. I glanced over at her, eating her salad at her desk while answering emails. I wasn't sure if she had been so cold because she really liked Jeff or because she honestly believed I was being ridiculous. I didn't have much time to dwell on it though because we had a live Twitter chat happening at 2 p.m. Taking a deep breath, I tried my best to push the Elena/Jeff drama as far from my mind as possible.


When I got home that night, Ashley was already back from work. "Hey!" I said cheerfully, letting the weight of the door shut itself behind me. After the confrontation with Elena I was desperate for a friendly face.

"Hello my dear," Ash said, taking a bite of an apple. "I went grocery shopping!" 

"I can see," I said, taking note of the fresh baguette on the counter and the apple she was noshing on. 

"I'm cooking lasagna for dinner, so I hope you're hungry."

"I'm meeting Haley for drinks," I said with a frown. "But I'll bring my appetite home with me?"

"Fine, go out with other women and leave me here to slave over a hot stove," Ash said, tossing her hair dramatically over her shoulder.

I laughed, "Oh hush."

I quickly kicked off my pumps and threw on a pair of sandals to go meet Haley.

"Wait, how did telling Elena go?" Ash hollered from the kitchen, her voice cut off by the random banging of pots and pans.

"What are you doing in there?" I asked in response. 

"I can't find your casserole dish." I walked into the tiny kitchen to find her head and shoulders completely obscured by a cabinet.

"Here," I said, pulling open the drawer under the oven to expose the limited baking supplies I had. "I used it once, for a cake." 

"Ah ha! Thanks," she said, extracting the glass dish from my hands. "So, Elena?" 

"Ugh terribly," I said with a sigh. "All I did was tell her what I saw, and she acted like I was blowing it completely out of proportion."

"Really?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "She said about three sentences to me and then ignored my existence the rest of the day. Oh! But she did make a point of sitting on Jeff's desk and laughing with him for a solid five minutes around 4 p.m." 

"Weird," Ash said with a confused look.

"Very," I agreed. "It's like she had to prove it wasn't a big deal or something. I don't know. Anyway, I'm going to be late. Do you want to join, Martha?"

"No thanks," Ash said, turning her attention back to the task at hand. "I have culinary genius to create."

I laughed as I headed towards the door, "Looking forward to tasting said genius later!" 


We were halfway through our second beer and midway through the 8th reason Haley had about how compatible her and Joshua were, and I still hadn't gathered the courage to ask her about Keith. The more I thought about it, the sillier it seemed that I thought he was gay.

"And we both hate jalapenos which is definitely a sign," Haley said earnestly, capping up a tale about the time they accidentally ate jalapeno poppers.

"It sounds like you're really happy, Hal," I said sincerely. "And he's great."

"He is! And soon you'll be in this place, with Keith," she said, with an accompanied eyebrow wiggle. Now's your chance I told myself.

"Yeah, about that.." I trailed as Haley finished off her Sam Adams. "We've hung out a few times now and... I don't know..."

Haley grinned knowingly, "You think he's gay, right?" 

I felt my eyes grow as wide as my forehead, "Yes!" I blurted out. 

She laughed, "He comes off that way with girls, apparently," she said. "According to Josh at least. He's super shy at first, but definitely not gay." 

I breathed a sigh of relief. "It's not even that I thought he was gay, it just was so odd. He wouldn't even touch me. And when I slept over the other night, all we did was cuddle."

"He's a great guy," Haley said. "Give it a chance. Why don't you try making the first move?" 

I considered this, not opposed to the idea. Now that I knew he wasn't playing for the other team. "Maybe I will."

Haley held her drink up in a salute and I cheered my half-full beer to her empty one, maybe I had misread Keith all along.