Overcoming Fear (Growing Pains #2) (17 page)

“
I was. Am. I didn’t seek
it out. It was just--someone asked and I wondered, is all. It
wasn’t a conversation or anything.”

“Why were they asking you?” now he was
antagonistic.

She felt like he was backing her into a
corner. She also felt tears come to her eyes.

Something tore apart in her chest and her
breathing started to get labored. She couldn’t look at his focused,
fervent eyes. She felt weak and vulnerable. She felt like the girl
that Jim screwed over.

She was pretty sure this was over-the-top
behavior, but she wasn’t quite sure she’d earned it by asking
something as simple as if he was seeing someone. That wasn’t really
top secret stuff.

Again, and they said
women
were
irrational?

“Look, I’m sorry.” she
wiped the tear from her eye. “We made a deal. Your sex life is none
of my business. I had a moment of curiosity, and now I have
regained my senses. If you wouldn’t mind, can we talk about
work?”

Seeing her distraught, Sean backed off. He
didn’t warm up, though.

Krista went through the meeting and the
bluffs at the end. Through the whole thing Sean gave her a hard
stare. By the end she wanted to curl up and die.

When Krista was finishing up his phone rang.
He pushed divert after he read who it was, and then turned back to
her, his eyes emerald ice. “Thank you. Do you have anything
else?”

“No.”

He nodded. She was excused. Bad ending to a
bad meeting.

That night, Krista grabbed her running garb
and took to the beach. She pushed herself to the point of pain,
desperately wanting to feel something other than heartache. She
blacked out her mind and let the crashing of the waves carry her
thoughts away.

It wasn’t until she found
herself slowing down in front of Sean’s house that she realized she
wanted to fix this
thing
that went wrong. She wanted to clear the air.
They’d always had open communication, and she would use it
now.

She found herself crossing the street in
determination before she realized his blinds were open. And the
light was on. And he was standing at the window looking out!

She just about dove behind a parked car to
hide. Laughing at her own creep factor, she continued to cross the
street, waiting for him to look down and notice her. Friendship and
only friendship was better than this half-life she was living. She
would bring up the issue about keeping her a secret and work out a
compromise. There had to be a way.

When she was in the middle of the street,
still looking up at him, he turned away. It took two more steps to
realize he turned toward someone. One more revealed it was a woman.
A pause and a jaw drop saw him kissing her.

She nearly choked on her heart. The pain was
as terrifying as it was unexpected. They were laughing and talking
and having a merry ol’ time. Krista, in the middle of the street,
continued to stare. Apparently she didn’t actually think it was
another woman earlier today; she’d thought his tiredness had some
other explanation. Apparently she was a freaking moron!

Her heart imploded and her chest sunk in. A
horn blared.

She about-faced, stared down the car as if
she wasn’t stupidly standing in its way, and took herself back to
the path. Her body already hurt a little, but when she started
sprinting, it hurt all that much more.

The pain couldn’t compare with seeing Sean
choose someone else.

Chapter Eleven

The next morning she woke up with a
startling epiphany: She loved Sean.

All her efforts pushing him
away didn’t matter. Her desire for self-preservation didn’t matter.
Knowing what he was, how he acted with women, knowing that he would
probably use her and leave her didn’t undo the fact that seeing him
with someone else,
happy
with someone else, led to waking up this morning
feeling like she couldn’t breathe. It felt like her chest was a
gaping hole, pressure pushing out from the inside.

But it wasn’t fair of her to begrudge him
happiness because of her unfulfilled feelings. She’d pushed him
away, rejected him, said goodbye and dumped her past on him. Why
wouldn’t he turn to someone else? And if Krista truly did love him,
she’d need to be supportive of his happiness. No matter how much it
sucked.

She pretended not to notice last night’s
hastily made voodoo doll as she held her chin up and walked to the
shower with purpose. She would beat this hurt and be there for
Sean, as a friend should. As she would do for Kate or Jasmine.

“Krista?!
What are you doing?!”

Ben was looking at her aghast. He quickly
shielded his eyes.

She registered a draft.

She marched back into her room with purpose,
then returned wearing a robe. She probably needed to continue to
focus on the details of life instead of just the big emotional
stuff…

In the office she got some
coffee, did some work, and went to Sean’s office. Her neck was
getting sore from holding her chin up, but dang it, she would be
happy for him if it killed her. She would rebuild their friendship
and get over these failed hopes.
So
there!

Sean had a polo shirt on that showed those
glorious pecs and big broad shoulders. Krista salivated, as she
always would, and didn’t feel badly about it. She would be
friendly, and only friendly. Like in the beginning. She would not
touch him inappropriately, or get caught staring at any of his
bulges.

“Hey Captain,” she said with a smile as she
walked in.

He looked up and his face went from pleased,
to confused, to a frown. “Hey, Krista. Anything wrong?”

Anything wrong?
Had she gotten so tired and jaded with work that
when she smiled people thought she was about to unload a
nine-millimeter?

“No. Just thought I would pop in and say
hello. Haven’t properly talked to you in a while.”

“Oh,” Sean said, confusion evident. “You
seem happy.”

“Yeah, you know, tired but
happy. Can’t let life keep you down.”
Was
the thumbs-up absolutely needed?

She got another frown for that comment, or
possibly the nerd flag above her head. His eyes probed hers, like
he sensed a trap.

She laughed at him. “Is it so rare to see me
in a good mood?”

He slowly shook his head, still trying to
figure out what had changed. Little did he know it was her trying
to change for him. If left up to her real desires, she would be
throwing something at his head and keying his car.

“
You ready for our
meeting?” he asked with a semblance of normalcy.

“Been ready. Still have a mountain of work,
but I sent another list of requests to my dear friend Mr.
Montgomery, so we’ll see how that works out.”

“The big test, huh?”

“Exactly. And seriously a test, because I
could have sent it to anyone to do, but I am following protocol, so
we’ll see. I almost hope he f’s-up so I can yell at him.”

Sean smiled. This time it was genuine. He
was coming back, slowly.

There was a beat where neither knew what to
say. The silence lengthened. It turned out the reconciliation
wasn’t going as easily as Krista had expected. Apparently the
bridge over the great divide had a lot of stones.

“Well, anyway,” she said. No sense building
it all at once. The mortar needed to set on the first pass. “Just
thought I would say hi. I need to get back to the grindstone, as it
were.”

“Sure, Krista. No problem.” Sean hadn’t
looked away.

She winked at him, laughed at herself, and
headed out, passing Ben on his way in. She gave him a smile, a
hello, and a high-five. She hadn’t seen the guy in forever it
seemed like—well, except for the naked incident earlier.

He looked just as confused by her change in
behavior as Sean did.

“Jesus. Can’t a girl be happy without
everyone thinking she’s ready to jump off the Golden Gate?”

Ben just stared after her.

She made sure to walk around the company
more often that day. She visited Marcus, who asked who her new
booty-call was. Judy asked a similar question before asking her
opinion on some things, and Camille in Research ventured a few
words.

Krista also went to the break room more
often to get her face out there. She chatted with Tommy, who was
still with that girlfriend, and said hello and chatted with as many
people as she could. All of it was to try for normalcy and social
etiquette, but also because she wanted people to like her so Mr.
Montgomery couldn’t keep alive any rumors of her being a bitch. So
far it was going well, because no one liked Mr. Montgomery already,
so they wouldn’t want to believe anything he said.

The next day was Friday and she had nothing
to do for the weekend. Stupid Jasmine met some idiot, and Kate was
on another date. The girls’ advice to find someone of her own was
great and all, but doing that without a wingman was not going to
happen.

It was four o’clock when she massaged her
neck and looked at the clock. She was spent. Her work was an uphill
battle all the way, and she barely had a handle on it. The problem
was, she could barely focus anymore. Her eyes were bleary and her
brain was fuzzy. In a wild impulse, she decided to duck out early.
If anyone had a problem with it, they were welcome to fire her.

She’d probably be relieved.

She was already downtown and she had nowhere
to be, so she figured she would go shopping. That finished, and
after a couple cute items were purchased, she went to the nearest
bar that looked halfway decent and had a beer. Alone. Like the
loser she had turned into.

It was then she saw it—a flyer with the same
logo she had seen on Sean’s computer a couple times when she’d
asked him about work items. She’d never really given it much
thought at the time, being that it was an email and she was
half-afraid it was more work, but now, seeing the same image in a
bar…well, that was odd, now wasn’t it. That couldn’t have anything
to do with their work load.

Commence stalking.

She got up quickly and had a look.

On closer inspection, it turned out the logo
was for a theatre house in the Mission that specialized in newer
and unheard-of plays. Either Sean was dating a girl there, or he
was in it. Being that the show was already in production, and Sean
had only been leaving on time for about two weeks, there was no way
Sean could be in it. Krista wasn’t an actor, but even an idiot knew
there was rehearsal time, set construction time, dress rehearsals,
etc.

But if Sean wasn’t in it, that meant he’d
been leaving early to help someone, or to see someone’s
performances. Like a good boyfriend would.

She hoped he was in it, and that his new
relaxed persona was an acting high. Since that it was only slightly
far-fetched, she went with it. Being in creepy stalker mode, it
meant she also had to check it out.

Getting to the Mission from the Financial
District was easy and effortless. She grabbed a bus that dropped
her off right in front of the theatre, then loitered around the
area for about a half hour until it was safe to go in unnoticed. If
Sean was watching his chick, she didn’t want him to see her sneak
in, which meant she needed to go in after the place was already
humming with patrons. If he was in it, she didn’t want him looking
out from behind the curtain and catching her stalking.

Bottom line, she was trying to be
sneaky.

At the ticket booth she didn’t see a price,
so she handed $20 to an over-enthused door woman.

“How much did you want to pay, sweetie?” The
pink-haired woman asked.

“Just one, please.”

She got a continued expectant look instead
of a ticket.

“One? Just me…”

“
You pay what you can
afford, sweets. We ask that you don’t pay less than $5, but it’s
your choice.”

“Oh.” Krista was taken aback a little. That
was cool. “Um, fifteen dollars?”

“Sure.”

The hallway in was narrow,
lined with ratty flyers crookedly pasted to the walls. The carpet
was old and stained, the walls had scuffs, and the lighting was
dingy. It certainly wasn’t like one of the many big theater houses
in San Francisco; it was much too raunchy. But then, it was the
Mission. There was always a certain
feel
to places in this part of town.
The fact that it still existed meant people kept coming back.
Hopefully that meant the play would be good. Or decent, at
least.

As she emerged from the hallway and rounded
the corner, her heart sank. The place was tiny. Shoebox tiny. As
in, there were probably only about twenty-five rows allowing for
about fifteen people to sit comfortably on each long, flat bench.
There weren’t even cushions on the benches. It was like an old,
wood grandstand in the little leagues.

And it was only half full. With the lights
at full blast.

How the hell was she supposed to be
incognito in a dress and heels, in full light, without anyone to
hide behind? She was the only one dressed up! She would’ve been
better off with a paper bag over her head if she wanted to go
unnoticed!

Like the idiot she was, she adhered to habit
and glanced up to see who was in the audience. She might as well
have hung a sign around her neck that announced her visit.

Bowing her head quickly, and then cursing
herself for looking guilty when she was supposed to be indifferent,
or distracted, or at the very least not paying attention, she made
a route up the steps, intending to aim for a cluster of people in
the back. If she was duck hunting, they’d be the tree blind.