This is part 1 of a work friend I had… it’s a slow burn, hope you enjoy:

I used to work with this white guy who was really cool. I called him White Boy Todd. Not to his face, of course. We would shoot the shit in between work tasks and meetings, and sent jokes back and forth on the in-office messenger. Shit like that. We had a small group of coworkers on our floor that we would go out for drinks with every week but he was definitely my favorite. I looked forward to those drinks out with him every week. I was keeping it strictly platonic but I thought he was cute for a white boy. There was always this look in his eye like he knew something everyone else didn’t.

One Friday at work, I sent a message to my happy hour crew asking who was down for drinks. One after another, everyone in our little group confessed to having plans with significant others and random Bumble dates. Whatever. Then I heard the soft ding of a new private message. It was White Boy Todd.

“I’m down if you’re down.” I hit the thumbs up on the message, I smirked to myself, and got back to work. When 4pm rolled around, I found myself excited about drinks with White Boy Todd. I grabbed my stuff and headed towards the elevator. “I knew you’d be down,” White Boy Todd whispered behind me. I turned to see him closing the door of his office and flashed him a quick smile. “I just didn’t want you to be lonely. A man drinking alone is a sad sight.” He chuckled then playfully bumped his shoulder into mine as we walked onto the elevator.

I leaned up against the wall and looked at my phone while watching him out of the corner of my eye. He was looking at me. I averted my eyes out of embarrassment. He noticed the swiping motion I was doing on my phone and asked which app I was on. That caught me by surprise. He could tell I was on a dating app. “Tinder,” I answered as I put my phone in the back pocket of my jeans. “I haven’t been lucky lately. Maybe I need to take a break.” He raised his eyebrows at me. “Maybe you are already lucky enough,” he said.

My eyes darted to lock with his. “What does that mean?,” I asked. “Nothing,” he said. “I’m just talking.” He pulled his phone out and started texting. I rolled my eyes at his attempt at flirting. When we got to the bottom floor and walked out of the building, I started walking towards our normal spot. White Boy Todd stopped me with his hand on my shoulder. “Let’s go somewhere else since its just us. I know a place on Jackson. Not too far for you, is it?” I gave him a quick up and down look and said, “sure.”

We walked for about 20 minutes, airing out our complaints from the work week the whole way. We got to the bar he suggested where we were met with the sight of other like minded people having their own after work respites. I grabbed us a table and he asked what I’m drinking. “Hmm. An old fashioned.” He nodded and headed off to the bar. I watched him closely from the back as he walked. His polo shirt stretched across his back showing off the muscles in his shoulders and his arms. I’ve never looked at White Boy Todd’s muscles before. I didn’t notice their existence until that day. As he walked back towards me, my eyes traveled down to the front of his jeans but I was scared to linger so I looked away. He sat my drink down and I thanked him.

“What did you get?,” I asked. He sipped his neat drink and the word, “cognac,” slipped from his lips and into my ears.

“I didn’t know you liked brown,” I said while taking sip of my own drink…

—- Stay tuned for part 2