Don't get me wrong: I've thought about fucking Margo plenty of times, and how could I not? She's fucking gorgeous, with those thick-rimmed glasses and that artfully messy dark hair that she lets cover most of her face. A thigh length, oversized yellow sweater, her slender legs going down all the way to a pair of motorcycle boots. She's got a body that it would take a month to explore, a sway in her walk that could make you dizzy, lips so juicy they could probably qualify as one of your five a day. So the truth is, as much as I think of her as just a great friend-intelligent, talented, and funny; someone who deserves to be thought of as more than just a body-it ain't always easy with a body like hers. Still, I manage.
"You ok?" I finally say.
It takes her a second to snap away from her screen and realize I'm talking to her.
"Huh? Oh … Yeah. I'm fine," she says, flashing a forced smile before quickly turning back to her computer.
I watch her for a few more seconds, peering at her screen like it's ten feet away, and consider just leaving her alone. Margo might be as hot as she was in college (hotter, probably) but that's about the only thing that hasn't changed. Somewhere along the line she gave up the parties, the drinking, the reckless fun. Now the only thing that's wild about her is her career ambitions. I suppose I should be grateful, since she's the one who got me the job here. But it's been pretty shitty watching her stop screwing and start dating guys long enough to recognize how many douchebags there are out there.
"Hey Margo," I say, and she turns around to me. "Do you have any idea why there's a bar set up in the studio downstairs?"
"No idea." She refocuses on her work, but I persist.
"Why don't you come down there with me and find out."
Margo smiles slightly and brushes her hair aside, exposing strong cheekbones for a second before her hair falls over them again.
"I'd love to. But I should really finish this piece."
I shrug. "Hey, we should all really be finishing something. But this is a bar at work. Maybe it's tequila day and nobody told us." She chuckles lightly and I can see a little of her bad mood breaking. I keep it going, leaning in a little as I lower my voice. "Come on, you know I'm not used to drinking without a good-looking girl beside me."
Margo leans back in her chair, smiling pearly teeth through thick lips at me. She crosses those bare legs and for a second I almost break eye contact.
"I know what you're doing … you heard me on the phone, right?" she says, still smiling, but I can tell she's at least a little self-conscious about it.
"I sit less than two feet away from you, you know."
"Then you know I'm not in the mood for tequila and fun," she says, but she's looking at me with those doe eyes and I see a challenge instead of a refusal.
"Come on," I say, looking at her closely. "What happened to the old Margo? She must be in there somewhere."
"She grew up and got a job-got you one, too."
"And I'm good at it," I say, pointing at her, "precisely because I know when to take a break. Which is what you need."
I take her hand from her thigh and stand up, tightening my grip a little instinctively at the brush of her soft skin. I tug her hand gently.
Margo looks between me and the computer screen like she's deciding which of us is the angel and which the devil, before throwing her palms up and getting out of her chair. We smile at each other conspiratorially for a second before moving back through the desks toward the elevators.
///
"Hey Owen," Margo says, once I press the button. I look at her. "Thanks," she says with a soft smile, her big green eyes looking down a little shyly. "I could use a friend right now."
"Come on," I say, as the elevator arrives, opens, and empties. "You're a gorgeous woman with a big, sexy brain and kick-ass fashion sense. Being single again is one of the best things that can happen to you. The hell are you doing getting into these long-term relationships for anyway? You've got too much hotness for just one guy."
"Thanks for the pep talk." She looks away, nodding a little, and lets out a sigh. "But it's not so much the being single part that annoys me," she says, enigmatically.
"What is it then?"
Margo stares at the closing elevator doors for a moment like she's lost and then says, "I don't know … I'm just … frustrated. And overwhelmed. With a lot of stuff. And Carl was very good at articulating all the ways in which I'm failing. Now that we're broken up, I feel like everything shitty he said about me was right."