She was exhausted, but he didn’t need to know that. The least professional thing she could do was to complain about how tired she was. Smiling weakly in response to his own, Karen felt her stomach drop just slightly when he offered to leave her alone. Alone was not a good place for Karen to be right now. Not when it meant her thoughts had to go to all the negative things happening in her life right now outside of work. “No.” Karen said quickly. “No, you’re fine. I don’t mind the company.” Scooting her chair back, Karen got to her feet. “I just need to get some coffee. You want any?” Karen reached out to put her hand on his shoulder to give it a small squeeze as she walked past him, letting it slide off of him once she was out of reach.
“Coffee sounds nice.” He said softly, “I’m pretty tired, myself.” He smiled at the hand on his shoulder and covered it with his own for a moment to give it a squeeze. Following her out into the hall, he leaned his hip against the door jamb. “What have you been getting up to lately, besides this?”
He felt guilty sometimes, when Karen let work stress her out. After all, it was in some ways his fault, being her boss. At least he wasn’t putting any disproportionate burden on her, and Matt knew she knew that.
He realized too late that he may have asked something of a dangerous question, should it be turned back to him. What could he possibly say? I joined our local fight club, and I just can’t get enough. His free time was spent almost exclusively protecting the streets of Hell’s Kitchen, but telling Karen that put her at great risk.
