Obsessing Over Everything

The first week went by quickly. I answered phones, took messages, and scheduled meetings. This was all stuff I was used to doing, and while I couldn’t say it was that exciting, I was highly entertained by watching everyone else interact. The agents were always on the move, always planning. There one minute, out the door the next. Despite the fact that I had entertainment when the agents were at the embassy, most of the day they would be gone. After a quick chat with Messina, I was allowed to spend that free time knitting. And so that Friday I brought in the project I was working on. It was very peaceful to knit, sometimes so peaceful that an agent would need to cough to get my attention. I would be slightly embarrassed. but they all seemed to understand how boring an office job could get.

Unsurprisingly, I really enjoyed any time I had to talk with Javi. I didn’t think much of it, but at lunch the other receptionists would either swarm me, trying to get details on how I got Javi to talk to me so much, or they would glare at me from afar. I didn’t get it. Javier talked to all of the girls, why did they care so much about me?

Lunch came and went, and the rest of that Friday went quickly. Messina was working late, which sadly meant that I needed to as well. While there wasn’t much to do, I would still have to sit at my desk, waiting for her to dismiss me. At around 8pm, she walked out to get coffee, and upon noticing me, urged me to go home. I thanked her and quickly packed my stuff up. As I was walking out, I heard someone calling after me.

“Y/N! Wait up!” I turned around to see Javier trying to catch up to me. I couldn’t help but smile when I saw him. “So… any plans for the weekend?” he asked.

“I know almost no one in Bogota. You think I have plans? I’m probably just going to grab a bottle of wine and watch a movie, maybe knit some more.”

“That reminds me, uh how do I say this…” he looked around to make sure we were alone and lowered his voice, “I really want to learn to knit.” My face lit up at the idea of him coming to me for advice on knitting.

“Ooh! That’s wonderful! I have some extra needles you can have, and I have plenty of yarn for you to borrow to start.” We exited the building, and I started heading to where my car was parked. He followed me.

“Thanks. Um, I was kind of hoping you could teach me? I could come over if you want. I’ll bring the wine.” He asked it as a question, allowing me the opportunity to turn him down. I thought for a moment. His reputation proceeded him. He was a womanizer, but I felt like he was different with me. Perhaps it was naïve, but I couldn’t help but agree.

“That sounds wonderful, but no funny business. I’m not ending my first week at my new job by sleeping with a coworker. How about we meet tomorrow night? How does six sound?”

“That sounds great. You do live in the apartments that are given to the office staff, right?”

“I do. Wait do you live there too?” He chuckled.

“Nah, I live in the building across the street. Steve lives above me.” I smiled.

“That sounds nice.” I stopped, noticing I had reached my car. “Well, this is my car. I better let you get to yours.” He smiled and I couldn’t help but reach up to give him a kiss on the cheek. I immediately felt him heat up and I did too. “I- uh…”

“Goodnight, Y/N.” He said as he placed a kiss to the top of my head. The action felt strangely much more intimate than my kiss. Perhaps it was because he never showed anyone at the office this side of him.

The entire drive home I couldn’t help but smile. I was giddy. My god, I was like a school girl with a crush. When I got to my apartment building and parked, I looked across the street at Javier’s building wondering what apartment might be his. I walked into my building and went up the two flights of stairs to my unit. After unlocking the door, I walked in and dropped my belongings unceremoniously on my dinner table. The rest of the night was spent with the tv on but being completely ignored as I thought back to the way Javi and I had parted ways. Eventually I showered before heading to bed. I couldn’t sleep, and it took everything in my power to stray away from some dirtier thoughts about Javier. I was not going to be another one of his conquests. I wanted friendship. Maybe even more. And if I was reading him correctly, he was in desperate need of an escape that didn’t include being between a woman’s legs.

The next morning, I couldn’t remember when I had fallen asleep. I did notice that I was incredibly tired and so I slept in. At around 11, I finally got out of bed. I made myself breakfast, pouring myself some cereal. It wasn’t exactly the healthiest, but it was quick and delicious. After breakfast, I got dressed and ran some errands. It wasn’t exactly exciting, but I needed to get more groceries.

The rest of the day was spent inside. It was ridiculously hot and humid, so I blasted the AC and opened all my windows. While it helped, I was still not used to the heat, so I ended up spending most of the day lying on the couch in my underwear. It was still light when I started getting ready to meet with Javier (I guessed meeting him in my underwear would be a little forward), but the sun was starting to set as I went to meet him downstairs. I realized I never gave him my apartment number, so I would have to wait for him to arrive. Five minutes before six, I went to stand outside the entrance to my building. I didn’t wait long, considering all he had to do was cross the street.

Almost at six on the dot, as the sun was truly setting and the sky was filled with hues of pink and orange, Javier walked out the door to his building, waving at me before quickly crossing the street. To any onlookers it probably looked like we were getting ready for a date, especially with me in a floral sundress, beaming at him. He wore his normal attire, jeans, a button up shirt that was not completely buttoned up, and his favorite leather jacket. When he reached me, I said a brief “hello” before leading him up the stairs to my apartment. I was really hoping not to be seen by any of the other office staff, but much to my luck, Victoria, one of the girls who was glaring at me at lunch the day before, was exiting her apartment (which was down the hall from mine) as I unlocked my door. She seemed shocked to see Javier and I together, but the shock quickly turned into her turning around, reentering her apartment, and slamming the door. I was embarrassed at being caught with Javier, especially considering our meetings were supposed to be secret, and I didn’t look at Javier until we were safely inside my apartment.

“What’s her problem?” I questioned, but I didn’t expect an answer.

“I may have fucked her in the evidence room once or twice…” Javier responded much to my dismay.

“I’m sorry, you what? You had sex with her, at the office no less, and then what?”

“I didn’t talk to her,” he quietly responded. Despite hearing him well enough, I pressed him.

“Sorry, I didn’t hear that.” He looked at me with annoyance clear on his face, but repeated it slightly louder this time. “Huh? What was that? Need you to speak a little louder.” He rubbed a hand against his forehead, and spoke a little above his normal volume this time.

“I didn’t talk to her! Look, I know it was rude. I just… I don’t do well with feelings.”

“Did you tell her ahead of time that you didn’t want a relationship?”

“I thought it was clear?”

“My God, you are helpless,” I took a breath and sat down on my couch, motioning for him to follow. “Javier, I’m not going to tell you not to sleep with whoever you want, I’m not on some moral high horse. But you have to at least communicate with people about what you want before you sleep with them.” I paused. “I will do my best to communicate with you. I do not want to have sex with you, and while I am open to romantic relationships in general, I am not actively looking for one. What I am hoping to get out of relationship is friendship. Is that okay with you?” I waited for him to respond. He was still standing besides the couch. He looked quite uncomfortable, as if trying to find an escape, but eventually he sat down.

“I…” He took a deep breath. “I think we are on the same page. Friends.” I smiled at him and he seemed to relax. “Are you sure about the sex part?” he teased.

“Javi. Don’t push it,” I chastised.

“Okay, okay.” He responded throwing his arms up in mock surrender.

“You brought the wine, right?” He pointed to a bottle he had placed on my table. “Great! Can you open it while I get our supplies?”

“Sure.” He responded, moving towards my kitchen. I walked out of my room with a basket of yarn, needles, and patterns just as he finished pouring two glasses of wine. “You know, I’m more of a whiskey guy, I can’t remember the last time I had wine.”

“I’m not surprised. I might have to buy a bottle for next week.” Javier moved towards the couch, where I had sat down and placed the basket of supplies. He placed a glass of wine on the coffee table in front of me and sat down on the other side of the basket. I noticed him fidgeting. “You can smoke if you want. I don’t mind.”

He smiled, put down his glass of wine, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, pulling one out and lighting it. The sight of the cigarette hanging from his lips was oddly erotic and I couldn’t help but reach out and grab it from him before taking a drag of it. I handed it back to him a little embarrassed, especially with the way his eyes were on me. I quickly handed him some knitting needles and a ball of yarn.

“Okay so to knit we need to cast on.” I started showing him the easiest way to cast on, and after a few tries he got it. “Great! Now just continue casting on until you have the right number of stitches. We’ll start by just making a square, so I would recommend doing maybe 15, 20 stiches to start, that way you don’t have to knit a million rows.” He followed my instruction, fumbling with the cast on method a couple of times, but quickly fixing it before I needed to get involved.

I was doing the same thing he was with my own pair of knitting needles. And was diligently working to catch up to him (as I spent most of my time focusing on teaching him) when he looked over to me and spoke.

“So, what now, professor?” He was teasing me, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Now you have to actually knit. There are two ways to ‘knit’, knitting and purling. Those two make up all patterns. Purling in my opinion takes longer to learn, so we’ll only focus on traditional knitting. When you knit with only knit stitches, it’s called a garter stitch. That’s what we’ll do.” I positioned his hands correctly, trying to ignore the spark that ran through me when our hands touched. I taught him to knit the way I knew best, English knitting. He caught on quite quickly, but a few rows in I noticed that his tension was too tight.

“Relax. No need to pull the yarn so hard. If it’s looser it will make it easier.” He sighed before relaxing his hands a bit. Soon enough we were in a content silence, the only sound being our knitting needles as they hit each other. I was enjoying having company for once, enjoying his friendship, when Javier made a low growl. I felt heat burning in my core, but resisted the urge to jump on him as I tried to focus. We were here to knit, we were here to knit. I finally looked over and he showed me a whole in his piece.

“How did I mess up?” He seemed very frustrated, the lines in his face prominent as he frowned.

“You dropped a stitch, happens to the best of us. But the issue with knitting is it’s really hard to fix it. You have to completely unravel all your work after that point, and then redo it. For the first time, it’s not worth doing all that work again. It looks really good.”

He looked over at my work. I was already done with my 15 by 15 stitch square, while he was only about halfway.

“How are you already done?”

“Practice. You’ll get there.”

He groaned when he noticed he was out of wine and there was no more in the bottle. I looked at the time and noticed it wasn’t late yet, but I was getting hungry.

“I’m starving. Do you want to order something? I don’t really know any good places nearby…”

“I’m hungry too. There’s this place that makes great arepas. It’s a couple blocks down. We could take a break and go and eat if you want?” I agreed and grabbed my keys.

The walk was calm, but I was happy to have him as it was dark. The gun in the back of his pants was reassuring as well. After a few minutes we got to the restaurant. It was a small hole in the wall type of place, and it was pretty empty. We ordered our food, choosing to forgo any alcohol after having drank the full bottle of wine earlier between the two of us. It was quiet but not uncomfortable so.

“Do you bring all your girls here?” I joked. He stiffened and I worried I had messed up. Then he relaxed.

“Only the ones who are too pretty to sleep with on the first date.”

“So, this is a date now? What happened to friends?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to… I know, boundaries, sorry.”

“Calm down, I’m just messing with you. If this is a date, it’s the best date I’ve been on in a long time.”

“If this is a date, it’s the only date I’ve been on in a long time,” he retorted.

“Who would have thought the badass, womanizer DEA agent didn’t just have a heart, but enjoyed knitting?”

“I swear to god if you tell Steve, I’ll never hear the end of this.”

“Oh my God! We should totally knit something for Steve! Sweaters are not very useful in Colombia, nor are hats… What about a stuffed animal? It’s a bit more advanced than where you are at, but it can be our goal. Doesn’t he have a baby? She would love that.”

“Wait, could we make a cat?” He asked with mischievous but playful energy behind his eyes.

“Sure! Why not?”

“He’s going to kill me.” Javier whispered under his breath as the food came.