love covers multitudes of sins

At all.

As a matter of fact, there wasn’t a plan in the first place.

You’re avoiding Robert – this you may admit, at least to yourself – and it was getting extremely hard to do so. There’s only so much maneuvering one can do in a mid-size office, and a 20 floor building. You had to use the stairs once because you saw Robert take the elevator first and you panicked. Like an idiot. It was a good exercise, for sure, but you’re never going to do it again. You’re also losing excuses on why you can’t come to a get-together that Blazer plans, or why you suddenly have a phone call when Robert gets too close to your cubicle.

Why are you avoiding Robert, anyway? Does he have the plague? Oh, you wish. Might be easier. No, it’s a little… not intense like that. Well. 

You and Robert – you kissed. Yup. You did. It was an accident. Wait, no. It wasn’t an accident. Alcohol was involved. Barely. Gosh, you both had one glass of wine. He just said something really flirty, and you were not one to back down from a fight. You gave it as good as it gets and one thing led to another – you kissed. You now have the information of what Robert tasted like, how he likes to bite your lip when he’s desperate for air, how he likes his knees in between your legs, and how his hands are everywhere and you mean everywhere! Those calloused, long, and thick fingers were in your waist, back, neck, cheeks, underneath your shirt simultaneously. He also has information about you, too. What you sound when you moan, how you like to grip his hair when his knee got a good angle when they were in between your legs, how you liked it when he was massaging your left breast. It was all too much and too little at the same time that you didn’t want to just deal with it.

“You know,” Chase says, as he looks at you hiding in the pantry. “You could at least face Robert head on and tell him he ain’t shit.”

You snort, “shut up, old man. Why would I do that?”

“I’m old, not stupid. And everybody knows you’re avoiding him.” He starts heating up the coffee – the smell makes you dizzy. “I’m pretty sure Invisigal started a betting pool for how much longer you can keep this up.”

“...who’s winning?”

Chase snorts, “Me, of course. You’ve always been good at running away that spooks you. Get somebody to desensitise you like they do with them horses. They do that, right?”

“Thank you so much for comparing me to horses, Chase.” You reply, you feel genuine about it too. He has a point. “Also, you might want to rethink using that ‘sugar’. I’m pretty sure Flambae changed it to salt or cocaine to fuck with Phenomeman.”

“Aw, man. And I had that medical schedule next week, too.”

“That’s the problem?” You frown, hearing a very familiar sound of footsteps. “Please tell me the window is safe.” You look at Chase, eyes resembling a puppy.

Chase looks at you with pity and sighs. “Yeah. With the emergency exit stairs.”

“You are a hero.” You kiss the top of his head as you hastily escape. You hear Chase saying, I might not be so helpful later on when I need the win the pool and you file that away.

You’re not a coward running away from their problems. You are just retreating, doing some replanning before going back to the battlefield. That’s the strategy of a good soldier.

Of course, comparing a simple talk between adults about what happened to the both of you to a battlefield is probably something you need to analyze, but that’s what therapists are for.