In Love With My Young Boss

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i

ion was ly

ow, a woman who looked like she'd just won the lottery-not a brokenhearted

ur age...You don'

read out over time; where my lips would eventually thin out and dissolve into my mouth. So far I'd been lucky, but

tioning everything I'd ever done, comparing myself to all my friends, and wondering if I would ever find mo

in five years and pursue my

ds and start making larger m

ng so many ro

my daughters on a week-l

ential wrinkle-lines an

from top to bottom

yself for my ex-h

best friend for being

to a new restaur

to be ha

to be late!" My friend San

grabbed my jacket an

't believe I'd agreed to let her drag me out to another singles mixer. I never found anyon

d at my strapless black dress. "C

can borrow

imism as usual. "Tonight is the night y

ays say

r one of these things, Sands? I ha

re you out of your mi

ings and it's always the same...Can't we just stay

"We're going out. Now. You don't have any work to do an

––

o my plate. I looked up at the banner that hung over the bar and sig

be desired: Surfboards served as table tops, old park benches were strewn abou

reader: The guy standing by the window was at least sixty, the blond hair dye he'd been using to look twenty years younger was beginning to fade. The woman who was dancing again

there.

ir and clothes like nervous high school students. Most of them were being forced to

e and sat on an empty couch, observing one m

n with grey eyes smiled at me, inte

, it's

t his beer on the table. "I

Via Do

me. What do you do

tor for a software com

"I own and manage a beer compan

e," I said. "So

u, if you don't

ere we

y-nine, an

and down. "I'm forty seve

smiling. "Two

e's way too short for that-no o

se days? Age? Kids? Phone number? I

I forced a s

etly-stealing-beer-out-of-your-cabinet-while-you're-gone-age'? I have to be frank with you

p. "I have to go to the re

watching the ripples of the Pacific Ocean swell up and down. I took a deep breath and inhal

easingly rubbing his shoulder and biting her lip. She caught me starin

ound and ro

ng a good time?" A husky v

t to engage in any more pointless conversations o

in two weeks. I've been divorced for fou

se. I turned to my left and saw t

helping myself by pushing every potential suitor away, but I cou

tsburgh neighborhood in the suburbs, amazing career that was almost on the brink of being legendary-but then

ned, and I was the one who e

for the parking lot, turning down nu

t the door. "We've only been here twenty minutes! Don't

N

e guy you were talking to in

hese things expecting to meet the love of my life. I met mine

seat and forced a

he divorce was long over, but the pain still woke me up some nights, still drag

he handed me a Kleenex. "You have to stop beati

let her in my house! I trusted her with my

sorry,

––

t me wrong, it wasn't entirely perfect, but we had far more amazing days

the little things that made me happy: Hot coffee on the rainy days I spent typing away in our home office, a warm blanket when