On my way back from the bathroom, I saw Megan at the jukebox so I stopped to see what tunes she was selecting.
“Hi,” she said cheerfully, but her tone quickly changed, “I don’t know why I come to these happy hours; I can barely stand most of these people in the office all day and they don’t get any better after they’ve been drinking.”
“Present company excepted, I assume?” I asked, knowing it was the case because we got along well at work. We tended to flirt a bit even though she was a bit younger than me, but I always assumed it was harmless office flirting and never expected it to lead to anything else.
“No, I hate you, too,” she replied, laughing, then pushed against me. I helped her with her remaining picks, which I sensed she was laboring over only so she had an excuse not to go back and rejoin our coworkers.
“Why did you come if you’re so miserable?” I finally asked.
“Ann talked me into it. She said I might feel better about some of my coworkers if I got to know them outside of the office. It isn’t working,” she explained. Ann was one of our coworkers who Megan was actually friends with. Megan wasn’t typically pessimistic or intolerant, but as a young admin, she was very put upon so I understood her frustration. Even so, I definitely was not prepared for what she said next.
“We should leave. We should go to my place and fuck,” she said unexpectedly. I looked at her, unsure of what I had just heard. “Seriously,” she continued, “don’t you think that would be more fun?”
There was no doubt that fucking Megan would be more fun than just about anything I could think of at that moment, but I was concerned about the two of us just walking out of the bar together and what sort of office gossip that would start. Still, I didn’t want her to think that I wasn’t interested.
“OK,” I responded, “I’ll go grab my coat.”
“We can’t just walk out of here together,” she laughed, echoing what I’d been thinking, “besides, I just put a bunch of songs on this jukebox.”
“Tell you what,” I said, “why don’t you write down your address for me and when ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ starts, I’ll say that I have to leave and I’ll head for your place. When the song is over, you leave, too, and I’ll be waiting there for you.”
“Nice,” she replied, smiling and nodding. I headed back to the group while she went to borrow a pen to write her address on a cocktail napkin. I thought Ann was giving me a funny look, so maybe she saw us talking at the jukebox and was wondering what that had all been about. Megan handed me the cocktail napkin when she rejoined the group, but nothing else passed between us to indicate what we had planned for later that night. I could see that Ann was grilling her but Megan was just waving her off and rolling her eyes, apparently at the suggestion that there was anything to even talk about.
I finished my drink when I heard the first strains of “Bohemian Rhapsody” coming through the sound system, then said my good-byes and headed for the door. I knew that Megan lived downtown, not far from the bar we’d been at that night, so I checked the cocktail napkin and navigated my way to the front steps of her apartment building. I figured as I sat down to wait that the song probably wasn’t even over yet, so I was glad that it was a pleasant night. I checked the time on my phone a couple of times when it seemed like she should have been there already but just figured that slipping out just hadn’t gone as smoothly as she’d expected. When I finally saw her hustling down the street, I stood up.
