I Told My Co-worker I Couldn't Love Him, So He Showed Me What I Was Missing—Right On My Desk

The warehouse smelled like someone had tried to bury the reek of industrial carpet under a layer of lemon-scented death. I sat at reception watching two men in matching vests unfold a blackjack table that wobbled every time they let go. One of them swore under his breath and jammed a folded coaster under the shortest leg. High rollers, we were not.

I had volunteered to “coordinate” the setup because it sounded better than sitting at home waiting for Roy to decide what time he felt like showing up. He’d already texted: traffic on 495, babe, don’t wait up. Translation: I’ll get there when the beer’s free and the speeches are over. I rubbed the place on my finger where the ring usually sat—today I’d left it on the soap dish after lotioning my hands—and felt the little dent that refused to tan. Hollow space, hollow sound.

A metallic clatter echoed near the freight door. One of the caterers had dropped a tray of plastic chips; they scattered like cheap candy across the concrete. He looked up at me apologetically, cheeks pink under warehouse fluorescents that turned everyone the color of cafeteria peas. I gave him the same polite smile I gave delivery drivers and sales reps, the one that said I’m harmless, please don’t ask me where the bathroom is. He scooped up the chips, counted them twice, and hustled away.

I turned back to my computer screen. The spreadsheet I’d pulled up earlier—an inventory of surplus paper—glowed in neat, meaningless rows. Numbers that didn’t matter outside these walls. I closed it. Opened it again. Minimized it. Maximized it. The cursor blinked like it was waiting for me to confess something.

Across the floor, the roulette wheel arrived in a cardboard box that said REFURBISHED. The guy wheeling it looked like he’d rather be anywhere else, earbuds dangling like a stethoscope around his neck. He caught me staring and lifted an eyebrow. I looked down at my notepad, doodled a small square, then another square inside it, then another, until the center was too dark to see.

My phone buzzed. Roy’s name lit the screen. I let it ring three times before answering.

“Hey,” I said.

“Babe, yeah, listen—” His voice crackled, thin, like he was calling from the inside of a vending machine. “We’re still stuck. Some jackknifed truck. Might be another hour.”

I pressed the receiver closer, as if proximity could thicken the sound of him. “No problem. Take your time.”

“You sure? I feel like an ass.”

“You’re fine,” I lied. “It’s just casino night.”

He laughed, the edge of it clipped by static. “Win me some chips, okay?”

“Okay.”

The line went dead. I set the phone face-down, lined it up parallel to the keyboard, then nudged it a quarter-inch left, then right again. The ache in my chest felt like the ring dent—small, round, permanent. I swallowed it the way I always did, a dry pill sliding sideways.

Somewhere behind me a new voice said, “So, Beesly, what’s a girl gotta do to get a drink around here?” and the air shifted, just enough for the night to change its mind.

I didn’t look up right away. I kept my eyes on the phone, as if the blank screen might offer instructions on how to breathe normally. Then I let my gaze drift to the source of the voice.

Jim stood with one hip against the laminate counter, arms folded like he’d been there for hours. His tie was already loosened, top button undone. The tiny V of exposed skin made my stomach do something ridiculous, like drop an inch.

“I think the bar opens after Michael’s speech,” I said. “So, midnight.”

He grinned, the left side higher than the right. “Good. Gives me time to perfect my poker face.” He tapped two fingers against his temple. “Right now it’s stuck on ‘bewildered but hopeful.’”

“That’s your regular face.”

“Ouch.” He pressed a hand to his chest. “You wound me, Beesly.”

The banter arrived on cue, a script we’d written in real time over coffee spills and fax jams. I felt my shoulders loosen, the ache under my ribs retreating a step.

He glanced toward the half-assembled craps table. “You playing tonight?”

“I don’t know the rules.”

“I’ll teach you.” He said it like he was offering to carry groceries, simple and automatic, and the casual certainty of it made my pulse skip. “First lesson: never bet against the guy who can make his own chips disappear.”

“Is that you?”

He shrugged. “I’ve been practicing with Dwight’s business cards. Close-up magic is all about confidence.”

I laughed, a small involuntary sound that seemed to surprise us both. He tilted his head, studying me the way he sometimes studied vending-machine snacks—curious, amused, deciding how much he wanted it.

“Second lesson,” he went on, “is the tell.” He leaned in, elbows on the counter, fingers laced. “Everyone has one. Kevin rubs his ear when he’s bluffing. Angela adjusts her bun. Creed blinks exactly once per hand—”

“Creed blinks?”

“Precisely.” His eyes held mine. “Your tell is your eyebrows. They lift a millimeter when you’re lying.”

“They do not.” My eyebrows betrayed me immediately.

He laughed, soft. “See? You’re terrible at this.”

The warehouse clattered around us—folding chairs scraping, the PA crackling to life—but the noise felt far away, like we’d built a pocket of quiet only we could hear. I became aware of my hands resting on the keyboard, fingertips tingling, as if they’d just remembered they could reach out.

Jim straightened, glanced over his shoulder. “Be right back,” he said, tapping the counter twice, our private punctuation. He moved toward the drink table, weaving through stacked chairs with the unhurried grace of someone who knew exactly how much space his body required.

I watched him go. The fluorescent lights washed everything greenish, yet somehow they caught the small creases at the corners of his eyes when he smiled at Phyllis, the way his hair curled slightly against his collar. I traced the line of his shoulders under the cheap cotton shirt and felt an unexpected tug, low and sharp, like a string pulled taut inside me.

I realized I was storing details the way I saved receipts—carefully, automatically, proof of something I wasn’t ready to name.

The double doors banged open like a bad punchline, and Michael strode in with Jan trailing two steps behind, her heels clicking an apology against the concrete. He wore a tuxedo that looked rented by someone who’d never been measured—sleeves too short, satin stripe askew—while Jan’s black dress clung like it was bracing for impact. Between them hung a silence so dense it seemed to absorb the fluorescent hum. Michael lifted his arms as if expecting applause; Jan stared at the floor, lips pressed thin, holding her clutch like a shield. Nobody cheered. The PA gave a sympathetic squawk and died.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Michael announced anyway, “your host has arrived.”

He gestured grandly toward the bar, where Kevin was already pouring himself a soda. Kevin raised the cup in salute, foam slopping onto his fingers. Jan murmured something I couldn’t catch, Michael’s grin faltered, and they moved deeper into the room together yet apart, a two-person funeral procession for their own relationship.

The party exhaled. Chips clicked, cards shuffled, the roulette wheel began its metallic chirp. I stayed behind reception, suddenly superfluous now that the machinery of forced fun was running on its own. I scanned for Jim and found him leaning against the folding bar, one elbow on the laminate, listening to Kevin recount odds on something—probably not craps. His tie was still loose, sleeves rolled once, forearms pale under warehouse light. He laughed at whatever Kevin said, head tilted back just enough to show the line of his throat, and something possessive flared in me, hot and ridiculous. I didn’t move, didn’t wave, just watched the way his shirt pulled across his shoulders when he reached for a napkin, the easy angle of his hips against the table. Mine, the thought came, sharp and stupid, followed immediately by the familiar weight on my bare ring finger.

He glanced up mid-sentence, eyes finding me across the half-lit distance. For a second the room narrowed to that single line of sight. Kevin kept talking; Jim’s gaze didn’t shift. He lifted one shoulder, a fractional shrug that asked, You okay? and answered, Me too, and promised, Later, all at once. The gesture was so small I almost missed it, yet it filled the warehouse like sudden pressure change, air pressing behind my eyes, my ribs, the hollow of my hips. I nodded once, barely, and he turned back to Kevin as if nothing had happened, but the space around me felt newly claimed, walls pulled inward, ceiling lowered, every echo now addressed to us alone.

I ended up at the green-felt kidney because Stanley waved me over, claiming the table needed “fresh blood.” The seat he offered faced the loading dock, cold air seeping under the metal door and crawling up my calves. My stack of chips—red, white, and a single ambitious blue—looked like something from a child’s board game. I arranged them in towers, knocked them over, lined them up again.

Jim appeared holding two plastic cups that sweated identical rings onto his fingers. “Brought you water,” he said, though both cups smelled vaguely of rum. He set one beside my elbow and stayed, sliding into the vacant chair so our knees touched under the rail. The contact was immediate, accidental, then repeated—his doing, mine, I couldn’t tell.

“First rule,” he murmured, lips almost to my ear, “act like you’re bored. Confidence looks like indifference.” His breath moved the baby hairs at my temple; the rest of me flushed as if slapped. Stanley dealt. I peeked at two picture cards and had no idea whether they were friends. Jim’s hand settled over mine, ostensibly to angle the corners toward him. Thumb brushing my knuckles—once, twice—he squeezed before letting go.

“Raise,” he instructed, voice low. I pushed two reds forward. Phyllis folded, groaning theatrically. The pot slid my way when the river paired my queen. A tiny, ridiculous thrill shot through my sternum. Jim leaned back, slow grin, and tapped my ankle with his under the table—approval, conspiracy, promise.

Roy’s hand clamped my shoulder, heavy, possessive. “That’s my lucky girl,” he boomed, beer sloshing onto the felt. The dealer paused, annoyed. I felt Jim withdraw an inch, warmth receding like tide, and the hollow dent under my ring throbbed with something that wasn’t guilt—more like recognition of space I hadn’t realized was occupied.

Roy’s palm stayed on my shoulder, a damp brand through the cardigan. He launched into the jet-ski story—something about a guy from the quarry who knew a guy—but the words arrived muffled, like he was speaking into a pillow. I nodded at the required beats while watching Jim’s fingers rest against the felt, half-curled, the nails slightly bitten. The hand Roy wasn’t touching felt radioactive, as if it might glow if I lifted it.

Stanley shuffled again. Jim waited until Roy paused for breath, then reached over and realigned my chips into neat columns. “Bankroll management,” he said, loud enough for the table, but his thumb traced the inside of my wrist where the pulse hammered—one slow stroke, deliberate, instructional. My skin prickled; I swallowed a sound before it formed.

Cards came. I had seven-nine off-suit, garbage, but Jim’s knee pressed mine and stayed. “Play,” he mouthed, so I limped in. The flop opened eight-six-ten, rainbow, giving me an open ender. Roy squeezed my shoulder again, harder, proprietary. “She’s due,” he told Stanley, who shrugged, unimpressed.

Jim showed me how to check-call, knuckles grazing my thigh beneath the rail when he leaned forward to stack Roy’s unsolicited bet. Turn bricked; river hit the jack. I’d made the straight. My heartbeat was so loud I thought the table could hear it. Jim tapped the felt twice—bet. I pushed out a tidy tower of whites, hands steady only because his stayed beside them, a silent brace.

Stanley folded, Toby mucked, Phyllis sighed. Roy whooped when the chips slid my way, the noise echoing off corrugated metal. “Told you—lucky charm,” he crowed, shaking me like a vending machine. The coins of victory clinked, but the real prize was the look Jim gave me once Roy’s attention pivoted to recounting the hand for Kevin: eyebrows raised a millimeter, soft exhale through his nose, the tiniest smile that belonged exclusively to me. It lasted maybe a second, yet it rearranged the air in my lungs.

Roy dragged a chair, wedging himself between us, breaking the circuit. “Let’s parlay this into that Sea-Doo, babe,” he said, stacking my chips higher, careless. Several tilted, rolled, clattered onto the floor. I bent to collect them, grateful for the momentary disappearance. Under the table Jim’s shoe found mine, nudged once—solid, reassuring—then withdrew. When I straightened, he was already standing.

“Craps is calling,” he announced to no one in particular, voice level, but his eyes flicked to me, dark, unreadable. He pocketed his remaining chips and walked off, hands shoved deep, spine straight against the warehouse glare. Roy clapped again, rattling my bones. “Guy’s a buzzkill,” he muttered, then ordered me to “double up so we can get out of here.”

I watched Jim’s back recede, felt the ghost pressure of his thumb on my wrist, the echo of his knee. Around me chips clicked, cards fanned, Roy planned a future on a watercraft I’d never ride. I stacked my winnings into a tidy fortress, each chip a small, bright secret, and wondered how long I could keep pretending this was still just a game.

I slipped away while Roy argued with Kevin about horsepower, threading through bodies toward the far wall where the craps table glowed under a single pendant lamp. Jim stood at the head, elbows on the rail, dice cupped in his right hand like something alive. The stickman called numbers; chips moved in small avalanches. I stopped just outside the circle, half-hidden by a pillar, and watched.

He rolled. The dice hit felt, bounced, settled—eight. A collective exhale, chips pushed his way. He didn’t celebrate, just collected his winnings with the same concentration he used to fold paper footballs at his desk, shoulders loose, jaw relaxed. Then he lifted the dice again, blew on them once—an affectation so un-Jim it made my stomach flip—and threw. Ten. More chips. The crowd pressed closer, drawn by the quiet certainty radiating from him, a gravity I’d felt for years but never named.

Roy’s laugh cracked across the room; I didn’t turn. Jim’s thumb rubbed the pips like worry stones. His shirt cuff had ridden up, exposing the fine hairs on his wrist, the knob of bone I wanted to press my mouth against. He rolled again—four. Point established. The stickman pushed the dice back. Jim palmed them, glanced up, and found me through the bodies, the smoke, the cheap light.

Everything slowed. The stickman’s chant faded to underwater murmur. Jim’s eyes—gray-green under fluorescents—locked on mine, and the smile that spread across his face was naked, unguarded, the same one he gave me when I brought him coffee but stripped of all pretense. It said, This is for you. It said, I know you’re watching. It said, Come closer. My lungs forgot their rhythm.

He threw. The dice tumbled, kissed the back wall, landed on six and four. Ten again. The table erupted—cheers, high fives, someone clapped his shoulder. Chips cascaded toward him like a bright plastic tide. He didn’t look at them. He was still looking at me, smile softening into something almost shy, as if surprised by his own audacity. The space between us—thirty feet of concrete and recycled air—contracted to the width of a heartbeat.

Roy appeared at my elbow, beer sloshing. “We should hit the road, babe.” His hand found the small of my back, proprietary. I nodded without taking my eyes off Jim. He mouthed two words—later, maybe, or maybe just my name—then turned to collect chips he would probably give away before the night ended. The crowd closed around him, but the confession lingered in my bloodstream, bright and dangerous as a lit fuse.

The metal door clanged shut behind us, swallowing the casino sounds whole. The parking lot stretched empty under sodium lights that made everything look jaundiced—his Corolla, the cracked asphalt, the half-moon caught in telephone wires. Jim leaned against the driver’s door, hands in pockets, shoulders curved inward like he was cold. I stopped three feet away, arms folded under my cardigan, the fake wool doing nothing against the damp that rose from the ground and settled on my skin like sweat.

We stood in silence long enough for my ears to adjust. Inside, bass thumped through cinder block—someone had switched the playlist to early 2000s pop. The beat was muffled, underwater, the way heartbeats sound when you press your face to a pillow. I counted eight measures before he spoke.

“I put in for the transfer last month.” His voice carried no inflection, just fact. “Corporate approved it this morning. Stamford, starting Monday.”

The words hit like a door slamming on my fingers—pain first, then the delayed realization that I’d left them in the way. I opened my mouth, closed it. He watched my face, eyes dark in the orange light, waiting for the reaction he’d already rehearsed.

“I thought—” I started, then stopped because I hadn’t thought, not really. I’d known something was shifting, same way you know a storm’s coming when the air tastes metallic. I just hadn’t wanted to name it.

He pushed off the car, took one step. “I can’t stay here, Pam. Not with you—” He gestured between us, the space so small his knuckles almost brushed my sweater. “Not with this.”

This. The two years of coffee runs and inside jokes and the way his hand had lingered on my wrist tonight like it belonged there. The thing we never discussed because discussing it would make it real, and real things have consequences.

“I’m getting married,” I said, the ring suddenly foreign on my finger, a piece of plastic from a crackerjack box.

“I know.” His laugh was airless. “That’s why I have to go.”

The distance between us felt both microscopic and unbridgeable—three feet of night air that might as well have been the Atlantic. I could see the fine tremor in his jaw, the way his fingers curled against his palms like he was physically holding back from reaching.

“Say something,” he whispered. “Tell me I’m crazy. Tell me to stay.”

My throat closed. Inside, the music swelled to a chorus I recognized but couldn’t name. I thought about the jet-ski story Roy would tell tomorrow, the way he’d already spent my poker winnings in his head. I thought about the look Jim had given me across the craps table—like I was the only fixed point in a universe that had started spinning too fast.

I said nothing. The silence grew teeth.

He nodded once, sharp, accepting the verdict. His keys jingled as he pulled them out, the sound unnaturally loud. The unlock button beeped, orange blink reflecting in the windshield like a heartbeat.

“I’ll see you Monday,” he said, meaning the opposite. He opened the door, paused. “For what it’s worth—”

“Don’t.” The word escaped before I could stop it, raw as scraped skin. “Just—don’t.”

He closed his mouth, nodded again. Got in. The engine turned over, headlights flooding the empty spaces between us with harsh white light that made me squint. I stepped back, arms still wrapped around myself, watching him reverse, watching the taillights shrink toward the exit.

The music inside switched to something slower, a ballad bleeding through the walls. I stood there long enough for the condensation to settle on my hair, for the smell of his exhaust to dissipate, for the ring on my finger to feel like it had fused to the bone. When I finally moved, my shoes scraped gravel loud enough to wake the dead.

I was still staring at the empty space where his car had been when the door behind me opened again. Footsteps on asphalt—soft soles, not Roy’s heavy boots. I didn’t turn.

“I forgot something,” Jim said, voice low, closer than I expected. He was breathing hard, like he’d run the length of the building. I turned then, saw the keys still in his hand—he hadn’t left after all, just circled the lot and come back. The realization landed like a slap.

“What did you forget?” I asked, stupidly, because the answer was already walking toward me.

He stopped a foot away, close enough that I could smell the cotton of his shirt, the faint trace of whatever soap he used that always made me think of rain on sidewalks. His eyes were wide, pupils blown under the sodium light, and I could see the pulse jumping in his throat.

“You,” he said, and the word cracked open the night. “I forgot to tell you the actual reason.”

My heart was a trapped bird throwing itself against my ribs. “Jim—”

“I’m in love with you.” The sentence came out flat, almost angry, like he was furious with himself for saying it. “I have been for—Christ, for so long I can’t remember what it feels like not to be.”

The air left my lungs in a rush. I felt my hand rise to my throat, fingers closing around nothing. The ring—three small diamonds in a row, chosen because the saleslady said it was classic—burned against my skin like it had been heated in a furnace.

“You can’t,” I whispered, the words automatic, reflexive. “You can’t just—”

“I know.” His laugh was broken glass. “I know I can’t. But I do. And I’m leaving because I can’t be here and watch you marry him and pretend this isn’t—” He gestured between us again, more desperate this time, like he was trying to physically pull the thing that lived there into the open. “This.”

My vision tunneled. All I could see was his face—freckles I’d never noticed before scattered across his nose, the way his bottom lip trembled slightly before he bit it still. Nine years with Roy flashed through my mind like a flip book—prom photos, apartment hunts, the time he forgot my birthday but brought me gas station flowers the next day and I’d convinced myself it was enough.

“I can’t,” I said, the words scraping my throat raw. They tasted like metal, like pennies held too long against the tongue. “I’m getting married in six weeks.”

The light went out in his eyes—not gradually, but all at once, like someone had flipped a switch. His shoulders dropped. He nodded, once, twice, a third time, like he was trying to convince himself of something.

“Right,” he said, voice hollow. “Of course.”

He stepped back, the space between us suddenly arctic. I watched him retreat toward his car, each footstep echoing like a gunshot in the empty lot. When he reached the driver’s door, he paused, hand on the handle, and for one terrible moment I thought he might turn back.

He didn’t. The door opened, closed. The engine started. This time, he didn’t look at me as he drove away.

The office was a mausoleum of fluorescent hum and stale coffee breath. I sat at my desk, receiver pressed to my ear so hard the plastic left ridges against my temple. Mom’s voice—tinny, concerned—filled the void Jim had carved out of my chest.

“—just sounded off, honey. Like you’d been crying.”

I hadn’t been. Not yet. My eyes felt dry, scraped out, like someone had taken sandpaper to the inside of my skull. “I’m fine,” I said, the lie automatic. “Just tired. Casino night ran late.”

Through the glass partition, Michael’s office sat dark, his neon “World’s Best Boss” sign unplugged for once. Beyond it, the bullpen stretched empty—rows of monitors flickering with screen savers, Dwight’s bobblehead casting a long shadow across his desk. Everything looked smaller in the absence of people, like a dollhouse version of the place I’d spent eight hours a day for five years. I focused on that instead of the way my hands were shaking, the way my pulse kept skipping—like it had forgotten the rhythm it was supposed to follow.

“Roy get home okay?” Mom asked.

I swallowed. The parking lot replayed behind my eyelids—Jim’s taillights disappearing, the ring burning, the taste of ash. “He’s—” I started, then stopped. Roy wasn’t here. Roy didn’t know I’d just stood in the dark and let another man tell me he loved me. Roy didn’t know I’d said I can’t instead of I don’t. “He’s fine. He’s—he went home.”

The words felt like gravel in my mouth. I stared at my reflection in the black computer monitor—hair frizzing at the temples, cardigan askew, eyes too wide. I looked like someone who’d just been caught. I looked like someone who hadn’t been caught yet.

“Pam,” Mom said, softer now. “You’d tell me if something happened, right?”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. The silence stretched long enough for the fluorescent lights to buzz louder, for the smell of toner to crawl up my nose and settle behind my eyes like a headache forming. I thought about telling her—about the way Jim’s voice had cracked on you, about the way mine had cracked on can’t. About the fact that I hadn’t gone straight to my car, hadn’t called Roy, hadn’t done anything but walk back inside like I was waiting for permission to exist.

“Of course,” I said instead. “It’s just been—a long night.”

The main door opened.

My breath stopped. Jim stood in the frame, backlit by the parking lot’s sodium glow, keys still in his hand. His shirt was untucked, hair windblown, eyes locked on me through the glass like he’d been pulled here by gravity. The receiver slipped against my ear—sweat, or maybe just the shock of seeing him when I’d already mourned him gone.

Mom was still talking. I couldn’t hear her over the sudden roar in my skull. Jim took one step inside, then another, the door hissing shut behind him. The sound echoed like a gunshot. He didn’t speak. He just looked at me—looked through me—like he was trying to decide if I was real.

I hung up without saying goodbye. The phone clicked into the cradle with a finality that felt like breaking something. The office was suddenly too quiet, the hum of lights louder than voices, the smell of paper and stale coffee sharper. Jim’s chest rose and fell like he’d run here. Maybe he had. Maybe we both had.

We stared at each other across the bullpen—thirty feet of carpet and cubicles and nine years of almost. Neither of us moved. Neither of us breathed. The space between us felt alive, crackling, like it had been waiting for this exact moment to ignite.