Coffee & Biscuits

14|is friends enough?

Tom had barely slept through the night so by the time his alarm did ring he quickly shut it off and sat up straight. All night he'd been thinking about Aria and what had happened to her Friday night. Tom knew of a girl in high school that had gone through a similar ordeal, only she hadn't been able to escape, she had never been the same since. The anger had fueled him all the way home and eventually prevented him from getting any work done as well as sleeping. Then there was the other dilemma; he needed to get her to the police somehow. He knew Aria was scared to be judged by her peers and have to face her abusers in school until their conviction but Tom couldn't bare the thought of them walking around, with no consequences to their actions. He'd said he would trust her with this but next time he saw her he'd try to convince her to do the right thing - the adult thing to do.

He smiled when he thought of the word adult, she was always fighting so hard for him to see her as an one so yesterday must've been difficult for her. The way she had fallen into his arms, the crying and how she'd sounded so weak it all made her real age much more visible. It all was so confusing to have her crying in his arms but also feeling the electrifying chemistry that existed between them. If he wanted to do the right thing he should probably distance himself now, but he couldn't bare the thought of leaving her when she needed support the most.

When he finally got to work, Starbucks in hand today, he was immediately approached by three guys from the accounting department. Tom hardly spoke to them, only when he'd received his first paycheck, so he knew nothing what their business with him was.

"Good morning, Tom. We just needed to confirm if you were joining us for after work tomorrow?" One of the guy, in the blue tie, asked him.

Tom sighed; he'd tried to avoid the question for weeks now and somehow he couldn't escape an answer. He had seen the email but decided to pretend that he hadn't, there were enough people in the office who had responded so he assumed he would go unnoticed - apparently not.

"Oh my apologies I've been swamped with work and haven't seen the email yet. Maybe this is too short of notice for you both--" he prayed they would say yes but they both shook their heads, no.

"You're well within the time frame, we have a couple of other people to confirm with as well. It'd be great if you could make it since you haven't really been to any after work activities since you started."

"It's just that work--" Tom tired to explain but one of the guys put his hand up to silence him.

"We understand what you're doing; you're new here and you want to impress the top dogs but you need some friends around the office, too. What do you say, can we put you down for tomorrow?"

Tom knew they were right to some extent. Michael had also challenged him to be more social in his private life so this opportunity could be a good start.

"Yeah sure, thank you for asking me." Tom said politely.

"No worries man, we want you to feel welcome. I'm Rick and this is Travis, we're usually arranging the after works here so if you have an idea please don't be shy to let us know. We'll be going for some spicy Thai food and drinks - if you have an allergies write us an email about it and we'll send it to the restaurant." Rick said and handed him a piece of paper with the information.

Tom smiled at the two men before continuing to his desk and stared at the paper in hand. Travis and Rick had been nice people, especially Rick who did most of the talking, and for that reason alone he wanted to come along. Although there was a pressing issue that he had yet to confront; he hates spicy food. Tom had only eaten it once, Moroccan food that time, and his mouth had been on fire for hours and since then he'd vowed to never eat it again. Faced with this issue he knew there was only one way to get around this; he had to practice eating some spicy food.