“Back So Soon?”

After making a fool of himself with Kate back at the diner, Colin stormed off to his office. Arthur was sitting behind the desk having a chat with Colin’s brother-in-law, Adam. Most likely gossiping about me and Kate, Colin thought to himself, slamming the office door behind him, giving Adam and Arthur quite a start.

“Hey… Colin,” Adam said, sheepishly, “Back from lunch so soon then?”

Colin glared at Arthur who quickly looked away and began shuffling papers around on his desk to look busy. “Don’t you have some work to do, Mate?” he snapped.

Adam cleared his throat, “Yeah, um, Miss Ward’s jeep ain’t going to fix itself. Reckon’ I’d better get back on that.” He looked nervously over at Arthur then headed off into the garage bay.

“So, have a nice lunch, Colin?” Arthur asked, trying to fill the awkward silence and tension in the air.

Colin glared at him again. “No, I did not have a nice lunch, thank you, Arthur,” he snapped.

“Oh,” Arthur replied, clearing his throat nervously. “Well, I hope it wasn’t anything you ate. Andy’s food is normally quite tolerable for my digestive system but one never knows...” He trailed off, fidgeting and shuffling papers around again. “And is, um, everything okay with Mrs. Harbor then?” Even as the question flowed out of his mouth Arthur realized he’d made a mistake.

“Don’t,” he warned, “just…don’t.” Colin ducked into his office, grabbed his jacket and stormed back out again. “I’m taking the rest of the afternoon off,” he told Arthur as he walked out of the garage and down the path that led to his house.