After my coworker bailed on us, my friend William and I went to dinner as planned. He and I were both in the city for work that week. Being from the same small town, we had been friends since we were in our early twenties. The catch is we have always known we were distant cousins, so we stayed “just friends” because of that. It worked out to be a fun friendship because he wouldn’t filter his stories of his latest hook ups and I confided in him about my own personal endeavors. I got the honest male opinion and he the female. Win/win.
That night we had dinner and a good bit of wine. We talked for hours. At the end of the evening he was driving me back to my hotel and I knew he still had a 40 minute drive ahead of him back to his apartment in the city. I offered or insisted he stay with me because he drank too much to drive that far. It wasn’t safe. He finally agreed and I can honestly say there were no intentions present on either side at this point.