I touched my lips to the smooth line of her jaw. "Yeah."
"Don't know what to do with any of them, do you?"
I kissed my way down her neck as far as her filmy blouse's collar would allow. "Not really, no."
She took my face in her hands and she drew half-moons from my cheekbones to my lips. And then she gifted me a slow, sweet kiss that turned everything else off. It didn't alleviate my desire to rip that skirt up the back or bite her clit through her panties but it picked up the pieces of my frantic need and put them away in a manageable order.
When she broke the kiss, she leaned back, her fingers pressed to my lips. "I'm going to get you some cookies now. When I come back, you're going to work on that audit and I'm going to make sense of all the little fires around here. Then you're going to Abe & Louie's and I'm going back to the apartment on my own, and I won't be informing you about my mode of transportation because I'll tolerate only this much"—she held her hand up beside her shoulder—"insanity from you. Not an inch more. When you return from your meeting, you're welcome to be a filthy, filthy sex monster all you want. I'll look forward to it." She granted me a brief kiss before sliding off my lap. "Now tell me. What kind of cookies do you want, boss?"
* * *
This dinner meetingwas running three bottles of Malbec too long.
Not that I'd enjoyed much of the heady red. Why would I when I could nod and laugh along with my clients while waiting for an opening to step away and check my phone for an update from Zelda confirming she'd arrived home without incident? Or better yet, why imbibe when I could replay the strangled sob I'd forced from her lips when I'd pushed inside her last night? Why, indeed.
Her message landed shortly after the appetizer plates were cleared, a one-word note of "home" accompanied by a photo of her outside my building. I'd thought about telling her she wasn't home until she was behind the closed doors of the apartment, that god-awful shirt in the trash and her feet bare while she lounged on the sofa inmyboxer shorts, but I had to get through this evening without my dick throbbing. I replied with a stiff "thank you" and made a note to scrub my calendar of dinner meetings wherever possible.
While I wasn't one to cram my weeknights with these gatherings, I'd never understood why some of my clients were in such a rush to get home. I could give a pass to the ones with small kids but when it came to the dual income, no kids crowd, I didn't get it. Didn't those people have enough time with their partners? Couldn't they manage an evening apart without sighing into their gin and tonics? Why did anyone need to sprint home for a couple of minutes with their partner when there were deals to be made and hours to bill? I'd never been able to make sense of it.
Until tonight.
I understood it all and that understanding came with a dose of resentment for know-nothing fools such as myself who insisted on finalizing agreements after hours.
I didn't want to be here, didn't want to do this. Nothing mattered besides getting back home where I could set down my troubles and simply be with her. And inside her.
Though it wasn't all about the sex. The sex was a fine bonus but it was everything else, all the pieces of her I'd discovered and claimed as my own. Plus all the pieces I'd yet to collect, the ones I didn't know but required nonetheless.
As soon as the business conversation gave way to the well-traveled paths of golf handicaps and vacation destinations, I excused myself to settle the bill—another bottle of Malbec tossed on for good measure—and made my exit. I didn't need to be here for the rest of this. Not when it was the same pointless chatter that always populated the tail end of these gatherings. Sports, industry gossip, political grousing. I hadn't noticed the rigid three-point waltz of it before but now that I saw, there was no missing it.
While waiting on the curb for the car service to arrive, I snapped a photo of the receipt and uploaded it to the Ferryman Brothers' expense file. I could've walked back to my place and on any other night, I would have. Get in some steps, burn off the wine, think through tomorrow's work. It was time well spent. Yet I didn't give a single fuck about tomorrow because I had a strange, beautiful woman at home and tomorrow would arrive whether I worried over it or not.
The ride to my building was quick and silent but once I stepped into the lobby, everything slowed down to heavy, aching seconds. It was like a roller coaster climbing to its first peak, every grind forward loaded with anticipation and the knowledge these were the last moments of relative calm before the splashdown, the next upswing, the spin and whirl. It was anticipation and it was also relief—I'm getting what I came for—and the end of all my staid predictability before Zelda upended that too.
Low light and the rhythmic hum of the washing machine greeted me when I stepped inside and locked the apartment door behind me with a gentle twist of the deadbolt. I leaned back against the door, the key ring still hooked around my fingers as I listened for Zelda.
The cobalt blue flats abandoned near the bench informed me she was here and that only heightened my awareness of the roller coaster plunge to come. She was here and I had to find her if I wanted my world turned upside down.
Once free from my suit coat and shoes and my pockets emptied, I surveyed the living room. The television was off, the throw blankets artfully arranged over the back of the sofa. I moved toward the bedroom but she wasn't in there either. The bed was in the same crisply made condition we'd left it, the adjoining bath dark and empty. Save for those cute shoes near the door, it seemed like she'd existed only in my imagination.
I retraced my steps, casting gazes all over for signs of Zelda. She could've stepped out. That was reasonable. She could've gone to the local market or the drugstore. Maybe the pizza place around the corner. It was late but not outrageously so, not too late to run out for a few things.
I turned in a circle when I reached the kitchen and trailed my palm over the stone countertops. Why wasn't she right here, exactly where I wanted her, when I wanted her?
Then I caught sight of the hall leading to the guest room. More often than not I overlooked that section of my apartment. It served only as a crash pad for Linden or my parents when they had occasion to come into the city and wanted to avoid a long ride home at night. Magnolia too, before she and Rob found a place in the South End. And now it was Zelda's—though she never did sleep in there.
Restlessness fractured the quiet still as I marched in that direction, my socked feet rasping against the rug, my fingertips pressed to the wall as if I was searching for a pulse. The door was ajar, a soft slice of light melting into the hall. I flattened my palm on the panel, eased it open. There I found Zelda face down on the foot of the bed, still dressed in that aggravating skirt and blouse. Her head was pillowed on her arms while one foot dangled off the side. My discombobulated beauty.
I lost track of how long I stood there, watching while she slept. It was more than a minute and less than an hour, and I regretted none of it as there weren't many moments where I'd been able to catch Zelda at rest. She was always the first one awake and more than that, she was always in motion. Always occupied with something. Rare were the instances when she was stationary long enough for me to get a good look.
She must've been exhausted to fall asleep like this. Not the discombobulated part—she was an eternal state of glorious disarray—but in here, dressed for work as if she'd intended to sit down though found herself bowled over by sleep instead.
As I scanned the small room, the evidence seemed to mount in support of that theory. Her luggage was open on the floor with tidy piles of clothing stacked on one side, books on the other. I counted three pairs of jeans, five t-shirts, a plum cardigan, two dresses, and a few more of those crepey blouses—and at least eight academic journals and four beat-up textbooks.
A dark gray skirt and short-sleeved pink sweater were laid outside beside the books, her choices for tomorrow. Both of her phones—the beat-up one she hadn't turned on and the one I'd insisted she have—sat on the floor beside her hot pink sneakers. All of it combined into a statement that screamedtemporary.
Tomorrow we'd handle the matter of her living out of a suitcase while there was a serviceable closet calling her name, plus all the space for her on the other side of the apartment, in my room. One of these days we'd deal with her phone and whomever it was she intended to avoid. And someday soon, we'd make this far less temporary.
Tonight, however, we'd sleep.
