Rose was happy to take that excuse to go, even if Teagan was not entirely happy to leave it like that. He didn’t want to continue the conversation in front of Darcy though, so he waved Rose off. She shut the door behind her.
Darcy tucked the decanter under an arm and came to perch on the corner of Teagan’s desk.
“That was just for show,” she stage-whispered. “If you want to take her to mast for insubordination, I’ll help you put her in the brig. Are you allowed to put people in the brig here?”
Teagan couldn’t quite manage a laugh, but he leaned forward and propped his head in his hands, then dragged his fingertips through his hair, trying to brush it back behind his ears. He hadn’t had a haircut in weeks; he probably looked like a college student.
“I think that would be bad for morale,” he said, trying to pull himself together. Arguing with anyone always knocked him back and put his stomach into knots. He looked at Darcy’s booted feet, dangling incongruously against the side of the white desk.
He had a sudden burst of longing to be back in the woods, clippers in his hands, some simple solvable task in front of him.
“Do you want to go for a walk? There’s supposed to be a red-tailed hawk nest a few blocks away,” he said, scraping for some reason they might both get out of this office andaway from the dozens of people who were right now finding out where he’d been.
Darcy’s face was doubtful. “You want to go for a nature hike in Midtown Manhattan?” she asked, gesturing out the window to the other skyscrapers crowding close around them.
“It’s there. It was on the news,” Teagan said, even though he sensed this was not a great inducement. “I saw a video clip of it feeding a rat to its babies.”
Yes, Darcy, stay with me, your life can be this exciting.
“No, I know,” she replied, gracefully forbearing from criticism of his idea of a good time. “That species adapted well to urban environments. But it’s August. The nestlings would already be fledged and gone.”
“Right,” Teagan said, like he’d known that.
Darcy ran an affectionate hand over his shoulder. “Besides, I have stuff to do, and I’m sure you do too. I was just checking in. Today I’m going to take that resume you made me and send it to the contractors for a couple of other national parks. Hedge my bets, you know.”
“Right,” he said again, gritting his teeth at the idea. He wished she’d stay, instead.
He’d block his calendar to spend a half an hour today looking at job listings for the state parks around New York.
“If you suddenly get a feeling like you’re gonna rush out of here and hit the gin, just call me first,” she said. “I’ll check in on you later.” She patted his shoulder as she left with the decanter of bourbon, and it was like half the air in the room went with her.
There was more than enough work to be done. It would take him days to dig out from under the email alone, even if Rose or Modeline seemed to have responded to everything from external partners.
But his head felt like a mason jar full of fireflies—little flashes of light as winged insects tapped against the glass. He couldn’t call any donors while he felt like this.
He couldn’t concentrate on anything until he moved his inquiry into nearby jobs that might interest Darcy to the top of his to-do list.
Half an hour of work only produced a running list of nearby state park websites and a note to email a donor who’d also supported the Audubon Society, but he could see the shape of the project taking form. It was a little thread of hope to hold on to before he turned his attention back to the business of the foundation as expressed in the email backlog.
At lunchtime, he went to the break room, but he did not find Darcy there. Someone had ordered in cold cut sandwiches for lunch for the office. Under the curious looks of the gathered staff, Teagan did a stiff circuit of the room, shoved half a sandwich onto a paper plate, and quickly retreated to his office, feeling like all eyes were on him.
He checked his phone, finding a voice text from Darcy indicating that she’d gone out for a couple of hours.
Which of course she could do. He couldn’t reasonably think she’d be with him twenty-four hours a day. Who’d want to?
He ate his sandwich over his keyboard as he checked the performance of the foundation’s asset portfolio over the past month, then moved on to Modeline’s reports on grant spending. This part of his job he did not mind. The paperwork was nonjudgmental, the numbers asked little of him, and together the two told a story about the real-world impact of this venture: actual children enjoying their lives.
Once absorbed in the finances, he did not look back up until the lights went out at six p.m. Teagan automaticallywaved his arms to catch the sensor’s attention and make them come back on—this happened to him several times every evening here—then realized that he hadn’t seen Darcy all day. He checked his phone. No new messages.
A little worried, Teagan went back out into the open office. Most of the staff were gathering purses and backpacks and shutting down their computers. He looked through the break room and cubicles until he found Darcy working on an old laptop in an empty conference room. Much relieved to see her there, he grabbed a fistful of menus out of the break room with a view to dinner.
“Quitting time?” Darcy said eagerly when he came in, reaching for her backpack.
“Oh, I—we can leave,” Teagan said. He usually worked a few hours longer so as to avoid rush hour congestion on the train if he was going back to Irvington.
“No, no, let’s keep it as close to your usual schedule as we can,” Darcy said, even though her face said she was unimpressed with his office hours. “I’m fine here.”
“Did you get your job applications done?” Teagan asked, hoping the answer was no.
