“I’ll see myself out, then.” Daniels turns to walk out the door. “Oh, and Oliver?” He turns to meet my eyes once more. “I seemed to have missed a spot,” he says, pointing to the spilled coffee on the ground. “Would you be a dear and wipe that up for me?”
The list. The goals. Having to work with this fucking asshole will be a blip on the radar compared to the work I’ll actually be able to accomplish, the impact I’ll have. Stay off the radar. No drama. I blow out a breath.
EIGHTEEN
Georgia
Friday night wasone of those… grey-out nights. Not quite blackout, but not fully coherent, either. After debriefing with Tamika (that girl is a tank), listening to the voice recordings on my phone, and remembering flashes of imagery and snippets of conversation, I can piece enough together to know that Oliver and I probably had a Moment, with a capital M. But it’s Secret, with a capital S. I do remember that.
However, the fundraiser is next week, so we’vehadto have meetings in his office to prepare. Every day. We must. It’s crucial to the success of the fundraiser. Every day. Sometimes, for hours a day.
“…so you’ve reached out to the carnival rental place, and they’re all set for next week?” Oliver is asking me, his gaze lingering unhappily on my perfectly breezy and shapeless sheath dress.
“Yep. They’re all set. Deposit is fully paid, too. We’ll need to give them a check on the day of, so put that on your to-do list.”
“Oh, right. We need two signatures for a check, too. Let’sjust do that now.” He stands up and unlocks his meticulously organized filing cabinet, pulling out a binder labeled “Checkbook” (with a professional label maker, mind you,nothaphazardly scribbled across the front in Sharpie).
I watch his hands, deeply veined and strong, write the check in perfect cursive. He signs and then hands the check to me. “Sign underneath mine, please.”
My chicken scratch looks comical under his signature. His is so annoyingly neat that you can read every individual letter in his name. Mine is a stylized G with a long, flowy tail. Unable to resist, I make the small dot above the ‘i’ in his name into a tiny heart.
His mouth is pressed into a flat line, unimpressed. “This check is no good now.”
“What do you mean?”
“My signature has been tampered with. It’s no longer valid.” He writes the word “VOID” in huge letters across the check, rips the check in half, and fills in a new one.
I like this about him, I’m surprised to realize. It’s not annoying as I originally thought. His dedication to rules and strict organization makes me feel secure. Settled, somehow. Calm.
But I can’t lose myself, so I sign the new check and add a heart on top of my name instead.
“What are you doing?”
“I have an ‘i’ in my name, too.”
“But you don’t have a heart on your original signature.”
“This is my signature, Oliver. Deal with it.”
Frowning, he puts the check in the envelope. I watch his pink tongue dart out as he licks the adhesive gum on the flap. The entire thing. Not awkward at all, as we hold eye contact through the entire process. Jeez Louise, how long is that flap, anyway?! The longest, largest envelope flap in the universe.I shift in my seat, not having to check my underwear this time. I know on a cellular level that I am wet.
He places the sealed envelope in a folder on his desk labeled “Fall Festival” (yes, with a label maker). He puts everything away in its appropriate place, sits, and leans back in his chair.
“I think that’s it for the day,” he says.
“Yes. Um, no. I mean, yeah. Okay. Cool,” I say, not moving.
He raises an eyebrow. “Want some coffee?” he finally asks.
I shake my head like a dog, hoping to show “no”, but really clearing the image of his tongue licking that stupid fucking envelope from my brain. “It’s like, four p.m. I’ll never sleep.”
Shrugging, he presses the “Brew” button on the coffeemaker.
“It won’t affect your sleep?” I ask the strip of tan skin peeking out from under the collar of his shirt.
“It doesn’t really affect me. I don’t sleep much, anyway.”
“You’re not one of those people who sleep with a sleep tracking smart watch that tracks every heartbeat, REM cycle, and wet dream you have every night?”
