“No, it's just. If there was enough of me that people liked, maybe it wouldn't be so easily eclipsed by their pre-constructed notions.”
“Like what?”
“Well, there’s the usual bits, that I must be sex-obsessed and preying on people.” I cross my arms around myself, trying to hold the feelings in while I let these thoughts see the light of day for once. “And sometimes for a bit of variety, there’s the part where I only got this job because I’m a siren.”
“Is that a thing?”
“I mean, you’ve witnessed firsthand what I’m like when I’m on my cycle,” I shrug, making a self-deprecating expression. “It’s not exactly a year-round thing.”
“I meant the job part.”
“Oh.”
Several quiet moments go by. I contemplate telling him all of it, that I don’t have a degree, that I dropped out of school, that this is the first and only white-collar job I’ve had that actually paid me, after all those internships commuting to the Peaks.
“Some people believe it helps with the job. There are more sirens in MR than any other kind of monster, statistically.” I sigh weakly after a moment.
He nods, and I take that as enough to swiftly end that topic.
We’re the last people to leave the room, but Vlad still traces one last, lingering touch low on my back. It's a move I'm familiar with, since it happened all the time in the Peaks, but it's the first time it's left me weak in the knees instead of rolling my eyes.
I follow without much thought into the hallway where everyone else is, floating in that feeling as he and everyone start to head back to their hotel rooms, daydreaming about wrinkling every inch of his perfect suit to such an extent that the dry cleaners would struggle to undo my damage.
It seems I'm not the only one. I can’t say for sure that Kathy and Ted exchange heated eye contact, but Ted’s clothes pass us by and Kathy shimmies in place like a bird repressing the need to begin her mating dance, ruffling her more colorful plumage in his general direction. Hell, I might have just looked like that a few moments ago.
She realizes I'm right next to her and whips her head around at me.
“I didn’t see anything,” I shrug, because her beak is very sharp. After a moment I add delicately, “What happens on work trips stays on work trips.”
9
Once this whole trip is over, maybe there will be enough distance, or a therapist present, to help me sort everything into a neat little box. At least I’ve survived another day of presentations, and Vlad doesn’t hate me. So he said. I don’t know if I totally believe that, but, then again, considering how all the emotions I have about him right now are just too much to deal with here, I don’t know that I could give him a confident answer about how I felt about him either. Weirdly fluttery? Mildly traumatized and aroused?
Until then, I just have to live without the feelings sorted. It’s exhausting.
Of course, the moment I actually think I'm free to recover from that ice breaker, everyone’s gathering in the hotel lobby to go out on another company sponsored bar crawl.
There’s still two more days of this, and it already feels like I’ve been through a month of it. Back-to-back-to-back-to-back. There’s been barely any breathing time, and now there’s some kind of “fun city tour” event we’re all supposed to attend.
Nope. I’m going to wander around the hotel looking to see if it has a spa or something. I need a little time not in a group environment.
I stop and lean against the wall to fix my shoe, and then pull out this trip’s agenda, letting the flow of my coworkers pass me, chatting amongst each other. I pull away from the group as subtly as I can.
I’m waiting for the elevator when Vladyr spots me standing alone in the alcove.
He glances at me and then to the hotel lobby, where the rest of our company is already pouring out the doors and into a cab.
“You're not joining in?”
I toss my empty snack bar wrapper into the wrong bin by accident and end up fishing it out of the one that saysReduce, Reuse, Reanimate.
I shrug and chew the inside of my cheek to hold back the tirade about how I’m kind of at the end of my social stamina. An eight-hour day of mostly listening to my boss’s bosses talk about things that I don’t really understand is enough of being in a room with everyone. I don’t think I could stand walking a few miles only to go into a smaller room where everyone is smooshed together at tiny, greasy tables just to drink together. There’s a minibar in my room; I’ll pass.
Besides, that ice breaker got me a little too warmed up to act normally around people.
“I'm gonna just hang out in my room,” I admit a little too plainly, which, while shorter, probably sounds just as bad.
He raises an eyebrow at my bluntness, a hint of skepticism traced in his annoyingly well-carved features.
