A knock raps the door frame. Dr. Johnson appears, eyebrows already communicating displeasure. “Is the copier free or are we all neglecting desk duties and hiding from students in here today?”
Leo slides sideways like a magician, revealing the machine. “All yours, Doc. We were just—” He chokes on any answer that could get either of us fired. “Stapling.”
“Mm,” Dr. Johnson says, which is tenured for ‘I do not want to know.’ He shoulders in with a stack of midterms and the room gets smaller—as if that’s possible.
Leo brushes past me—careful, so careful, no touching—to the doorway. He pauses just outside Johnson’s line of vision, tips his head, and winks.
He’s mid-turn, about to exit the room, when the traitorous bitch in my brain, still apparently wearing a headset from the audiobook, decides to fling me under a bus.
“Leo,” I say, voice low enough not to draw Dr. Johnson’s attention.
He turns back, hopeful in a way that slices me and makes me warm all at once. “Yeah?”
“It wasn’t—” My tongue trips. God, Tori. “I didn’t slap you because I hated it.”
Something like hunger flickers in his eyes, then he boxes it up so fast I doubt what I just saw. “Noted,” he says softly. “But also, not the point. I won’t touch you again unless you ask. That’s the new rule.”
New rule. I nod, trying the words on the inside of my mouth. “Okay.”
He gives me one last look—a look that feels so much like longing, but might just be me projecting—and then he’s gone. Dr. Johnson mutters about the copy machine’s built-in stapler being jammed and I take unholy joy in fixing it in two seconds flat while he blinks like I performed witchcraft.
When he leaves, I sag against the counter and pick up my earbuds, twirling them around in my palm before placing them back into my ears. I click my audiobook back on for noise, then immediately swipe out of that app becauseabsolutely not. Instead, I swap over to a cheerful podcast about a woman who rescues raccoons. The host’s voice is bright and happy. She says ‘babies’ way too many times.
I stack the last quiz and straighten the edges again, even thoughthey don’t need straightening. My palm still tingles from the slap; my hip still remembers the heat of his hand. Shame and want take turns elbowing each other in my chest.
I think about the way Leo didn’t make excuses. About how he stood there, hands open, and let me set the terms. About how he said my full name—Victoria—like I am a person he respects, not a hurdle he has to charm his way over.
I put the last stack in Dr. Patel’s box and label it with a sticky note in my neat handwriting. Then I pick up the ziplock once again and press it to my cheek because it gives my body something to do while my brain recalculates.
I don’t know what we are. Friends? More? I don’t know that I’m allowed to want more. I only know that today, in a too-warm copy room smelling like hot paper and toner, a man—Leo Euler—touched my hip and my body reached back before my history could stop it—and then that same man apologized with his whole being and listened when I told him how to treat me.
New rule.I can work with rules. I like rules. Especially when people follow them. Even more so when people follow through on what they say they are going to do.
And I truly believe he’s going to follow through on what he said. He won’t touch me again unless I ask him to.
Outside, the pod is quiet. Thanksgiving break begins next week and students have already begun the trek home to visit family and friends, leaving us to our own devices. Fewer meetings, fewer interruptions, more time to complete daily tasks and prep work before finals at the beginning of December.
I savor the quiet days, especially since people in our office typically means someone has a problem that needs to be solved. I have enough problems in my own life at the moment, thank you.
Like the separation agreement and affidavit being served to Chase by my attorney’s office today. I do not foresee him responding to that anywhere near as calmly as Leo responded to my slapping him across the face.
So, yes. Chase is definitely considered a problem in my life.
And Leo… I’m still not entirely sure what he is, but a problem, he is not.
Back at my desk,I line up my pens like little soldiers and open a new email I don’t need to open just to stare at the subject line until my pulse stops trying to stage dive out of my neck.
My fingers type before I overthink them into silence.
Subject:Copy room
Body:
For the record, I don’t hate you.
New rule stands.
– T
