But almost as soon as her eyes slid closed, her phone sounded—a familiar tone assigned to a very specific contact—and she sat up, grabbing it from the table as Will raised his head.
She winced. “I’m sorry. It’s my boss calling.”
“Your boss calls you this late?”
Not usually, she thought. But she said, “It’s not that late for him. Only eight thirty there.”
Will frowned, and she had a feeling she knew exactly what he was thinking.What should matter is that it’s late for you, that frown said.
“We had a rough go today at work. I’ll—” She stood, gestured down the hall to indicate where she’d take it.
Will nodded and stood, and she had a moment of disappointment when she thought he might be leaving, but he only bent to pick up his dish, moving around the coffee table to take it into the kitchen. When she was halfway down the hall, swiping her thumb across the phone, she heard the clink of dishes, the sound of the faucet being turned on.
Her phone was on the fourth ring before she sat and flicked on the small light that cast a harsh glow over her desk space, the leavings of her workday in the same messy arrangement she’d left them in, because she’d been so eager to get away from it all, and to get ready for the night ahead. Now, with Austin waiting for her on the line, she felt weirdly embarrassed by it, as though he could sense through the still-unconnected phone her disorganization.
“Austin, hi,” she said, trying not to sound . . . disorganized.
“Sorry to be calling so late,” he said, but he didn’t really sound all that sorry.
“Well, it was a difficult day.” Nora wasn’t really sure that getting dropped by a nightmare client via email (xoxox!) counted as difficult enough for an after 10:00 p.m. phone call, but whatever.
“Obviously we have a lot to go over,” he said, and she could hear the tapping of his keyboard in the background. She felt another guilty pang for her gut instinct, which was to tell him that this time of night was really no time to go over anything, and also, that the whole second half of the workday had been a process of “going over.” That from her and Dee’s point of view, it’d been getting “gone over” for weeks before this day even happened.
She thought of Will out there, washing dishes, and couldn’t decide who she was being more unfair to.
She cleared her throat. “Okay, are we—”
He cut her off before she could finish.
“But I think the first thing is, we need to talk about getting you back here.”
When the call ended twenty minutes later, Nora tossed her phone onto her desk with a clatter, shoved her chair back, and hit her elbow on Nonna’s dresser.
“Damn,” she said, clutching it.
“Nora?”
She closed her eyes, absolutely knowing now who she’d been unfair to. “In here,” she called. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Seconds later Will came to the doorway, tucking his hands into his pockets and leaning against the frame. Will excelled in doorways, frankly. Excellent standing, leaning, kissing, touching. A+ in all those subjects, and now he was adding a fourth: looking.
First he looked at her, where she held her elbow, furrowed his brow and said, “Are you okay?”
Then, when she nodded, he looked up again and let his eyes pass over the one room in her apartment he’d not yet been in. Her grandmother’s most personal things, plus Nora’s tiny workspace. When his eyes landed back on her again, he maintained the furrow. He said, “What happened?” and it felt like he was asking her about so much more than the phone call.
She sighed and swiveled her chair toward him, this time concentrating enough not to run into anything.
“Austin—that’s my boss—he wants me to come back to San Diego next month.”
For the briefest of seconds, something about Will’s body changed, even though his posture remained exactly the same. But Nora saw it—a tightening. A tension.
“What for?” he said, his voice light.
She sighed, overwhelmed. Will knew a bit about her work (and rework) for the influencer, but now, everything went beyond today’s loss of the account. Everything was so much more complicated.
“A week of meetings, I guess. A few new pitches he wants me there in person for, and”—she shook her head, still in shock about this part—“some talk of moving the whole business to Los Angeles.”
This is between us for now, Austin had said, which Nora knew meant something specific: she was not meant to tell Deepa about it.
