“Goodnight, Gwen,” I tell her as I head toward our locker room. Locker room is a generous term for a space barely larger than a closet.
Inside are two dented metal lockers, a wobbly stool, and a shelf with an ancient, sputtering microwave.
It is humid from the day’s baking and smells like yeast, old coffee, and cheap cinnamon-scented air freshener.
It is intimate in the way you do not realize a space is intimate until there is one other person in it, and you cannot stop brushing against them.
I am at my locker with my back to Leo, untying my filthy apron.
Leo is at his locker, grabbing his keys and wallet. The space is so small that we keep bumping into each other.
His arm brushes my shoulder.
I turn, and my hip bumps his.
“Sorry,” he mumbles.
“You’re in my way,” I mumble back.
The air is thick.
The tension that has been building for days, the anger, the viral video, the frantic work, the competence, coils in this tiny six-by-six-foot space like it is alive.
“So,” Leo says, his voice a low rumble. He leans back against his locker like he is trying to give me room, but it only cages me in more. “A gold star. I’m officially a B plus?”
I scoff, but I am smiling, my face soft in the dim light.
“It was B plus work,” I say. “Your seams were consistent.”
“Just B plus?” he teases, his voice dropping. “After Snorlax? He was beautiful. You know he was.”
I laugh. A real, unguarded, rusty laugh. The one that makes Leo look at me a certain way. It comes out of me like I have no control over it.
“You’re ridiculous, Leo,” I say. “Snorlax.”
The laughter fades.
The hum of the coolers grows louder, then fades into the background. We are just looking at each other now. He is not the snobby businessman. I am not his boss for a month.
We are just a man and a woman covered in flour, exhausted, standing far too close.
“Tess,” he says.
It is not a question.
It is just my name.
And he is not charming or media-trained in this moment. He is transparent. Earnest. Wide-eyed, like he cannot believe he is allowed to be here.
He lifts his hand.
The hand with the callouses.
The hand that used to be manicured and useless now looks like it belongs to someone who works.
He moves slowly, giving me time to pull away, to scowl, to shut it down, to run.
He gently brushes a streak of flour from my cheekbone. His rough fingertips graze my skin.
