When we break apart, she's shivering. I shrug out of my jacket, drape it over her shoulders. It swallows her, hangs past her knees.
"Your plan, Little Manager. What happens now?"
She considers, rain streaming down her face. "Now we go to that dive bar you think I don't know about. Get drunk. Figure out our next move." Her grin turns sharp. "And maybe find a hotel. Celebrate our newfound unemployment properly."
"I like this plan."
"Of course you do. I made it." She retrieves her shoes, links her arm through mine. "Come on, warrior. Let's go be unemployed together."
We walk, leaving my scattered possessions behind. The rain continues falling. My suit is ruined. Her professional reputation is shattered. Everything we built these past three months, gone.
And somehow, impossibly, I've never been happier.
13
ORLA
Irun.
The pavement is slick and my Louboutins were not designed for sprinting, but I pump my arms like I'm gunning for Olympic gold, lungs burning, thighs screaming. My hair whips free from its architectural precision, bobby pins flying loose like shrapnel. Tomorrow I'll have frizz. Tomorrow I'll look like I stuck my finger in an electrical socket.
Don't care.
The bus stop glows ahead, fluorescent and sickly yellow in the rain. Thraka stands beneath it, shoulders hunched, staring at the route map like it contains the secrets of the universe. His metal box sits at his feet, already rusting at the corners.
"Thraka!"
He turns. Water streams down his face, plastering his wild hair flat. Without the volume, I can see the elegant bone structure underneath, the strong jaw, the surprising delicacy of his pointed ears.
"Stop!" I skid to a halt under the shelter, gasping. My blazer is soaked through. My blouse clings transparent to my skin.Professional Orla would be mortified. Current Orla has bigger priorities. "Just stop."
"Little Manager." His voice is careful, controlled. Like he's trying not to hope. "You should go back inside. You will catch a cold."
"Who cares about colds. Nor do I care about my quarterly performance review or my promotion track or the fact that Janet from Accounting is definitely watching from the third-floor window." I advance on him, jabbing my finger into his chest. It's like poking granite. "You don't get to make this decision alone."
"There was no decision." He catches my wrist gently, thumb pressing against my racing pulse. "The CEO said?—"
"The CEO is a spineless corporate drone who's been stealing from the pension fund. I have proof. Seventeen separate violations documented across six years." I yank my hand free. "But that's not the point. The point is you were going to walk away."
"To protect your career."
"I don't want a career that makes me choose between being successful and being happy!" The words tear out of me, raw and true. "Do you know what my life was like before you? Do you have any idea?"
He says nothing. Rain drums on the shelter roof.
"I woke up at five. Reviewed projections until six. Gym from six to seven. Shower, blow dry, makeup. Power suit rotation, A through E. Arrive at office by eight-fifteen. Never eight-thirty, never eight. Eight-fifteen exactly." My voice cracks. "Lunch at my desk. Protein shake, no flavor, maximum efficiency. Stay until seven. Go home. Review tomorrow's agenda. Sleep six hours. Repeat."
"Orla—"
"And I was fine with it! I thought I was fine. I thought that's what success looked like. Empty and precise and utterlyjoyless." I'm crying now, hot tears mixing with cold rain. "Then you showed up and broke my table and ate Steve's sandwich and tried to challenge the printer to a duel, and you were so alive, so real, and I realized I'd been dead inside for years."
"You are not dead." His hands cup my face, thumbs brushing away tears. "You are fire wearing a blazer."
"You make me feel like fire. Like I can burn everything down and build something better in the ashes." I grip his wrists. "You make me laugh. You make me scream in supply closets. You make me forget about optimization and efficiency and five-year plans because all I can think about is whether you'll pin me against something and growl in Orcish again."
His pupils dilate, black swallowing green.
"I love you." The confession explodes out of me. "I love that you brought me a dead rat. I love that you can't type without destroying keyboards. I love that you think HR is a food service department and that you painted your face for paintball and that you carried me through a storm to a shed and made me forget my own name." I'm shaking now, adrenaline and terror and desperate hope. "And I’m not concerned if loving you ruins my career, because you are the only thing that's made me feel human in years, and I am not letting you walk away."
