“WHAT?”
“Last week. On my porch. I kissed him back for about one second before I shoved him away and told him to leave.”
“Oh my God. Oh my GOD.” Sheets rustled, Peter mumbled in the background. “About damn time, Andrea.”
“It’s not ‘about time,’ it’s a disaster. It’s complicated. There’s stuff I can’t explain. He’s not who I thought he was.”
“Is he married?”
“No.”
“Serial killer?”
“No.” I paused. “Not exactly.”
“Andrea Grey, if you don’t start explaining right now I am driving to your house in my pajamas.”
“You can’t, Mary, I literally can’t tell you. Not yet. Just trust me that it’s more complicated than boss-kisses-assistant.”
She went quiet for a beat, processing, deciding whether to push, and I loved her for letting it go.
“Okay. Here’s my take. You like him, he likes you, he kissed you and you kissed him back. Whatever the complication is, stop overthinking it and see where it goes.”
“That’s terrible advice.”
“It’s excellent advice. You just don’t want to hear it because you’re stubborn and scared and you’d rather sit on your porch being miserable than admit you want this.”
“Wow. Harsh.”
“Am I wrong?”
I didn’t answer. Mary laughed, told me she loved me, hung up before I could argue.
She wasn’t wrong about any of it.
The next day, Finneas shifted his approach. He wasn’t pushing or crowding or trying to force a conversation. But the distance I’d carved out over the last three days had shrunk and he was filling the space.
Mid-morning he came to my desk with a file. “The Hargrove revisions,” he said, holding it out. When I took it his fingers grazed mine on the paper. Half a second of contact that traveled up my arm. He didn’t pull back. Neither did I. We just stood there holding opposite ends of a manila folder with our fingertips touching, my pulse spiking, until he let go. He walkedback to his office. I sat down and stared at the file without opening it.
Walking to the conference room for a client call, his hand landed on the small of my back. Light, warm through my blouse, his palm spanning between my shoulder blades. Gone before I could react, but every one of his fingers registered on my skin. I had to sit through the entire meeting with that touch burning on my spine, pretending to take notes while writing the same word over and over because my brain had vacated the premises the second his hand made contact.
Later that afternoon he passed behind my chair on his way to the printer, close, too close, close enough that the hair on the back of my neck rose and I tilted my head toward the warmth before I could stop myself. Caught it, corrected, sat straight. But twenty minutes later his hand found mine on another file and my fingers lingered instead of pulling back, and I realized the corrections weren’t holding anymore. Each one lasted shorter than the last, my body overriding my brain a little faster every time, the gap between “I should pull away” and actually pulling away shrinking to nothing.
I wasn’t forgiving him, wasn’t over the lying or the secrets or any of it. But my body kept moving toward him, and every time I tried to course-correct the pull just got stronger, and I was starting to wonder if I even wanted to fight it anymore.
The elevator ride down felt longer than usual. Just me and the hum of the cables, leaning against the back wall with my eyes closed, saying out loud to the empty car: “I am not going to kiss my boss again.”
My reflection stared back at me from the polished doors when I opened my eyes, flushed and unconvincing.
Yeah. I didn’t believe me either.
11
— • —
Andrea
I was at my desk at seven, barely through my first email, when Finneas walked in and set a coffee cup down in front of me.
