His mother. I’d been sleeping in his bed for weeks and she didn’t know I existed. At least, I didn’t think she did. He never mentioned telling her about us.
When I came out with a towel around me and my hair dripping onto the hardwood, he was sitting on the edge of the bed with his phone in his hand, jaw set. That crease between his brows was back, the stiffness in his shoulders. He looked like a different man from the one who’d fallen asleep with his arm around me eight hours ago.
“Was that your mom?” I asked, keeping my voice casual.
He looked up. Something flickered across his face, quick, gone before I could name it. “Yeah. Just checking in.”
“Everything okay?”
“Fine. She’s fine.”
I stood there dripping on his floor, watching him put the phone down and run his hand through his hair. I wanted to ask if she knew about me. Wanted to ask when I’d meet her, whether he’d told her he was seeing someone, whether he was planning to. The questions lined up in my head one after another but I couldn’t make myself say any of them because asking meant the answer might be no, she doesn’t know, and I wasn’t ready for what that would do to the warm fragile thing we’d built.
He looked up at me and his face smoothed out, the tension disappearing behind a smile that almost reached his eyes but didn’t quite get there.
“Breakfast?” he said.
I let it go. Filed it away with the tightness around his eyes and the calls he took in other rooms and the way his jaw set when he thought I wasn’t watching. He said he’d tell me if something was wrong. I was choosing to trust that.
I got dressed, he drove, his hand on my thigh, radio low. The morning felt normal and good and I shoved the phone call out of my head.
It stayed shoved for about three hours before it crept back in. Because that’s the thing about shit you’re trying not to think about. It always comes back.
17
— • —
Andrea
It was late on a Friday afternoon, the floor emptied out, just me and Finneas and the hum of the building settling into the weekend. I was wrapping up emails when the elevator dinged and a courier stepped out carrying a stack of document boxes. Tall, mid-twenties maybe, easy smile. He set the boxes by my desk and leaned against it.
“Heavy stuff. You work up here alone?”
“Just me and my boss,” I said, signing the delivery form.
“Lucky boss.” He grinned. “You need help carrying those anywhere?”
“I’m good, thanks.”
“You sure? I’ve got time. Could grab a coffee after, if you want to-”
“She said she’s good.”
I looked up. Finneas was in his office doorway, arms crossed, jaw tight, eyes locked on the courier like the man had personally offended his bloodline. The courier glanced at him, read the room in about half a second, grabbed his clipboard and left without another word. The elevator doors closed behind him.
I turned back to my screen. “He was just being friendly.”
“He was leaning on your desk.”
“People lean on desks. It’s a thing desks are for.”
“Desks are for working.”
“You lean on my desk all the time.”
“That’s different.”
“How is that different?”
