There is only this: Briana’s velveteen mouth on mine, her smoked cherry-coloured lipstick, the bite of her fingers twisting into my collar as I press her back into the leather. The world closes in, stripping down to breath and flesh and heat. The terrifying irresistibility of a terrible choice.
Stop.
The thought surfaces only to be drowned out. It is faint, distant, already drifting out of reach, too far from shore.
I know I should.
But her lips part, and whatever’s left of that thought burns away, leaving nothing behind. Not even ash.
“Julian.” Her breath lingers against my throat. “We have fifteen minutes.”
“Ten is all we need.” My hands are already searching for the soft skin beneath her shirt, my mind surrendering willingly, gratefully, to the blank.
Somewhere on the desk, my phone buzzes. Once. Twice. A third time.
I don’t look at it.
That’s what Briana does. She doesn’t make me forget—she makes the forgetting feel like relief. Like setting down a weight I didn’t know I was still carrying. She smudges the lines until they dissolve, blots out the promises until they become meaningless. Until there is only her, and the clean, white, hot silence where my conscience used to be.
Something clatters to the floor behind me. Hard and sharp. Like a gunshot in a quiet room. A piercing sound loud enough to split the moment open. Briana flinches back, hands pushing back against my chest, a breath tearing from her throat. I turn, my eyes wide.
And the world stops.
Nora stands still in the doorway. Her knuckles are frigid where she grips the doorframe. She isn’t moving. Isn’t blinking. Her eyes are wide and completely, horribly empty, as if something behind them has shut down.
At her feet, the lunchbox. The lid lies skidded away. A dark red sauce bleeds into the carpet. Slow and rich and spreading. A ghastly wound against the beige, a wet mess that no amount of scrubbing will ever truly erase.
My lunch.
She brought me my lunch.
The cold slams into me, a full-body drop, like plunging through ice. My hands drop from Briana’s waist; her skin suddenly feels clammy. Like raw chicken. The heat of the moment is gone. Every trace of it.
I can’t find it. I can’t find any of it. My lungs have forgotten how to work.
“Nor—”
Her name dies in my throat.
I lurch forward, putting distance between myself and Briana, as if I could cross back over some line. As though a few steps could make me someone else.
Nora’s eyes drop to the spilt food on the ground and linger there. The red stain darkens against the carpet. Her expression remains unreadable. No anger, no sorrow, no shock. Only a smooth, untouchable calm that hollows the chilly office room.
“I’m sorry,” she says. Her voice is very quiet, and very far away. “Someone will have to clean that.”
I stare at her.
The words land wrong. All of them—the gentleness, the apology, the composure. None of it fits. None of it makes sense.
She’s apologizing.
She’sapologizing.
“Nora—it’s not—it’s not what it looks like.” The words fall out of me, clumsy, reflexive, the oldest lie in existence. I step toward her, one hand outstretched, reaching for something I’ve already lost.
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t step back. Her eyes stay fixed on the floor as if I’m not worth the direction of her gaze.
Why isn’t she screaming?
