“Alli, when you get to experience someone like Pierce, how do you go back to not experiencing it again? How do you move on?”
“Wait, but that was at work, and he was here this morning?”
I drink more wine and take a few bites of the delicious cheese. I have a feeling I’m going to drink a lot tonight, and I haven’t had dinner, so I need to snack up.
“My dad called me yesterday. I’d just gotten back to the office after the roof garden…stuff.”
“What did your dad want this time?” Alli’s voice is filled with understandable worry. She’s been here for all the other times.
“Apparently, my brother’s firm has an opening for a junior analyst,” I explain. “Dad thinks it’s time I stopped ‘playing around’ with my current job.”
“Playing around?” Alli’s tone sharpens with familiar protectiveness. “You mean excelling at a corporate position while developing your art on the side? That kind of playing around?”
Her defense gives me all sorts of warm fuzzies, and it’s suddenly easier to keep going. “You know how he is. Nothing’s ever good enough unless it fits his exact vision of success. And now that Tobias is making all the good waves at the firm…”
“Screw your brother,” Alli interrupts. “And screw your dad’s narrow definition of achievement. You’re doing amazing things, Thatch.”
“I know,” I manage, though the words come out rougher than intended. “It’s just… Sometimes I wonder if he’s right. If I’m only fooling myself, wondering if I’ll ever be a full-time artist. Or if I need to accept it’s not going to happen, and I’m destined for a life of corporate boredom.”
“It seems your current corporate life is anything but boring, honey.”
I throw a cracker in her direction, and she catches it, stuffing it in her mouth.
“Anyway, met your dad. What happened next?”
“I couldn’t go back to the office in the frame of mind I was in, so I ended up walking along the river for hours. You were on your date, so…”
“So you called your boss to come comfort you? Finish what he started?” The words carry no judgment, just gentle curiosity that makes my confession easier.
“No, he came here.”
Her eyebrows shoot up high so quickly that even Berry jumps in my arms.
“Hecame here?”
I nod. “He thought I left because of what happened in the roof garden.”
“What happened when he knocked on your door? I bet you were surprised.”
I chuckle. “That’s an understatement. Alli, when I answered the door, he was right there wearing these dark sweatpants and an old hoodie. My brain unalived itself on the spot.”
“And he gladly provided mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.” She wiggles her eyebrows.
“He listened,” I say softly, remembering how naturally our conversation flowed. “He asked about my dad, my art, my stories, my dreams.”
“And then…” Alli prompts when I fall silent. “The listening led to other activities…?”
The heat in my face probably answers for me, but the wine loosens my tongue anyway. “It was…intense,” I admit, and she leans forward with renewed interest. “Not just physically, though that part was…wow. But emotionally too.”
The kitten’s warmth against my chest feels like tiny pieces of comfort as I try to find words for everything Pierce makes me feel. Like how he looks at my artwork with genuine appreciation, or the way his walls come down when we’re alone together, how he worried he was the one taking advantage of me.
“He… We’re going to New York next week. Together.”
Alli nearly chokes on her wine. “Wait, what? He’s taking you on a business trip?”
“Pierce has meetings in the New York office. As his assistant, it’s my job to go with him.” I shift the kitten to a more comfortable position. “It’s just a three-day work trip.”
“Let me get this straight.” Alli sets down her glass with exaggeration. “You’re going with your boss—the boss you’ve now had sex with multiple times—to New York. For three days. Away from the office, away from prying eyes…”
