“I’m past stressed. I’ve lapped stressed, I’ve overtaken panicked, and I’m now entering a state of creative paralysis that doesn’t have a clinical name yet. There should be a German word for it. They have words for everything.”
“Torschlusspanik,” I say.
She blinks at me. “What?”
“It’s German. Means the fear that time is running out and doors are closing. Literally translates to ‘gate-closing panic.’”
“How do you know that?”
I won’t dare tell her a client actually taught me that on a date. Because now that feels like a different life. Before Celeste. Well before I knew what I wanted and decided to go for it.
“Just someone from a past life.”
She doesn’t question it. She almost smiles. “It’s accurate, I’ll give you that. Gate-closing panic. That’s exactly what this is.” She rubs her temples in circles like she can massage her worries away.
“You need to relax.”
“I’ll relax when I’m dead, Saylor.”
“Or,” I say, stepping farther into the office, “you could relax right now. For ten minutes. Just long enough to get out of your own head.”
“I don’t have ten minutes.”
“You have all the minutes you decide you have. You own this company. Nobody’s checking your timesheet.”
“That’s not how creative deadlines?—”
“It’s exactly how creative blocks work. You’re gripping too tight. Staring at the design and demanding it speak. Sometimesthe best thing you can do is step away and let the idea find you when you stop hunting it.”
She leans back in her chair. Arms crossed. The posture of a woman preparing to reject whatever comes next on general principle. “And what exactly do you propose I do for ten minutes that’s going to magically cure creative paralysis?”
I look around the office. The glass walls. The corkboard. The mannequin in her copper gown. And on the mannequin’s waist, a sash of raw silk tied in a loose knot.
“Does your office have blinds?” I ask.
Celeste squints. “What?”
“Blinds. Privacy blinds. For the windows.”
She studies me for a long moment, her expression moving through several phases of comprehension before arriving at something between suspicion and curiosity. Without breaking eye contact, she reaches to her desk and presses a button. A low mechanical hum fills the room as automated blinds descend from the top of every glass wall, rolling down in unison, sealing the office from the open floor plan outside. The light softens. The outside world disappears. It’s just us and the mannequin in the corner, watching with what I choose to interpret as approval.
I walk to the door. Lock it. The click is small but fills the room like a punctuation mark at the end of a very long sentence.
“Saylor, what are you?—”
“Sit down.”
She doesn’t sit down. She stands there with her arms crossed, vibrating with the tension of a woman who is never told what to do and isn’t entirely sure how she feels about the part of her that wants to listen.
“Please,” I add.
She sits. In her office chair, behind her desk, where she’s sat a thousand times for a thousand meetings and never once for this. I walk to the mannequin and untie the sash from its waist.The fabric is cool and smooth in my hands, weightless. I don’t know what this fabric is, but I like it. It’s something I’ve never felt before, a cross between the luxury of silk and the comfort of cotton. I can learn this stuff. I can learn to speakCeleste.
I come around the desk. Celeste watches me with a breathing pattern that has already changed. Quicker. Shallower. Her hands grip the armrests, knuckles going pale, pupils dilating behind those glasses I find unreasonably attractive.
I stop behind her chair. Lean down so my mouth is near her ear. Close enough that she can feel my breath but not my lips. The distinction matters.
“Do you trust me?” I ask.
