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I slap Vivian on the arm. “Stop it. I have to tell him about the flood, and it’s going to be awful.”
She hops off my desk and heads back to the hallway. “It’ll be fine. You’ll sort it out.” She flicks her eyes to Max, like she’s checking whether he’s looking. “And you should let Elliot undress you again,” she adds with an exaggerated whisper before disappearing.
“Stop it,” I repeat between my teeth, my eyes wide for emphasis.
Clothing removal by Elliot—or anyone—is the last thing I can allow myself to think about right now. I need to fix the flood damage. And fast.
Ninety minutes and a flurry of phone calls later, I pace the empty boardroom—the only private place I could find to make the call I’m dreading the most.
My stomach crawls up to my chest and twists into a tight knot as I look at Elliot’s name on my phone. Of course, I could just go down two floors and tell him face to face. But breaking this news will be bad enough without having to do it in person. Partly because I’m still so embarrassed, and partly because I’m not sure how to look him in the eye after all the new thoughts I’ve been having about him.
I put my phone on the sill running the width of the wall-to-wall windows and look out at the ornate building across the street on First Avenue. The room I can see directly into looks like it’s home to a music school. Three kids playing clarinets sit in an arc around a music stand, facing a teacher who’s conducting them.
I only ever played the recorder when I was a kid. Maybe I should have learned other instruments too. But as much as I’d like to distract myself with thoughts of the piano lessons I abandoned, I really do have to make myself call Elliot.
Taking a deep breath, I return my attention to the phone. Here goes everything.
When I tap on Elliot’s name, the sound of the dial tone makes me want to hang up, head to the wine store, and spend the afternoon drinking myself into a stupor in the park. But that would probably just lead to more vomiting, and I’ve definitely had enough of that.
“Hey,” says Elliot’s ever-cheerful voice. “How’s it going?”
The music teacher interrupts the clarinetting and jabs her baton toward the kid in the center. The boy and girl on either side stare at him while she waves her arms about wildly. Poor little guy.
“Um. Well, I have a bit of news.” I stroll along the windows. “You know how well the contractors had done yesterday?”
“Yes,” Elliot says. “Fantastic job. Thanks for the photos. Looked like they’d almost finished.”
“Yeah, well. Thing is…” I screw up my eyes and press my fingertips to my forehead. I need to say this quickly and get it over with. “Some pipes in the ceiling burst during the night. A lot of the ceiling has collapsed. Everything’s drenched. Most of it’s ruined.”
While I give Elliot a moment to process all that, I open my eyes and watch the kids playing their clarinets again. The teacher’s smiling now as she leads them.
“Fuck,” Elliot says.
“Yup.” His one-word, no-nonsense, no-drama reaction is perfect. “That’s pretty much what I said too. Several times.”
“Christ, I wish I could send out my staff early. The ones who’ve volunteered to help on launch day. But they’re working on an emergency bug fix that I can’t pull them off right now.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll sort it out.” I cross my fingers. “I promise.”
I have to. I must make this happen.
“If we can’t do the launch on Monday, sure as there’ll always be a memory leak in JavaScript, Netto will pull out,” Elliot says, as if he’s reminding himself rather than me of the peril of the situation.
“This is no time for techie jokes I don’t understand. But yup. I know Netto would walk. And I won’t let you down, Elliot. I won’t.” I burn with the guilt of saying something I’m not certain is true.
But I can’t let him down. And I can’t let myself down either.
“I don’t want to lose them.” He sounds like it’s all just sinking in. “They’re the greatest sponsor we could ever have hoped for. Owen schmoozed the living daylights out of them for months to get them on board. I can’t let him down.”
So here we all are then, a triangle of people trying not to let each other down but fearing we might.
The music teacher is still smiling and waving her baton.
“I’ll pull it together. I will.” Shit. I hope I can.
Elliot’s silent for a second. “Could you come down so we can talk about it?”
Go down and look at him? And imagine him putting me to bed again but under entirely different circumstances—ones where I’m fully conscious and know what I’m doing? And what I want? And how I want it? And he gives it all to me? More than once?
