Page 140 of Boardroom Mask

Every rule I’ve ever lived by, every single one: Gone.

I look up to see Doug watching me over the rims of his glasses. He might as well have a stethoscope pressed to my forehead that can read every last one of my thoughts down to the comma. It’s all there, obvious, undeniable, shameful, true.

“You know what I remember?” he says as he sighs and stands. “Two years ago, a redhead kid walks into my office with a cold-case pitch about a contractor burying asbestos in a school gymnasium. She was green as hell, but damn was she eager. Didn’t have a source or a single shred of proof. Hell, she didn’t have nothing more than a silly little hunch. But she looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘Give me three weeks and I’ll give you a front page,’ and fucking hell, my cold, dead, black, shriveled little husk of a heart actually believed her. And then I’ll be damned—she did it. In two weeks, not three.” He picks up his coffee and his to-go bag. “That kid had a fire in her chest that I haven’t seen in thirty years of doing this. I hired her on the spot because I knew she was going to be something. And she was. Sheis.”

I want so badly to tell him that I’m still that person. Nothing has changed; I can still do what I do. But the words won’t come because we both know they’d be bullshit.

Doug reaches into his back pocket, pulls out his wallet, and drops a twenty on the table next to my half-eaten croissant. “That fire in your chest, Jillian?” He tucks the wallet away. “Hedidn’t light it;youdid. But he sure as hell didn’t say no when he came along to snuff it out.”

Then he turns and walks away down Bleecker Street. Not once does he stop to look back.

Kir rounds the corner thirty seconds later, saying something I don’t catch as he drops into his seat.

“… Jillian?”

I look up at him. The sun is painfully bright in my eyes now. I wish it would go away. “Huh? I mean, sorry, what did you say?”

“I asked if you missed me.” He smiles, beautiful and terrible all at once.

“Y-yeah,” I say, picking up my menu and holding it in front of my face while I pretend to read. “Tons.”

Kir’s finger snakes over the top of the menu and pulls it down. “Everything okay?” he asks. He’s frowning now.

“Peachy,” I assure him with the fakest smile I’ve ever mustered. “Just hungry all the sudden.”

He scrutinizes me for a second longer before he shrugs and leans back in his seat, unconcerned.

And all I can think is that, in my pocket, my phone holds a draft email to Doug with a finished article attached. It sits there.

Unsent.

Waiting.

57

JILLIAN

“You’ll never know, dear / How much I love you / Please don’t take my sunshine away”

— “You Are My Sunshine” (traditional folk song)

Have you ever fucked your love goodbye?

Night has fallen. I’m on top of Kir, hands flat on his chest. I’m moving slow on purpose. His penthouse is dark except for the city through the windows. All those little lights scattered across the water. His hands are on my hips but he’s letting me lead, and I’m taking my time because I need to remember this.

The flat plane of his stomach.

The press of his thumbs into the divots above my hip bones.

That little sigh that leaves his lips when I sink all the way down onto him.

So many things I want to catalog to last me through the days and weeks and months ahead, because they’ll be sad and lonely and I’ll need some fire to keep me warm.

He doesn’t know any of that, of course. He thinks this is justus. A good night after a good day. Cappuccinos and croissants. The rest of our lives stretching out ahead of us, uncomplicated and bright.

I know better. Doug’s face on Bleecker Street is burned into my brain, and no amount of sex, sunshine, or I-love-yous is going to scorch it out.

So I move slow. Accumulate more little details like snowflakes landing on my tongue and dissolving to become part of me. Gray eyes in the gloom. Beard stubble. That mountain ridge line of his nose.