She picks up on the third buzz. “Hi. Yes. I’m finishing Adams’s review now.” Flat. Even. Perfect. Her free hand is shaking. “Ten minutes. I’ll bring the eligibility sheet up with me.”
She hangs up. Doesn’t look at me. Stacks her papers with the edges all lined up, as if she gets the corners square enough, the last two minutes didn’t happen.
“That,” she says, to the table, “cannot happen again.”
She’s gone before I can tell her the truth, which is that it’s already going to.
Caleb
She ghosts me for three days after the kiss.
Not in an obvious way, but in an efficient way, which, from Jasmine, feels worse. She doesn’t like digital shit. But our Thursday review gets moved to email. My eligibility paperwork comes through the team portal with a note that says see attached and nothing else.
And…she starts taking the west stairs.
I give her two days. On the third, I go find her, because I’ve never once in my life left well enough alone, and I’m sure not starting now over the only thing I actually want.
She’s in the stairwell. Top step, knees up, with a lunch she doesn’t seem to be eating. When the door opens, her shoulders jump to her ears, drop when she sees it’s me, then climb right back up, which is new, and which I hate.
“You can’t be up here,” she says.
“We did this bit already. I liked it better the first time.”
“That was before.”
“Before what?”
“Before my father called, and I remembered who I am.” She won’t look at me. “We’re done, Caleb. It was a mistake, I said so at the time, and I’m ending it before it turns into the kind of mistake that we can’t fix.”
“Okay.”
That gets her to look up. “Okay?”
“You don’t want this, we’re done. I’m not gonna chase a woman who’s telling me no.” I lean back against the rail. “But that’s not what you’re doing. You’re scared. Those aren’t the same thing, and I think you’re too smart to pretend they are.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t tell me what I am.”
“Then you tell me.” I keep my voice even. “Tell me you didn’t feel that kiss all the way down to between your legs. Tell me you don’t want it, and I’ll walk down these stairs and be a name on your caseload for the rest of the year. Go ahead.”
She opens her mouth. Nothing comes out. Her thumb’s running across the seam of her jeans, fast. I’m stressing her out, but I can’t care about that. I need her not to be afraid, at least not of me.
“That’s what I figured,” I say, gentler.
“I hate that you do that.”
“Do what?”
“Read me as if you think you know me.”
“I’m not pretending to be an expert on Jasmine Dixon. It’s just that I notice things. We covered that.”
“That’s worse, somehow.”
“Yeah, well.”
“Wanting it isn’t the point.” Her voice cracks. “You don’t get it. He’s not just my dad. He’s the only person I have. No mom, no friends, no backup. Just him and this job, and the only reason he keeps me close is that I’m useful. The day I’m a liability instead of an asset, I’m gone. I’ve watched him cut off people he’s known twenty years for less than this.” She finally looks at me, and her eyes are wet and furious about it. “You’d be risking some time on the ice. I’d be risking the only family I’ve got. Those aren’t the same risks.”
And there it is. The truth. It’s not about her self-imposed set of rules or the optics. She’s not scared of getting caught. She’s scared of being alone and abandoned, and that’s a valid ass fear.
