I fix my own clothes at half her speed. Belt. Zipper. Shirt tucked back where it belongs. I was never really out of mine; it’s a three-second operation. I catch a glimpse of myself in the darkened window—hair mostly in place, suit mostly in place, face mostly in place—and nobody walking past this office would guess a thing. She, on the other hand, could not walk past her own reflection right now without knowing.
She won’t look at me.
I wait for the speech.
The professionalism one. The boundaries one. Thethis cannot happen againone.
She finally meets my eyes.
“I’m going home tonight.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“My apartment.” She doesn’t flinch from me. “Not yours.”
That’s it?
No speech. No lecture. No line about mistakes or standards or what we owe ourselves as adults. Just a small, precisely aimed sentence and her coat over her arm.
I consider her.
“Fine.”
She blinks. “Fine?”
“Fine.”
I push off the desk and walk past her to the door. I unlock the bolt.
On the other side, the floor is empty. Just the hallway and the low evening lights.
Bea walks past me.
“Bea.”
She stops.
She doesn’t turn around. Smart girl.
“See you tomorrow,assistant.”
She doesn’t answer. After a moment, she keeps walking. She reaches the elevator with her spine straight and her head up, and she doesn’t look back.
Then she’s gone.
I close my office door and turn the bolt again, this time out of habit.
The room still smells like her. There’s a palm print on the dust along the top of the cabinet. Her lipstick is on my shirt cuff where her mouth dragged across my wrist.
Christ.
I find I’m smiling again, which is, frankly, the most insane part.
I push off the desk and walk over to the window. Lift two of the slats with a finger.
Sixty floors below, a figure in a coat too thin for the weather steps out of the lobby and onto the sidewalk. She pauses at the curb. Doesn’t look up. Lifts a hand for a cab.
My apartment.Not yours.
