Beige apology.
That was exactly the kind of line that made me like her more than I had planned to. Specific. Funny. Mean in the right direction. The kind of phrase a person only came up with if they had taste, judgment, and enough nerve to say what everybody else in the room was still trying to dilute into corporate language.
I looked back at the open summary on my laptop.
Then back at the text.
The issue with Talia now wasn’t only that I wanted her. Wanting a woman was manageable. Familiar. Part of being alive and male and not dead in the blood.
The issue was that my interest in her kept spreading.
It wasn’t settling into the usual places. Wasn’t staying in my dick or in the part of my brain that knew how to enjoy a woman without handing her too much real estate too early.
I liked how she talked. I liked how she thought.
I liked the way her voice had sounded in my ear the night before, lower than it had been in the room, warmer in some places, easier in others. I liked that she knew Kut Klose off afew soft notes and admitted to reheating pasta without trying to make it cute. I liked that she laughed with her whole mouth when something really got her. I liked that she didn’t scramble to fill silence just because it showed up.
That was where men got in trouble. A woman started turning into a person too quickly when a man wasn’t careful. And if I was being honest, I was already past careful.
That was the wild part.
I had taken fuck breaks before. Hell, when I was younger, fresh in banking, no real stake in anything but getting my numbers right and my suits tailored, I had absolutely left work for the right woman. Quick lunch. Quick hotel. Quick ride to somebody’s apartment if the day felt loose enough and the risk felt worth it.
Back then, I had less to lose and less sense.
These days? Nah.
These days I liked order. Liked my workday where it belonged. Liked my appetites in lanes I could account for. I didn’t leave the office just because a woman was on my mind.
And yet.
Here I was, looking at my phone like I wanted to see her face before the day ended. Hear her saybeige apologyout loud. Watch her mouth do that little thing it did before the laugh came. Be close enough to catch what she had on today and whatever she smelled like in daylight instead of low lights and liquor.
That felt like new behavior.
And the worse part was, I knew it.
A younger version of me might’ve kept it in the phone. Let the flirting do what it did. Kept the day moving. Saved the in-person energy for Thursday and acted like I had some sense.
Today, that was not enough.
Because the truth was simple. I didn’t want more text.
I wanted her actual face when she said it. Her mouth. The little shift in her eyes when she knew she was funny. The sound of her dragging that rooftop in person like the room had offended her on sight and she intended to let it know.
So I pushed it.
Asked to see her.
Then she gave me a time.
Talia: Lobby bar downstairs in twenty. If you’re lucky.
I was already reaching for my jacket.
Me: On my way.
I shut my laptop, grabbed my phone, and stood up fast enough that Devon caught me in the hall before I made it to the elevator, coming out of his office with his phone in one hand and that irritating look already on his face.
