“This is a good start?—”
“Start?” His eyes bug as he whines.
“Two more things. First, you will write a glowing letter of recommendation. Not a template—something specific. Her metrics, her skills, the supervisor track she’s been building. It should read like it was written by someone who has been paying close attention, because you have been, just not to the right things. She’ll have it by Friday.”
“What else?”
“First thing tomorrow morning, you go to HR and file a formal complaint against yourself. Describe what you did today and what you’ve been doing for years. In detail. Without softening any of it.”
He looks up. “That’ll get me fired.”
“You should have thought about that before you did fireable things.”
“You can’t just make me fire myself?—”
“I can make you do worse, Reginald.” I smile. “Do you want me to? I might get creative if you motivate me.”
He stares at me while he runs the calculation—whether I’m bluffing, whether there’s an out. There’s nothing in my face thathelps him, and eventually the math produces the only answer available to it.
“Fine.” Flat and finished.
“Good. Don’t contact her. Ever. Don’t reference her to anyone. As far as you’re concerned, she doesn’t exist. As long as she doesn’t exist in your world, neither will I.”
I leave him in the parking structure.
The drive back is twenty minutes. I ride up in the elevator with the box under my arm, my knuckles aching—two of them split where I caught his cheekbone when he shifted going down, my fault for not adjusting the angle. Didn’t feel it while I was in the garage. Adrenaline, most likely. I’ll tape them upstairs.
Lena is in the kitchen when I come in. She’s made tea she hasn’t touched. She looks at me, then at the box, then at my hand. She doesn’t ask.
I set the box on the counter, and she steps forward to take it, and her hand covers mine for a half second while she finds her grip—just the warmth of it—and I feel it all the way up.
“Thank you.” Not breathless, not apologetic. Quiet. Two words, direct, looking right at me, meaning them and wanting me to know she means them.
I nod once and go take care of my hand. I sit at my desk and tape the knuckles and hope Reggie got the message along with the swollen jaw. The apartment is quiet in the way it gets after Opal is asleep—that particular, settled quiet I’ve started to recognize as distinct from the quiet of a space with no one in it.
Both are quiet. They’re not the same quality of quiet. I didn’t used to know the difference.
I’m not a man who thinks much about what he’s become accustomed to. Accustomed is just the word for conditions you’ve stopped noticing, and I’ve spent a long time engineering a life where the conditions don’t change much and therefore don’t require much noticing. The apartment was clean and functional and quiet. It worked. I didn’t think about what it would sound like if it were occupied, because why would I?
I think about it now. That’s the version I’m thinking about when my bedroom door opens at midnight.
Lena comes in and closes the door, wearing one of her nightgowns. This time, it’s long and blue and made of wisps of lace, with nothing underneath.
My throat goes dry as blood rushes downward. “What is this?”
She slides into my bed. “Thank you. For what you did for me.”
“You’re wel?—”
Her mouth is on me before I finish the sentence. I could push her away, let her know that what I did doesn’t mean she owes me. I didn’t do any of that for a reward. I did it because it needed to be done.
But I’m not some knight, here to rescue the damsel in distress.
I’m not noble, and she’s not innocent.
She straddles me beneath the blanket as I skim my hands over her nipples, using the lace to stimulate them even more. Then I grip her tits as she grabs my cock. I’m already hard for her. I was hard the moment she walked in, wearing this gown. Her soft, warm hand makes me inhale.
What follows is better than the first time. Less like establishing something, more like two people who’ve already established it and are moving inside it freely. She’s warmer. I’m less elsewhere.
