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You’ve only been intimate a few times. You hardly know each other.
The words try to make themselves real in my mind, try to hammer the message home, and yet they feel like empty air, attached to no meaning.
I can’t lie to myself and say that just because what Solomon and I have isn’t conventional, I don’t feel it.
Caitlin is busy with college work, so I don’t see much of her. We talk on the phone here and there.
With every conversation, I feel the revelation trying to bubble up on my lips, trying to explode and tell her the truth. But then I imagine her screaming at me or, worse, the line going dead.
Maybe she’ll send me a text moments after the call is done.
I never want to see you again.
I check my phone every morning for a text or a call from Solomon. Even if we haven’t officially exchanged numbers, I know it’d be easy for him to access the employee database and get my cell. But all I get instead are Facebook notifications and emails and all the other boring things that have nothing to do with the man of my dreams.
It’s hard to focus today, sitting at my desk as I look down at my work. I’m sketching out a border for a water-relief appeal in a magazine. They want the waves to roll together, to imply crashing and mayhem, but at the same time to come into some sort of unified order.
Just like me and Solomon, then, I hope.
Crashing, turbulent … but, in the end, we’ll find a calm stretch of ocean that’s just ours and everything will be perfect.
I sigh and open the drawer, glancing at my phone to see if Solomon has called or texted.
When I see that he hasn’t, I try to forcefully remind myself that what we shared in that private office – when we were lying together on the couch, enveloped in each other’s warmth – meant something.
He wasn’t lying to me.
He wasn’t tricking me.
“You don’t have to be so sneaky about it, you know,” Hermione laughs.
I close my drawer and look up into her smiling face.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur. “I know I shouldn’t be checking it.”
“You can look at your phone as much as you like, as long as you turn in your best work at the end of the day.”
I let out a sigh of relief.
The last thing I need is to sabotage myself.
This job is opening new doors for me, both in my career and in my artistic progression. For the first time in years, I feel like I’ve got a reason to pursue my passion beyond the satisfaction of the work itself.
It’s new and interesting and I don’t want it to end.
“Anyway,” Hermione says, with a sly grin on her face. She taps a pen against her teeth as she grins. “The boss wants to see you.”
“I thought you were the boss,” I reply.
She laughs, shaking her head. “No, the boss. The big boss.”
“Solomon—um, Mr. Sky?” I say. “I thought he was in the UK?”
“He was. But he just got back. He wants you to meet him in his office.”
She tilts her head at me, her eyes glinting perceptively. I think she knows that something is going on between us, but her smile is genuine.
She turns to walk away, pauses, and then turns back.
“Sophia,” she says, “I don’t know what’s happening between you and Solomon, but I’ve worked with him for over a decade now. He’s never had a girlfriend. He’s never womanized. He’s never shown any interest in that side of life as far as I can tell. I just want you to know that.”
Her words cause relief to burn awake inside of me, the flaring flames of conviction flickering against every part of me. I smile up at her and nod as subtly as I can, not wanting to give anything away about me and Solomon, even if it seems she already knows more than I would’ve guessed.
“I better not keep him waiting, then,” I murmur. “Do you mind?”
She chuckles. “I know you’ll have that work to me at week’s end, when it’s due, no matter what. Won’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I laugh. “Even if I have to work into the early hours of the morning. I promise.”
“Then go,” she grins. “Enjoy yourself.”
She turns and I clear my throat, unspoken words dancing across my lips.
“Hermione,” I blurt.
“Yes?” she says, facing me again.
“Do you think age gaps matter?”
“No,” she says firmly. “My boyfriend is younger than me. I’ve got friends whose partners are older, the same age, younger. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is respect, love, devotion, sex. All that matters is how you feel. I believe that, as long as you’re not hurting anybody else, people should be able to do any damn thing they want.”
I smile broadly as she finally leaves, but something she just said rings around my mind with a shivering ache.
