“Shit, I have to go,” he says, rubbing his eyes. “Sorry. I would have wanted to—”
“It’s okay!” I say, sitting up too fast.
Fuck, I didn’t ask him about his relationship with Erickson,I realize as I watch him cross the room and redo his tie.
“You probably noticed I’m working a lot lately,” he says, putting his jacket back on. “It won’t always be like this, but—we’re trying to figure out this deal. It could be big for the company.”
“Like a merger?”
“More like risk management.” He pauses as he’s adjusting his tie in front of the mirror, and meets my eye in the reflection. “I can’t exactly talk about it.”
“Must be a lot of pressure. Working on Erickson’s project.”
“Just don’t want to disappoint him. And I found out today—” He laughs, but he doesn’t sound like he’s having a good time. “I actually have to go to Vegas this weekend to meet with the other side. Seal the deal.”
“Oh, fun, I love Vegas,” I say reflexively, remembering whenMom and Tita Wendy took me and Greg out there with them in eighth grade. Something about how glitzy and unreal things were was weirdly comforting to me.
Mark Winterson sits back down on the bed and plants a kiss on my temple. “Come with me, then.”
Just one more late night. Just one more weekend. Almost there, almost there.
His phone buzzes again, and he frowns at it and stands.
“Bring a bag to the office tomorrow.” He points at me. “We’ll leave early. I’ll arrange it with Erica.”
“O-okay,” I say in a daze. “See you tomorrow.”
The heavy door closes behind him, and I slump backward onto the bed, staring at the round ceiling light, thinking,exnihilo_____2013!
Chapter
48
The sessions are over for the day, and the union is unofficially holding a karaoke night in a third-floor conference room. Diane from Complaint Resolution conveniently happens to run the party planning committee, and she organized the whole thing.
After Mark Winterson and I parted ways, I attended a few sessions to keep up appearances, then spent a good long while hyperventilating in the bathroom asexnihilo_____2013,exnihilo_____2013,exnihilo_____2013!looped over and over in my head.
And by the time I show up, the conference room is bumping. Karaoke seems to have ended, but someone has plugged their phone into the sound system, and now it’s transformed into a weird office version of a high school dance. Someone got hold of a disco ball, and its lights spin around the dim room.
Carol from Legal is cutting the rug with Bob from the Houston office—I know from the group chat that she’s been talking to him all day about unionizing there next. And damn, she has moves! I wouldn’t have guessed. Sarah is leaning back againstGrace, nestled into her arms, and they’re swaying gently from side to side. Al is standing in the back, earnestly trying to carry on a conversation with a few people from the Supplier Relations team—but based on their body language, it seems they can’t hear him over the music.
“Hey!” Greg comes up alongside me and clinks his beer bottle against mine. “Shouldn’t we be celebrating?”
I swallow hard, and his eyes flit nervously around my face. He leans in so he can talk into my ear. “Congratulations on your recent breakup?”
“Can we, um—” I shout over the music, gesturing for the door. “Can we go outside and talk?”
“Oh! Of course. Sure.” So I follow him out of the conference room and down the walkway to an outdoor patio.
It’s pleasantly warm outside, early summer evening coming on, the scent of jasmine in the air. The silence hangs tense between us as cars whoosh past on the freeway in the distance, streams of red and white lights coursing in opposite directions.
Greg leans on the railing, shifting a few times like he can’t get comfortable. “You’re not breaking up with him,” he says finally. A disappointed observation, not a question exactly.
It’s like the bottom of my stomach has dropped out, but I still feel such an intense drive to finish what I started. Maybe if I can find the right words—maybe he’ll understand—
“I want you to know that I did everything I could here,” I start, grip tightening on the railing. “I still need part of his password. He asked me to go to Vegas with him this weekend.”
Greg blinks a few times. He looks at me like I’m getting smaller and smaller, vanishing in the distance, even though I’m still right here. “How much more are you going to extend this?” he says quietly, like he’s already bracing himself, becoming resigned. Coming up with a strategy to protect himself in advance, maybe, before he can lose something again. “Do you even want to break up with him?”
