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Through the phone, I hear Lenny's muffled voice like she's talking to herself, a drawer sliding open, and metal clanging against metal. I drag a hand down my face, peeking over my shoulder every few seconds to make sure I still don't have an audience.
The sound of a door opening then clicking shut again seems to echo through the receiver, and I drop my head back, staring at the ceiling like I've been personally wronged.
A minute later, she comes back, breath still uneven.
"Sorry," she says quietly, humor in her tone.
"Busted?"
She answers sarcastically. "For what?"
My tongue settles against the inside of my cheek as I shake my head. "You know exactly what you were doing."
"Yeah… talking," she insists.
"Lenny."
"Jace."
I chuckle roughly, crossing my arms over my chest. "You're unbelievable."
"Why?"
I take one more look over my shoulder, then lower my voice. "Because tell me you weren't just touching yourself in a supply closet, thinking about all the ways I'd be touching you if I were there. Just. Like. I was."
Her inhale is so sharp I feel it too.
"Right or wrong?" I ask slowly.
She goes quiet again, and in my mind she's swallowing down the lust that's still caught in her throat, maybe biting her lip and letting it slide through her teeth—neither does anything to help with the situation I'm trying to diffuse below my belt.
Quietly, she says, "Maybe."
And it takes everything in me not to start it up again.
"You're working tomorrow?" I grind out instead.
"Until sev—"
"I'll be there."
She hesitates. "At the hospital?"
"As soon as I can."
I move back to the podium for some reason—my desperate attempt to find some sort of anchor to ground me in the present moment instead of my brain going back five minutes or escaping to tomorrow.
"Okay," she mutters.
"Okay."
That one word sits between us longer than it should.
"So… I'll talk to you later, then?" Lenny asks eventually.
"Yeah," I say. But before she can hang up, the thought that's been clawing at the back of my mind slips out. "Hey, Lenny…"
"Hmm?"
