6. Caleb
Caleb
T he door closes behind Serena with Audrey's cheerful "Hi Caleb!" still echoing in the hallway. Serena stumbles slightly from the momentum of being shoved, catching herself against the opposite wall with one hand.
"Well," I say, trying not to laugh, "that's a first. Usually my dates don't need to be physically ejected from their apartments."
She straightens, smoothing down her dress with as much dignity as she can muster. "Audrey has strong opinions about punctuality."
"And apparently your?—"
The rest of the words die as she straightens in front of me and I take her in. Everything below my belt goes tight.
Serena in that black dress is a weapon she doesn't know she's wielding.
It hugs every curve I've mapped in my mind for six months, the neckline just low enough to make my mouth water.
Her dark hair falls in waves I want to wrap around my fist while I bend her over the nearest surface.
There's something fragile about the way she's standing there, still flustered from Audrey's manhandling, second-guessing every choice that led to this moment.
Fuck. I'm already hard.
"Hi," she says, nervousness threading through her voice in a way that makes me want to push her against the wall and show her exactly what she does to me.
"You look stunning." The words escape before I can stop them. You look like I'm going to spend this entire dinner fighting not to slide my hand up your thigh.
A blush creeps up her neck, and I track its path, imagining following it with my tongue. "Thank you. As always, you look like a shark in a suit."
"I'm one negative headline away from eating someone whole." The joke comes out sharper than intended, but that's always been our dynamic—taunt and retreat, plus or minus me fucking you against that door.
She grins and practically deflates with relief. "If you'd shown up in business casual, I might've panicked."
"I don't think I own business casual," I reply, offering her my arm. "Shall we?"
"You know," she starts as she slips her hand through, the contact sending heat straight to my cock. "I only agreed to dinner because you made it sound like a business meeting."
I lean in, dropping my voice to the register that made her shiver at the gala. "And yet, you wore that dress."
"The dress was forced on me. Audrey staged an intervention." She slips her hand free and opens the passenger door herself, all nervous energy.
In the car, her perfume fills the space—vanilla and something floral that makes me grip the steering wheel harder.
She spends too long adjusting her skirt, giving me glimpses of thigh that have me shifting in my seat.
The rearview mirror shows her checking her lipstick, and all I can think about is smearing it, ruining it, tasting it.
"So where are you taking me, Counselor?"
My bed. "Somewhere quiet so we can talk. Business."
"If you take me to a steakhouse with wood paneling, I'm ordering the twenty-ounce ribeye and eating it with my hands."
I nearly lose it at that, imagining her licking steak juice off her fingers. Jesus Christ, get it together. "I dare you. I'm not even joking. I'll even pay your dry-cleaning bill if you don't bother using a napkin and make a total spectacle of yourself."
She laughs for real, and I realize I missed this ridiculous push-and-pull more than I thought. Missed the way her whole body moves when she laughs, the way her head tips back exposing her throat.
"Where are we actually going?" She turns to look at me, the city lights reflecting in her doe-like eyes.
I put the car in drive, trying not to stare at the way her dress rides up slightly when she shifts. "You'll see. And before you get clever and guess every trendy place in River North, it's none of them."
She crosses her arms, pushing her breasts up in a way that has me fighting to keep my eyes on the road. The smile is still there. "If it's not a steakhouse, what is it? Molecular tapas? That place where they serve sushi on tiny robots?"
"Lower your expectations," I say. "It's… not molecular anything."
She side-eyes me, suspicious. "Is this a test?"
"Maybe," I admit, and she snorts, which is somehow adorable and arousing at the same time.
The rest of the drive is filled with her attempts to interrogate me about the destination.
I fend her off with non-answers and creative misdirection, all while hyperaware of every movement she makes—the way she tucks her hair behind her ear, the way she crosses and uncrosses her legs, the way she absently traces patterns on her thigh that I want to follow with my tongue.
She grows quiet as I pull off Lake Shore into a weird little pocket neighborhood, all narrow streets and mismatched architecture.
Serena raises an eyebrow when I skip the valet two doors down and park on the street.
She waits while I come around and open her door, and when she steps out, she's close enough that I catch her scent again.
Vanilla and something floral and fuck me.
"You really don't want me to know, do you?"
"Spoilers ruin everything," I say, locking the car, fighting the urge to press her against it.
She catches on as soon as we pass the neon archway. "Wait. Are you really taking me to Golden Dragon?"
"It's the number one rated Szechuan takeout within five miles," I deadpan.
She snort-laughs, and it makes me want to kiss her breathless. "I order from here once a week."
"I remember," I say, holding the door and getting an eyeful of her ass in that dress.
The hostess recognizes me instantly. "Mr. Kingsley! Table for two?"
Serena's sidelong glance is suspicious. "You come here a lot?"
"Only when I'm trying to impress someone." I don't mention the pathetic truth—that I started coming here after she ghosted me because it reminded me of her and our texts.
She smirks, arching a brow. "Wow. Do they give you a punch card for all your dates here, or do you just get a table engraved with your name?"
I stop, meeting her eyes. "There it is—your defense mechanism.“
“What?”
“You’re nervous. So you hide behind claws. But not with me. Not this time.”
"I’m not?—”
“Just sit your ass down.”
Any protest dies on her lips as she does just that. For once, she looks caught off guard.
I signal the waiter, ordering from memory—her favorites from those late-night conversations. Kung pao chicken and vegetable lo mein. She stares when the waiter leaves.
"You know my order."
"You told me once, and I have a good memory for details." I remember everything. Every text. Every laugh. The exact shade of your lipstick at the gala. The way you leaned in close as the conversation became more intimate. That pout when I said I wouldn’t kiss you because you’d been drinking...
The waiter returns with our drinks. She looks down at the bottle, lashes veiling her eyes. "Did you ever... I mean, did you—" She tries for casual but fails. "Did you take it personally? Or did you just think I was a flake?"
I peel the label off my Tsingtao, imagining peeling that dress off instead. "I thought you had a lot on your plate. But if you're asking whether I thought about you, the answer is unfortunately yes."
Every fucking day. Every time I jerked off thinking about what we could have done.
She looks stunned, like the possibility never occurred to her. "Wow. Ego boost," she mutters, color flooding her face.
Our food arrives, and I pour her tea, deliberately not holding her gaze because she'll see exactly what I'm thinking.
"So, strategy." She breaks her chopsticks with a practiced snap. "What am I in for on Friday?"
"The most polite public execution HR can stage. They'll ask about everything, hope you trip up or panic. Which you won't."
She chews her lower lip, and I have to shift in my seat. "And if I do?"
"Then I drag their legal counsel into an alley and verbally mug him until he begs for mercy." I smile at her snorted laugh.
"Their legal counsel is your brother."
"And I'll happily strangle him with his own necktie if he plays dirty.
It's called brotherly love. Don't worry—David can take it. Though, knowing how he operates, he’ll play it cleaner than most." I spoon some rice onto my plate, pretending nonchalance, pretending I'm not watching the way her tongue darts out to catch a drop of sauce.
"The main thing is to stay calm. All this evidence they claim to have?
Most of it is fluff and circumstantial. They'll try to scare you into an admission, or at the very least, a resignation. "
She takes a sip of tea, her lips on the rim making me imagine them brushing against mine. "So HR is the enemy?"
I shake my head, trying to focus. "HR is the hitman. The real enemy is whoever wants you taking the fall for this. If they can't bury you in legal quicksand, they'll try to force you out by killing your professional reputation."
And I'll destroy anyone who tries to hurt you. I'll burn their whole fucking life down.
I watch her pick at her food, quieter than usual. The vulnerability makes me want to pull her into my lap, kiss her until she believes everything will be OK.
"They'll push on why you didn't delete the emails," I continue, studying the way her collarbones stand out above that neckline. "They'll imply keeping them shows consideration."
"That's ridiculous."
"It's strategy. They want you to lose your temper." I set down my chopsticks before I do something stupid like reach across the table. "Answer only what they ask. Don't elaborate, don't defend."
She set the tea aside and takes a sip of beer, hand unsteady. "And if they accuse me directly?"
"You look at me and let me handle it."
Look at me like you did at the gala. Like I'm the only person you give a damn about. Like you want me as badly as I want you.
The conversation flows more naturally as we discuss strategy.
The more we talk, the more I catch glimpses of the woman I remember.
Not the one with the barbed tongue who always claimed she couldn't stand me—although I liked her a lot.
But the one from the night of the gala and the weeks after.
The woman with the sharp intelligence, the way she processes information and adapts.
But there's a wall between us now. And I fucking hate it.
The waiter clears our plates, leaving us with a handful of mints and the check. The silence stretches, and I'm about to suggest we leave when she speaks.
"Why are you doing this? I wouldn't have blamed you for telling me to go fuck myself."
Because if I’m going to tell you to fuck yourself, I’d rather watch...
"You need help. I'm good at what I do."
"That's not what I mean, and you know it. Why are we here?"
Because I'm obsessed with you. Because I can't stop thinking about you underneath me.
"Professional curiosity."
She's not buying it. "I'm glad you had someone to call that night. I'm glad you have so many dinner companions."
There's something in her tone—jealousy—that pleases me immensely.
"I didn't," I say quietly.
"Didn't what?"
"Didn't bring anyone here before you. Didn't call anyone that night at Georgio’s either. I sat there for two hours, ate three baskets of bread, drank an entire bottle of wine alone." My voice has an edge. "And I was pissed as hell."
Then went home and got myself off thinking about what we could have been doing.
She pales. "Caleb?—"
"I called you. I messaged. I kept checking my phone. Maybe there was an emergency. Maybe traffic was terrible." I lean forward, close enough to breathe her in. "It never occurred to me you'd just not show up."
"I'm sorry," she whispers.
"Don't be," I say, too brittle. The humiliation still stings—sitting there like a freshman who mixed up prom dates. For months I told myself I just wanted to fuck her and move on, but seeing her now proves what a liar I've been.
She looks at her hands, trying to rearrange her features into something less guilty. But the guilt is there, and it's oddly comforting to see. Real. Unfiltered. The closest we've come to honest all night.
I stand and toss a few bills on the table—plus more than enough for the tip—and gesture to the door. "Come on. Let's walk."