Earnings Season #5
Aleksandr lets out a long-suffering sigh. Lili bites back a smile, before pressing a quick last kiss to his lips.
As she leaves, she hears Michael’s voice behind her, sharp.
“Aleksandr, why the hell do you smell like cigarettes?”
Amina’s show is at a gallery on the Lower East Side. Walking from Tribeca, Lili passes tattoo parlors and third-wave coffee
shops closing up for the night, people smoking in the doorways of bars. The pavement still gleams with rain, the sound of
wet tires and flash of red lights on water accumulated in gutters. She picks up a bunch of peonies for Amina from a bodega
on Forsyth Street, on her way.
The gallery is packed with downtown kids and art world types. It’s a rising talent exhibit, a group show, mixed medium; Amina’s
canvases hang among confounding installation pieces, abstract sculptures, and fiber artwork draped over the walls. Through
the crowd, Lili spies fierce red curls at the bar.
“Finally!” Jackie exclaims when she sees her, balancing her fresh drink as she hugs her. “All good, love?”
Lili smiles, making sure her loose hair covers her neck; her bruises are masked by concealer, but still, worth being cautious.
“Yeah, I’m good.”
Across the room, Lili spots Amina near her paintings—bright splashes, deliberate scrawls of color, aggressive at a distance
but delicate up close—speaking to an older woman with the demeanor of a gallerist or dealer: serious thick-framed glasses,
immaculate long gray hair, Margiela tailoring.
A little further, the rest of their friends cluster in front of Amina’s largest canvas: a huge blue wash that Lili loves, a mess of violent gestures of white paint.
An unfamiliar man stands with them, about their age.
He’s tall, dark-haired, the look of an analyst just off work, earnest yet confused as James and Hassan tag-team telling some story.
“Come on.” Jackie takes Lili’s hand. “I want you to meet Simon, before those disaster twins scare him away.”
“Simon?”
“Don’t judge—he’s that BlackRiver analyst I swiped right on, thinking he’d give me intel on you and Petrov. I’ve sort of been
seeing him—don’t laugh—and I need a second opinion on whether he’s indifferent to me or trying to play it cool.”
“I doubt anyone could be indifferent to you,” she says, but she lets Jackie drag her towards their friends.
It’s late by the time she heads back to Tribeca, dark in the loft. Down the hall, light comes from his open bedroom door.
Aleksandr looks up when she walks in. Leaning against the headboard, he has papers spread out over his bed, pen in hand. There’s
the quiet buzz of noise from his iPad: sounds of CNBC, market recaps, Sorkin interrogating some tech CEO’s latest earnings.
“Hey,” Lili says, undoing the laces of her boots. “Michael let you live?”
“Often, it’s easier to let him have his tantrum,” Aleksandr replies, putting aside the dossier he’s reading. Lili frowns,
recognizing the serious bold font.
“Are you bird-watching S-1s?”
“That’s one way to put it,” he says. He sets his glasses aside, clicking off the iPad. His fingers have a bit of ink from
the heavy Montblanc pen he caps.
“You don’t even take companies public.”
“I like to understand what’s passing as innovation these days.”
Lili rolls her eyes, kicking off her shoes as she climbs into bed. She pulls one of the papers towards her. A tech-enabled
nutrition ecosystem targeting health-conscious millennials poised for continued disruption in coastal hubs—a salad chain with
an app, she thinks.
“It’s honestly impressive how they hide cash burn,” Aleksandr comments. “Not a single profitable quarter in a decade, but
somehow a unicorn valuation.”
“Call me crazy, but shouldn’t you get a hobby outside of your field?”
“What, with my ample free time?” he says, grinning. In one fast motion, he grasps her waist and pulls her under him. Lili lets out a surprised squeak, papers crinkling under her back.
“I could be your hobby,” she volunteers, running her hands up his arms.
“That would imply you offer more stress relief than you incur,” Aleksandr counters.
Lili hits his chest in outrage. “Rude!” she says, making to wriggle out of his grasp, but Aleksandr holds her still under
him. His hands on her face brush back her hair.
“I never said I like easy,” he murmurs before he kisses her.
Aleksandr moves slowly, then, but with intent—gaze on her—that makes her feel hot, makes it difficult to breathe. He pushes
her skirt up, running his palm up her inner thighs. Slips her underwear down her legs, a slow drag that makes her squirm.
Pulls her shirt over her head, undoes her bra. Hot, open-mouthed kisses down her neck, her chest, and she tugs at his shirt,
needing it off him.
When he pushes into her, it’s slow: filling her inch by inch, pulling a moan out of her. Lili grasps his arms, looking to
steady herself.
And as she hitches her knees higher up on his waist, and his thrusts grow harder and deeper, he kisses her again when he catches
a flinch of her pain, and he starts to talk her through it, then—good, he murmurs, kissing the corner of her mouth, the hollow under her ear, the drawn-out line of her neck, you’re doing so well, look at you, you feel so good, you have no idea how good you feel—and her legs start to shake, her gasps coming faster, there’s this sense—and it’s stupid, misguided, and it already hurts,
a secret she won’t divulge, she’ll never admit—of how she’s started to feel in his arms—cared for, an aching part inside of her whispers—but she can let it wash over her, unspoken, under the weight of him, for a little
while longer.
“I’ll be back on Thursday,” she says, bringing them to a stop at the street corner. Taking her overnight bag from Aleksandr,
she slings it over her shoulder.
“Alright,” Aleksandr replies. Drawing her closer, he cradles her face, thumb running over her jaw.
The storefronts around them are still closed. It’s early morning, downtown before the weekend crowds descend. Locals walk dogs, and restaurant staff unload deliveries into cellars, laughs, different languages, rolled-up sleeves. The stark scent of watered-down disinfectant washes the streets.
We can make perfectly good coffee at home, he’d commented as she dragged him to her favorite coffee shop.
Sometimes I want someone else to make the coffee, she’d joked, not me.
Aleksandr had raised an eyebrow, holding the shop door open for her.
When’s the last time you made coffee? he’d asked.
Making a dismissive noise, Lili waved him away, greeted by the welcome sounds of the café, already excited for
her oat milk latte.
She knows—is vividly aware—how mismatched they are: Aleksandr in his linen suit, a concession to summer; her in a miniskirt,
comfy oversized sweater—a provision against the coming chill of upstate mornings—and combat boots, hair in a messy bun, tote
over her shoulder, holding his hand.
Inexplicably, though, she finds she likes it—the contrast of them, the growing comfort in the difference.
“What are you doing for the rest of the day?” Lili asks, looking up at him.
Aleksandr brushes his thumb over her mouth. “Some work.”
“It’s Sunday.”
“Capitalism waits for no man,” he replies. At his sudden burst of laughter, Lili realizes she’d immediately frowned. The sound
of his laugh softens her scowl. “Then dinner at Michael and Andrew’s place,” he adds.
“Where do they live? Let me guess, Greenwich?” she teases. Sneaking her hands under his suit jacket, she wraps her arms around
his waist, leaning into him.
“Hardly. They’re in Chelsea.”
“Ah, yes, of course—so sorry,” she says. “My apologies—to think they’d commute into the city? The horror, genuinely.”
“So mouthy,” Aleksandr comments, pulling her closer to him before she can protest. Lili feels his grin before he kisses her.
This warm kiss is long and gentle, calm and kind; a kiss like good morning and I’ll miss you, the feeling of waking up beside him again, and she feels—she feels—she feels like herself.
When he pulls away, Lili strains forward on her tiptoes, trying to prolong the kiss.
“Thursday, then,” Aleksandr says. That sly smile: like a secret, like knowledge, like comfort, like power.
“Thursday,” she repeats, a little breathless.
He grins and presses another kiss to her mouth. “Go,” he says, “you’ll miss your train.”
“Fine, fine,” Lili says, adjusting her bags on her shoulder as she balances her takeaway cup. She’s meeting Amina at her apartment
a block away before heading to Grand Central together. “Bye!”
Once she crosses the road, Lili glances back over her shoulder.
Across the street, Aleksandr is still watching her.
Seeing Lili turn, he smiles, and she feels a smile break across her own face—and why does it feel like she’s constantly fucking
smiling, now?—because he’s not supposed to look at her like that, so brazen, so open, proud—like she’s sunshine, and it’s not—it’s not supposed to feel like this. Like her life is gleaming, hidden pockets of joy finding
daylight.
She tries to swallow it back, but there’s this balloon of hope in her chest, and it’s getting harder to smother.
Questions—Could I have this?—cohering into assertions.
Yes, I can.
A few cars pass, interrupting her view of him.
Looking away—feeling like she’s pocketing a secret—Lili keeps walking, rounding the corner onto Broome.
Amina lives in an old industrial building: big windows, open floor plan, fire escape they’ve had dinner on countless times.
It’s perfect for painting—lots of light—although Amina also keeps a studio in Greenpoint; an expenditure that’s honestly absurd,
but Lili picks her battles. Some of her neighbors here are still artists, holding onto legendary under-market leases from
the seventies, albeit alongside edgier tech bros and young, rich families. The front door is nondescript, blending in like
a service door, and not clearly residential. No one keeps their names updated in the buzzer system.
Lili stabs the old intercom. “Hey!” she greets. “It’s me, I’m downstairs.”