Chapter 7
seven
. . .
By Wednesday afternoon, I had already answered too many emails, sat through one meeting that should’ve ended twenty minutes earlier, and watched a man in a tailored suit say absolutely nothing with his whole chest because somebody had given him a conference room and a little time.
The day had structure.
Numbers. Deadlines. Two client calls. One deal summary that still needed another pass because a business owner was trying to sell optimism like it counted as documentation.
Usually, that was enough. Usually, a workday with real density to it could hold me in place ’til five, easy. But today, there was a woman somewhere in the city walking a hotel rooftop and calling bad design what it deserved.
That had its own effect.
I was halfway through reviewing the summary when my phone buzzed facedown beside the keyboard. I let it sit there for a second.
Then it buzzed again.
Talia: Saving a rooftop from becoming a beige apology. You?
I looked at the screen for a beat too long, then leaned back in my chair and laughed under my breath.
Beige apology.
That was exactly the kind of line that made me like her more than I had planned to.
Specific. Funny. Mean in the right direction.
The kind of phrase a person only came up with if they had taste, judgment, and enough nerve to say what everybody else in the room was still trying to dilute into corporate language.
I looked back at the open summary on my laptop.
Then back at the text.
The issue with Talia now wasn’t only that I wanted her. Wanting a woman was manageable. Familiar. Part of being alive and male and not dead in the blood.
The issue was that my interest in her kept spreading.
It wasn’t settling into the usual places. Wasn’t staying in my dick or in the part of my brain that knew how to enjoy a woman without handing her too much real estate too early.
I liked how she talked. I liked how she thought.
I liked the way her voice had sounded in my ear the night before, lower than it had been in the room, warmer in some places, easier in others.
I liked that she knew Kut Klose off a few soft notes and admitted to reheating pasta without trying to make it cute.
I liked that she laughed with her whole mouth when something really got her.
I liked that she didn’t scramble to fill silence just because it showed up.
That was where men got in trouble. A woman started turning into a person too quickly when a man wasn’t careful. And if I was being honest, I was already past careful.
That was the wild part.
I had taken fuck breaks before. Hell, when I was younger, fresh in banking, no real stake in anything but getting my numbers right and my suits tailored, I had absolutely left work for the right woman.
Quick lunch. Quick hotel. Quick ride to somebody’s apartment if the day felt loose enough and the risk felt worth it.
Back then, I had less to lose and less sense.
These days? Nah.
These days I liked order. Liked my workday where it belonged. Liked my appetites in lanes I could account for. I didn’t leave the office just because a woman was on my mind.
And yet.
Here I was, looking at my phone like I wanted to see her face before the day ended.
Hear her say beige apology out loud. Watch her mouth do that little thing it did before the laugh came.
Be close enough to catch what she had on today and whatever she smelled like in daylight instead of low lights and liquor.
That felt like new behavior.
And the worse part was, I knew it.
A younger version of me might’ve kept it in the phone. Let the flirting do what it did. Kept the day moving. Saved the in-person energy for Thursday and acted like I had some sense.
Today, that was not enough.
Because the truth was simple. I didn’t want more text.
I wanted her actual face when she said it. Her mouth. The little shift in her eyes when she knew she was funny. The sound of her dragging that rooftop in person like the room had offended her on sight and she intended to let it know.
So I pushed it.
Asked to see her.
Then she gave me a time.
Talia: Lobby bar downstairs in twenty. If you’re lucky.
I was already reaching for my jacket.
Me: On my way.
I shut my laptop, grabbed my phone, and stood up fast enough that Devon caught me in the hall before I made it to the elevator, coming out of his office with his phone in one hand and that irritating look already on his face.
“You leaving again?”
“I’m stepping out.”
“That sounds suspicious as hell.”
“That sounds like you need more work.”
He looked me over, slow and shameless. “You smiling.”
“I’m not.”
“Nigga, yes you are.”
I slipped my jacket on. “If something hits my line, text me.”
He laughed. “Oh, it’s bad.”
“It’s not bad.”
“You keep saying that like I’m the one you trying to sell it to.”
I shook my head and kept walking, which only made him laugh harder behind me.
The elevator took too long.
The lobby took too long.
Everything between me and that bar felt suddenly unnecessary.
And that right there should’ve told me how deep in I already was.
Because it wasn’t just that I wanted to fuck her. I did.
Badly.
But plenty women had made me want sex. Plenty women had gotten a rise out of me, pulled me off my square for a few days, had me thinking with the wrong part of my body before I got myself together again.
This was different.
I wanted to see her.
In the middle of my day.
Before I got home.
Before the date.
Before good sense could get involved and start making rules.
Just to look at her.
Hear her voice in person.
Let the room narrow around us again and see what happened next.
And that kind of wanting had a man looking at himself a little funny on the way downstairs.
The drive wasn’t far, but traffic made it long enough for my mind to get involved in ways I didn’t need.
Not nerves exactly. I didn’t get nervous easily. No, I was just aware.
Aware that I had asked to see her and she had said yes.
Aware that this wasn’t Thursday, wasn’t the date, wasn’t some polished little setup with reservation energy and expectation already built around it.
This was me wanting a woman’s face-to-face presence badly enough to step out in the middle of a workday and say so.
That had a different feel to it.
And if I was telling the truth all the way, it had been a long time since I moved like this. Shit, I had never moved like this. Let me keep it one hundred. At least with myself.
I had taken midday breaks before. Fuck breaks. Long lunches that had very little to do with food. Back when I was younger, earlier in banking, with more appetite than caution and not nearly enough to lose. Back then, I’d leave work for a body and call it a good use of my hour.
That was what stayed with me on the drive over.
The pull wasn’t only about wanting her, though I did. It was wanting to be near her again. To see her face shift when she caught a thought before handing it over. To hear her say the thing in person. To watch her mouth curve when she knew she was funny and didn’t mind me noticing.
That felt new enough to respect.
By the time I handed the valet my keys and crossed the hotel lobby, I already knew I’d done the right thing.
The place was polished in that way expensive hotels always were when they were trying to make corporate taste feel like hospitality. Warm stone. Brass. Low floral arrangements. Furniture too careful to be accidental. Too much beige, if I was being honest, which made me laugh the minute I saw it.
Of course she’d called it that.
The lobby bar sat just off the main entrance, half tucked behind a sculptural divider and pretending not to know it was where people came to either make deals or flirt under the cover of meetings.
She wasn’t at the host stand.
I saw her near the windows instead, posted at a small two-top with her laptop open, coffee off to one side, phone at her ear. One leg crossed over the other. Tablet beside the keyboard. Still working, even now. Still in the middle of her actual day.
Talia had on a sleeveless sand-colored knit and dark trousers that fit the way good decisions fit when a woman knew her own body. Gold at her ears. Hair neat. Mouth glossed. No dim room helping her this time.
Didn’t matter.
She was still it.
I slowed without meaning to.
There was something about seeing her like that, not arriving for me, not posed up in low light, just fully in herself and handling her business, that got to me in a place attraction by itself couldn’t reach.
Plenty women were fine. Plenty women dressed well, smelled good, and knew how to keep a room looking their way.
This was different.
This was seeing what she did with herself when desire wasn’t the point.
I got close enough to hear the tail end of it.
“No, move the one-fifteen to two” she was saying, voice low and easy into the phone. “If Henderson still wants another round of revisions, they can survive forty-five more minutes.”
A pause.
Then her mouth curved.
“No, I’m not coming back up there just to tell him beige is not a strategy.” Another pause. “Tell Cindy to send me the updated deck when she gets it.”
“Okay. Text me if they start acting helpless.” A beat. “And go eat.”
That little smile was still on her face when she looked up and saw me.
The shift in her was immediate. Not dramatic. Just there. Recognition first. Then that mouth. Then her eyes.
Those pretty eyes.
Amber in the mixer had been one thing. Amber in daylight was something else.
Warmer. Clearer. More alive somehow. The kind of eyes that didn’t just meet yours, they held you there a second longer than you meant to stay.
Even when she was smiling, there was thought in them.
Heat too, if you caught the right angle.
They kept getting me. Quietly. Thoroughly.
She said something brief into the phone, still looking at me.
“Okay. Bye.”
Then she set the phone down beside the laptop and leaned back in the chair like she had all the time in the world, even though I knew she didn’t.