23. Re
Reunion
Cole Vestri
Three weeks later, Vera moves half her closet into his penthouse.
Not intentionally.
At least that's what she claims.
"I'm not moving in," she says, hanging sweaters beside his suits.
He leans against the bedroom doorway watching her reorganize his life with terrifying efficiency.
"Interesting," he says. "Because your shoes appear to disagree."
She glances toward the growing collection near the closet shelves.
"Those are temporary shoes."
"That's not a real category."
"You're not a real category."
Fair.
A smile pulls briefly at his mouth.
Three weeks ago he thought he'd lost her.
Now she's arguing with his closet organization while music drifts through the penthouse.
Vera tosses another sweater onto the shelf.
"Your closet looks like a luxury hotel for emotionally unavailable men."
"That sentence feels targeted."
"It was meant to."
He walks toward her slowly.
The city glows gold beyond the bedroom windows.
Snow melting across Manhattan rooftops.
Winter finally starting to loosen.
Everything feels lighter lately.
Not easier.
Just honest.
Vera notices him getting closer.
Her movements slow slightly.
He stops directly in front of her.
Close enough to smell vanilla lotion and coffee.
"What?" she says.
He slides one hand slowly along her waist.
This.
The thought arrives immediately now.
No resistance left.
"Nothing," he says quietly. "Just looking at you."
She looks away before he can read it. But he already did.
"You've become alarmingly sentimental," she murmurs.
"You ruined me."
A laugh escapes her.
Bright. Real.
The sound settles deep inside his chest.
Vera loops her arms lightly around his neck.
"Mrs. Patterson asked if you're attending the tenant fundraiser next month," she says.
He groans quietly.
"That woman interrogates me like a hostile government agency."
"She likes you now."
"I'm not convinced that improves the situation."
Vera smiles against his mouth before kissing him lightly.
Slow. Affectionate.
He deepens it.
Vera melts against him with a soft exhale.
When they break apart, she rests her forehead lightly against his.
"You know what's weird?" she whispers.
"Probably several things."
"I used to think men like you only existed in buildings like this."
He looks at her.
At the woman who turned it into somewhere human.
"And now?" he asks.
Vera's fingers slide slowly through his hair.
"Now I think people are more complicated than the worlds they live in."
He kisses her again.
Unable not to.
His phone buzzes somewhere in the living room.
He ignores it.
Vera notices immediately.
"That seems unhealthy for a CEO."
"I'm evolving."
"Terrifying."
He smiles against her hair.
She left her library card on the counter two days ago.
Seven receipts tucked inside seven books she was in the middle of.
All different genres.
All with a receipt tucked inside the first page like a placeholder she forgets to move.
He put them back exactly how she had them.
What she reads. What she marks. What she comes back to.
Evidence of a person he's still learning.
He's not ready to be done learning her.
Vera looks at the closet now with her hands on her hips.
The sweaters are not organized.
They are present, which is different.
"Your color coordination is criminal," she says.
"I had a system."
"You had grief dressed up as a system."
He stares at her.
"What does that even mean?"
"It means everything was gray or navy or charcoal and now there are things with actual colors in here and you're going to have to learn to live with that."
He looks at the closet.
She's right.
The green of her sweater next to his dark suits.
The particular color of something that belongs here.
"Fine," he says.
He reaches past her and moves one of his jackets to make more room.
"Put the green one where it fits."
Vera looks at him.
Then at the space he's made.
Then at him again.
"Don't make it weird," she says.
"I'm not making it weird."
"You're making it weird."
"Vera."
"You moved a jacket."
"I made room."
"Those are the same thing and you know it."
He looks at her.
She looks back.
The laugh comes out of her first.
Short and real and helpless.
He follows.
Both of them standing in front of a closet in the late afternoon light, laughing at the specific absurdity of people who were terrible at this trying to figure out how to do it anyway.
She's looking at the green sweater in his closet when her phone buzzes.
A news alert.
VESTRI INC. FRAMEWORK UNDER SCRUTINY AS TENANT ADVOCATE RELATIONSHIP CONFIRMED.
She reads the headline twice.
Puts the phone face-down.
He noticed.
"What?" he says.
"Nothing." She looks at the closet. At the space he made. "Something I need to deal with tomorrow."
He's quiet.
"The press is going to start asking whether my position is compromised," she says. "Whether I can be trusted to advocate for the building while I'm —" She stops.
"I know," he says.
"And?"
"And you should decide what you want to say about it before they decide for you."
She looks at him.
That's the most politically careful thing he's ever said to her.
She almost smiles.
"The navy jacket stays," she says. "The rest of this — we figure it out tomorrow."
He nods.
There's going to be a lot of tomorrow to get through.
Both of them know it.