Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Roberto
I take my hands back, and the air changes between us. Cooler. I don’t like it, but it’s the right move.
“Better?” I ask.
She nods. The dim panel light washes her face a soft gold. She’s steady, but the white of her knuckles on the rail gives her away.
“Good,” I say. “We’re going to make this easier.”
“How?” she asks, trying for light. It doesn’t quite come across.
“First rule,” I say. “We don’t stand here like statues.” I gesture toward the corner where the wall meets the floor. “Sit with me.”
Her eyes flick to the carpet, then back to the doors. “Sit?”
“It helps. Your body stops bracing for a drop that isn’t coming.” I keep my tone even and calm.
“And it steals power from the story your brain is trying to tell you.”
A beat while she considers it. I don’t rush her.
“Okay,” she says finally, small and brave.
I set my jacket down first, folded once, then twice, and slide it to the corner to make a barrier between her and the floor. “Here.”
“That’s your jacket,” she says.
“It’s a jacket,” I say. “It’ll survive.”
That gets the curve of a smile. She eases down carefully, one hand still on the rail, then another breath, and she lets go. Knees up, heels tucked close, back to the wall. She looks at me like she’s waiting to see if she’s done it wrong.
“Perfect,” I say. I lower myself beside her, leaving a responsible amount of space and feeling every inch of it.
The fan drones. The faint orange panel light illuminates us. Her breathing settles into something close to normal.
“Thank you,” she says, quietly.
“You don’t owe me thanks,” I say. “You’re the one doing the work.”
“I hate elevators,” she says, almost laughing at herself. “Add that to the file.”
“I don’t keep a file,” I say.
She tips her head. “Liar.”
My mouth almost answers with a smile before I stop it. “I keep lists. Not files.”
“Such a lawyer,” she says, and the joke shakes off another thin layer of fear. She scrubs a hand over her knee. “I’m not very good at… this.”
“Being human?” I ask.
“Not being in control,” she says. “Which, yes, I hear it. I just met you, and I’m confessing things to a man in a suit in a dark box. Sorry.”
“Stop apologizing. You’re doing fine,” I say. “Besides, suits hear confessions all day.”
She huffs a laugh. “Do you?”
“Sometimes.” I lean my head back to the wall and look up. The ceiling looks back, gray and featureless. “Usually about problems I can sign or charm away.”
She looks sideways at me. The light catches the blue in her eyes and turns it deep. “That must be nice.”
“It’s useful,” I say.
She studies my face for a second like she’s cataloging me the way she catalogs a room. I let her. It feels like a fair trade for the way I’ve been memorizing the sound of her laugh against my will.
“Tell me something boring,” she says. “Distract me.”
“Boring,” I repeat, buying time. “I could talk about permits or escalations or deliveries that never arrive when they say they will.”
She laughs. “Okay, maybe not quite that boring.”
“Facts,” I say. “I’ll give you facts. Then you give me one.”
“Deal.”
“My least favorite sound is a fork scraping a plate,” I say.
She blinks, then smiles, surprised. “You? I would’ve guessed chaos.”
“Chaos has uses,” I say. “Forks do not need to scream.”
She laughs under her breath. “Okay. My least favorite smell is a burned lemon. Not scorched, burned. You think it’s going to be bright and then it’s bitter all the way down.”
“That’s specific.”
“I served at a restaurant through high school and college,” she says. Her shoulders soften another millimeter. “It’s not a smell you forget. Your turn.”
“I don’t drink coffee after noon,” I say.
“That sounds like discipline.”
“It’s survival,” I say. “Or I won’t sleep.”
“Not sleeping seems like it would be your brand,” she says. “You look like you could stare down a spreadsheet till it begged for mercy.”
“I prefer contracts,” I say. “But mercy is useful.”
Her mouth tips. “I drink coffee at all hours,” she says. “I tell myself it doesn’t affect me because I can still fall asleep. But I sleep like crap.”
“Noted,” I say.
Blue eyes flicker to me. “Going in the file?”
“The list,” I correct.
She grins, then she exhales, and the breath leaves her chest without shaking.
We sit in the quiet. I’m aware of the heat that comes off her in a slow, human way, the subtle clean smell of her shampoo, the faint shine of the watch at her wrist when she adjusts her sleeve. I am not a man who gets unsettled by nearness. Not usually.
“You were kind about the chair,” she says after a moment. “And the office.”
I look at the panel light. “You needed a door.”
“I did,” she says. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” The answer is simple. It still feels like more than a courtesy.
“Do you always do that?” she asks softly.
“What.”
“Spot a problem and quietly fix it.”
“If I can,” I say. “Quiet helps. Noise makes people feel like favors and thanks are owed.”
Her mouth lifts. “So you prefer being a mystery benefactor.”
“I prefer the job done,” I say. “Quickly. Quietly, if I can.”
She looks away too quickly for me to read the expression, then back. “I keep thinking I should say something witty,” she says. “But I think I left my wit up there.” Her eyes pan upward. “Before I got on the elevator.”
“That’s fine,” I say. “You can borrow mine.”
“You have wit?” she says, deadpan.
I let the smile out this time, small and sharp. “Occasionally.”
Her eyes flick to my mouth and away before she can stop them. It’s a small movement. It registers anyway. Heat moves through the tightness in my neck in a clean line I feel far lower than I want to admit.
“Tell me another boring thing,” she says quickly.
“I sharpen pencils with a knife,” I say.
She turns her head. “Like an old-school artist?”
“Like a man who never has a sharpener,” I say.
“But always has a knife?” she asks.
“Utility knife,” I say. It’s mostly true. She doesn’t need to know why a man like me would need to carry weapons regularly. I don’t go into any more detail than that.
She laughs, and it’s genuine. The sound does to me exactly what it did in the hallway: spreads warmth through me.
She makes a thoughtful face. “Multi-use. Efficient. Very you.”
“My turn,” she says. “I can’t write in a notebook if the first page has a smudge. I’ll tear it out and start again.”
“That sounds expensive.”
She nudges my shoe with the toe of hers, a small touch that feels like something else. “Don’t mock me.”
“I’m not,” I say, lifting my palms in faux innocence.
“It’s a sickness,” she says, deadpan.
We let the silence settle again. It’s alert. I can feel her next to me without looking—her breath, the small move of her shoulder when she shifts, the whisper of fabric. My body files it all away like it’s evidence I might need later. I tell it to relax. It does not listen.
She rests the back of her head against the wall and stares at the ceiling. “This is not how I pictured my day ending.”
“How did you picture it?” I ask.
“Emails,” she says. “A run-through of the door plan. Shower. Sleep.”
“Exciting,” I say.
“Don’t shame me,” she says, smiling. “What about you?”
“Paperwork,” I say. “A phone call I really don’t want to make. Bed.”
“Thrilling,” she says, dry. “We’re menaces, you and I.”
“We’re employed,” I say.
She shifts, finally relaxing a bit. Her bare legs stretch out in front of her and cross at the ankle. The skirt I’ve been trying my hardest not to notice since she nearly walked into me in the hallway rides up, exposing a bit of her thighs.
I keep my eyes on the panel light and not on the length of skin she’s just innocently put in front of me. Begging me to run my palm over, just to feel.
Heat rolls through me immediately. I lock my jaw, make my breath boring.
Count the fan ticks. Square my shoulders to the door.
I shift a fraction, enough to put one knee up as if I’m only getting comfortable on the floor of a stalled elevator like a rational man, and not one trying to disguise a sudden erection because I’m thinking some very inappropriate thoughts about a woman who technically works for me.
“Paperwork and bed,” she says, unaware, amused. “We really know how to live.”
“So they tell me,” I answer, trying not to linger on the word “bed.”
She tips her head, studying the ceiling. “Maybe I should add ‘spontaneity’ to my to-do list.”
“You can schedule it in,” I say.
She laughs, soft and pleased, and the sound hits exactly where I don’t need it to. I think of cold things. Trenton. ABC forms. The smell of the copy room. It helps. Barely.
“Your turn,” she says.
“All right.” I keep my gaze disciplined above her shoulders, hoping it's safer than the rest of her. I settle on her lips and nearly curse myself.
Her mouth is soft and relaxed, the kind that makes a man forget his good sense. I drag my eyes back to the panel and send up a prayer.
The smell coming off her is making me dizzy. Her hair, her skin, the soft spritz of perfume lingering from this morning.
“Pick one,” I say, fighting to keep my voice even. “First sip or last bite.”
“First sip,” she says. “Anticipation tastes better.”
Of course it does. “Last bite,” I counter.
“Why?” Her eyebrow lifts.
“I like to finish what I start.”
Something flickers across her face. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, then lets her hand fall to her knee, fingertips idly tapping once, twice.
“Your turn,” she says, a little quieter. “Windows open or closed at night?”
“Open,” I say. “I like air.”
“Me too.” She smiles like we’ve shared a secret. “Even when I’m cold.”
“Then you take another blanket,” I say.
Her gaze dips to my mouth and back. “Practical.”
“Always.”
She shifts again, uncrossing and recrossing her ankles, the hem of her skirt inching higher on her thigh.
I keep my hands exactly where they are, palms flat on the carpet, as if I’m bracing the whole car by myself.
“Neat handwriting or fast?” I ask, just to fill the silence.
“Fast,” she says. “Then I rewrite it neatly later.”