Chapter 24
Julie
Luckily, Krysten was still in the office, even though it was late now. Unluckily, she looked at us like we’d lost our minds once we’d pitched the concept.
“You are spending too much time with the little one, I fear,” she said. “The nonsense in her brain is starting to infect you.”
“Like I can’t hear you?” I said, my hands up.
“Oh, I am aware that you can hear me. Otherwise I would have said it more kindly.”
Helena leaned against the table, her arms folded casually at her waist, and an unhelpful part of my brain pointed out how hot she looked like that. I was trying to focus. “You keep insulting Julie, and I’ll have to step in,” she said. “I’m the one in charge of making fun of her.”
Krysten raised an eyebrow at the name Julie. I sighed. “I told her everything,” I said.
That, finally, got Krysten to smile, relaxing back in her seat with such a declarative whoosh that her chair rolled backwards towards the window, the half-drawn blinds letting in streetlamp light in slits behind her.
“So you finally come upon a drop of sense,” she said. “And I can assume it went well.”
“Nah, not really. I got kicked out of my apartment, Helena stopped talking to me, and my mom still doesn’t understand what lesbian means.”
“You were kicked out of your apartment?” She leaned forwards. “What are you doing now?”
“Figuring things out,” I said. It was weird that I wasn’t even putting on a face anymore, but I was still saying all the same things I’d said when I was. I guess it had just stuck. Worked its way into my brain and changed who I was.
The king’s mindset.
Ugh. I had to kick that habit.
“Figuring things out,” Krysten repeated. “That does not keep a roof over your head.”
“I’m in a hotel right now…”
“You are a homeless vagrant coming in to pitch a whole new business project!” she said. “Abeg. I fear you are even more audacious as Julie than you were as Cassandra.”
“And that’s a good thing, right?” I said. Helena backed me up.
“I think her audacity has been an effective strategy to date.”
Krysten laughed. “You are correct. And out of respect for that level of brazen audacity, I will forget that you missed out on an important task for your job. But we are not starting a new project, of that scale, this close to the deadline. No, no, no.”
“I’ve got a team,” I said. “And I’ve got sweat equity.”
“Sweat equity! You sweat like a dog in a field, it does not make an industry event.”
Helena was on fire in a way I’d never seen before, her eyes gleaming as she spoke.
“Respectfully, Krysten, what’s the point of bringing on a consultant for the music industry if you won’t take her input on strategy for the music industry?
I challenge you to look at Julie’s results and still doubt that she’d be able to pull it off. Especially with a team at her back.”
“I think—” Krysten started, but Helena wasn’t letting up.
“And I’m sure you picked up on the importance of Linyue’s network,” she said. “That network will either be working with us or it won’t, depending on which way this goes. She’s already on the verge of pulling out. And we don’t want to lose her relationship with Jewel in general.”
“Ah, so you are blackmailing me,” Krysten said good-naturedly.
“I’m negotiating with you,” Helena said, smiling and cheerful even though her voice had an edge that could cut steel, and I was supposed to be focused on the task at hand, but that was, uh, hot.
“Where will we find the operational logistics for this?” Krysten said. “Where will we find the budget?”
“That’s for us to work out,” Helena said. “Give us the conceptual go-ahead and we’ll move to the next stage.”
“Not at this juncture, no,” Krysten said. “We are too close to the event. I admire the drive, but I would have you reprise your earlier work instead, and perhaps we shall discuss this another time.”
Helena glanced at me from the corner of her eye.
We’d discussed this earlier, and I’d rehearsed it, and now here we were.
“I’m not reprising work without any clear compensation schedule,” I said.
“If I’m working with you, it’s as a full-time paid collaborator, at least on a contract basis for this project.
Otherwise, we’re pulling out of the event. ”
“You test my patience.” Krysten pinched the bridge of her nose.
“It’s a fair deal,” Helena said. “And think of the upside.”
“The potential upside. The very slim potential of it.” But she didn’t sound upset, just deep in heavy thought. At last, she dismissed us with a wave of her hand. “You will go. It is late, and I will need to think on this after a full night of sleep and several large cups of coffee.”
I smiled broadly. “I look forward to working with you, Krysten.”
“Ah, do not sound so smug, little one,” she said, chastising and laughing at once. “I have not forgotten you stealing my friend’s name!”
“I like to leave a powerful first impression.”
“I do believe this one wants to kill me. Go, go.”
I exchanged looks with Helena in the elevator back down, and my heart raced at the way she looked at me, like… like… I didn’t know what like. It was so intense, I couldn’t even imagine what she might have been thinking, eyes gleaming.
“I see you’re putting Kingmaker’s etiquette lessons to use,” she said finally, as the elevator doors opened.
“Don’t try me, Freckles.”
“Or what?” she laughed. “You could try to fight me, you’re so small I wouldn’t notice.”
“Hey! Small but mighty.” I gave her a playful push, and she laughed, pushing me back as we headed out the doors, and I stretched my arms over my head. “I can’t keep you all night, but I’ll still be talking to people, getting everyone aligned on—”
“Where’s your hotel?”
“Oh, uh. Down in Queens. How come?”
“Well, let’s get the train then.”
“To my… it’s not a tourist destination,” I said, and she sighed, looking up at the sky as she walked ahead.
“Unless you intend to just abandon all your things there, we should get a move on.”
“Abandon… huh? Are you finally going to kill me off?”
“I’m helping you move it all.” She glanced at me from the corner of her eye. “You’re staying in my apartment.”
“I’m… I beg your pardon?” I had a heart attack and a stroke and died. Spontaneous human combustion, too, I think.
“I have a second room, you’ll remember. I use it as an office, but we can get you set up in there for the time being.”
“Oh. Uh. You, uh, you don’t need to…” My face burned. Helena Warrick moving me in with her was not on the docket. I mean, it was on my personal fantasy docket, but still.
“I know I didn’t give you enough money to stay in a hotel for an entire month, Houdini,” she said. “So stop being difficult and come with me, or I will have to make you.”
That was—also hot. Helena grabbing me and forcibly dragging me into her apartment to put me in a bed was, uh, something I could see myself thinking about sometimes, to put it one way.
“Well,” was what I managed to say after a second.
“I’d kind of like to see you kidnap me and make it happen against my will.
I always knew you’d be hiding some secret technique like that. ”
“Don’t push your luck,” she said, a smile dancing on her lips, not looking at me.
“I mean, that’s kind of all I do, push my luck.”
She laughed. I could still make Helena laugh. Holy shit.
∞∞∞
It was a good thing, in the end, that I didn’t have all that much stuff.
Helena and I each took a bag, and we took the train back to Manhattan, down to Tribeca, where I’d been in and around Helena’s place so often the past couple weeks that I was starting to get familiar with all the little sights and sounds of the place, into her building and up to her apartment.
We moved furniture together to clear out her office, which involved a lot of complaining, cursing and confusion, as apparently the desk had been assembled by builders inside the room, so we tried to walk it out of the room, found it didn’t fit, backed into the room again and tried a different angle, and then again, and in the end, the desk won.
It stayed in the corner of the room while everything else moved out, and Helena and I laughed breathlessly while we sat together on the bare carpeted floor, underneath where the window was cracked to the sounds of people in the street outside.
She held up her drink to mine, two bottles of sparkling water that clinked in a toast.
“Here’s to your new desk,” she said.
“I love it. It really suits this room.”
She snorted into her drink. “You and it sure think so.”
“Thanks. For your help.”
She planted her hands on the floor behind her, resting back, looking up at the window. “What are you going to do if this doesn’t work?”
Well, I had my original deadline. I’d still told Mom I’d be going back to Missouri at the end of June, which would line up well enough with when this event was supposed to happen that if it all went catastrophically and I made myself a pariah in this city, then I could finally settle for that and go.
Things would work out fine in Missouri. I’d learned a hell of a lot of good skills here, and I’d be able to put all these things down on my resume in a way that would put me head and shoulders above the competition.
I’d get a good job, and I’d be able to afford my own place perfectly comfortably.
Probably even get a house. And I’d live happily ever after.
And miss Helena.
“Then I’ll try again,” I said. “Battle of wills, me versus New York. Eventually I’ll win.”
She looked over at me, her hair falling over one side of her face, and she glowed with the sweetest little smile. “Made up your mind to stay?”
“I’ve been told I’m stubborn. Audacious. Besides, I like it here,” I said. “Love the city. Even when it doesn’t love me. And I’m, uh…” I blushed, but I went ahead anyway. “I’m partial to the company.”
She shifted closer, and she lowered her voice a tick. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m glad you and Kingmaker are so close.”
“Ew. Not him.”
There was something in the air in this apartment that kept making me hallucinate, because I swear Helena leaned over and kissed the top of my head again before she stood up. “I’m going to go grab you an air mattress or something to tide you over,” she said. “Get your stuff set up.”
“Oh—you’re sure it’s fine?”
“As long as you don’t break any bottles this time.”
I groaned, slumping onto my back on the floor, my face in my hands. “Helena…”
She laughed, looking back through the doorway at me, light dancing in her eyes. “Be back in a bit. Faster than you know it.”
“You’re doing that on purpose!” I called after her as she disappeared around the corner, and she called back as she put her shoes on.
“I know!”
“Well, as long as we’re all on the same page,” I said, mostly to myself.
I went like I was in a dream, going through my things to get it set up, my small wardrobe getting hung up on the rack Helena had brought in the room, and my personal care products set up in the bathroom on the opposite side of hers, and I blushed ridiculously just looking at the scene—Helena’s and my products, one on each side of the sink, all matchy.
Helena got back before long with a box under one arm, and I helped her haul out the air mattress and get it inflated at the edge of the room, and we dressed up the bed with her spare sheets.
I took a shower, with her only mildly teasing me on the way, and when I was set up in my pajamas, sitting on the air mattress, Helena sat down on the floor next to me, her hand on my knee.
We were basically the same height with me sitting on the mattress and her on the floor. I’d never felt so tiny. But I think Helena liked it, so I wasn’t mad.
“Get some sleep,” she said. “And I mean it. We’re not doing anything in the morning.”
“We’ve got a lot we need to—”
“And we’ll do it,” she said, putting her finger on my lips, and well, that worked to make me stop talking. And to make me horny. That probably wasn’t her goal, but if it was, she was very effective. “But not in the morning. First, you need to get actual sleep.”
“I’m all right. I slept plenty in the hotel last night. We can—”
“Shh.” Finger to the lips again. I shushed.
“I was worried about you. Figured it was about your… husband, that you were always showing up in tatters, looking like you were two seconds from collapsing. Wanted to do something about it, but I didn’t know how.
Now that I know exactly what’s going on, I am making sure you’re okay. ”
I hugged my knees into my chest, looking down, my face warm. “I really got lucky bumping into you at that party.”
She brushed her knuckles over my cheek. “Aren’t we glad I didn’t let you escape, then, Houdini?”
“Psh. I could totally have disappeared. But secretly I was just trying to impress you.”
She snorted, shaking her head, smiling at me, looking at me with that look like the universe was in her eyes, and the next thing I knew, her fingers curled in the hair on the back of my head, and her lips found mine.
I murmured breathlessly against her, my heart taking a flying leap, fluttering wildly, but she looked frustrated when she pulled away.
“I was trying not to do that,” she said.
“I can pretend it didn’t happen. But, you know… if you ever experience a lapse in judgment again… you know where to find me.”
She smiled wider. “You’re not going to pretend anything, you’re going to masturbate in my office thinking about it.”
I put my hands up. “Well, yeah?”
“Just don’t break anything.”
“Maybe I’ll break the desk. It’d be fair at this point.”
“If you come so hard you break a solid wooden desk, I will be impressed. Okay, Julie,” she said, squeezing my shoulder and standing up. “Get some sleep. I mean it. I don’t want to see your face before eight.”
“Thank you,” I said, settling back in the bed. “Really.”
She paused at the doorway, looking back at me with that soft look in her eyes, and what I wouldn’t have given for her to kiss me again. “Likewise,” she said. “Goodnight, Julie.”
“Goodnight, Helena.”
She closed the door softly, and I masturbated thinking about her kissing me. And about her talking about me masturbating, too. I didn’t break anything this time, though.