Chapter 27
Helena
I was glowing all through the next week.
It felt like Julie and I never touched the ground, working nonstop, and between the two of us, we had an…
unusual network. It reached wide, to put it lightly.
And we put in the work, building up for an industry event right under Krysten’s nose, and we wound up back at the apartment together every night—some days we worked alongside one another, some days we split up to cover more ground, but every day, we wound up back in the apartment, where Julie finally got her way one day and I let her make food for us.
Only because the next day, I had a good excuse to reverse it and be the one to make dinner.
And more often than not, her clothes came off at the end of the day, too.
I would have thought I’d be too tired for it, but I found at the end of each day, I was simultaneously exhausted and wired, and working it out on Julie’s body proved an excellent way of decompressing.
I got some of the best sleep of my life.
And more than that, even with this whole thing being so upside-down that there was no way it should have worked, I felt happy. Kept going to bed each day ecstatic waiting for the next one, and from the light in her eyes, Julie felt the same way.
Happy enough that I couldn’t hide it from Estelle.
We’d met up as the three of us a few times over the week, and this was one where it was only sort of the three of us—Julie and I were working split today, and we’d had an hour around one o’clock where both of us were free, so we’d grabbed lunch on my tab at the Chinese place where the owner talked to Julie and she was too friendly to tell him to shut up, and of course, Estelle joined us.
Julie was off at the end of the hour to catch a friendly meeting with a couple of producers from Brooklyn, and with an hour still to go before I needed to be at the event in Midtown, Estelle took us to round out the meal with coffee from the Starbucks around the corner.
She was normally a little too good for Starbucks, but it was a sweltering June day today, and Starbucks had something the local places were hit-or-miss on: air conditioning.
I was accustomed to breakroom coffee, so I happily drank the basic brew coffee as Estelle sat down at the table with me, a knowing smile on her face.
“You and Houdini are cute,” she said.
“Patronizing me? We’re very serious professionals.”
She rolled her eyes theatrically. “You and Houdini are very serious professionals who are clearly good at your job and also make a cute couple.”
“Ah, come off it,” I said, looking out the window. “We’re not a couple.”
“Come on. You cannot convince me you’re not doing it.”
“I didn’t say that.”
She laughed, eyes shining. “Yeah? Is she good?”
“What, are you looking to take her for yourself?”
She groaned, slumping. “Hellie, I’m not gay, I tried. Don’t rub it in.”
“She’s fantastic, thank you for asking.”
“So?” She leaned in, eyes shining.
“Yes, you were right,” I sighed. “As you always are, which is getting annoying. It’s… good to have her back.”
She put a hand to her chest. “Thank you. You know I love to hear it. But I wasn’t even asking for that this time, I was saying so, you like her, right?”
I looked away, fussing with my coffee cup. “I’m not really big on dating…”
“So, what, does that mean you’ll never date anyone in your life? That just means you’re particular. And I think she checks your boxes.”
I tented my hands on the table. “And what boxes do you suppose those are?”
She counted off on her fingers. “She’s driven and enthusiastic, very creative, she supports your dreams, she’s a hapless little blushing bottom—”
“What—does everyone think I’m a stone top?”
Estelle gave me a shocked look. “There is no way she’s the top.”
I looked away pointedly. “Some people,” I said, “do both.”
“Does she?”
I cleared my throat. She smiled.
“That’s what I thought. So, the boxes? They’re checked, right?” She softened. “You’re so much happier with her around, babe. It’s written all over you. I love getting to see you like this.”
“I don’t know, it feels weird,” I complained, a hand to my forehead. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“I think that bridge has already come a lot.”
“Stop thinking about her coming. That’s my thing.”
She laughed, eyes sparkling, as she relaxed back in her seat. “All right. I’m just saying. Even Linyue likes her. Well, liked her before all of this went down. Here’s hoping she comes back around.”
“Linyue liking someone has been the biggest surprise in this whole thing…” I shook my head. “Any news from your side, speaking of?”
“Cheng Shiyi is interested in what kinds of events you’re running…”
“What, he’s still in the city?”
“I think I heard he’s extending his stay. Lots of long talks with your father.”
“Why do you know this better than I do?” I said, rubbing my forehead. “Imagine the face Linyue would pull if I invited Mr. Cheng to another unauthorized party, this one where the entire party itself is also unauthorized.”
She laughed. “I bet he’d love it,” she said. “Linyue asked me to babysit him one time, and he’s really enthusiastic about the fast-paced New York life. Give him an invite to a tech startup event that’s also a music industry event and he’ll lose his little mind.”
“We’ll… see about that.” I checked my phone. “I should probably get moving before long… I’ve barely touched my coffee.”
“It’s just Midtown, right? If you’re walking, I’ll tag along and we can talk logistics.”
We took off together, talking logistics, and I put everything out of mind as much as possible. Or I tried, anyway. But as I finished up with the financiers’ meeting and texted Julie the updates, I couldn’t help thinking about if there were a little heart at the end of her contact name.
It really would have been just like me to have a girlfriend who would exchange project documents and touch base on deliverables with me.
It was enough that by the time the sun went down and I heard the knocking on the front door of my apartment that said Julie had finished her last pitch meeting for the day and had gotten back, I couldn’t help myself.
I leaned against the door, a smile growing on my face, as I spoke in my best low, seductive voice.
“And just who might you be?”
“Um, uh. Just need a signature for the delivery.”
That was not Julie. I put a hand over my face.
I faked a rough, raspy voice, coughing a little, like that was why I’d talked like that.
“Just one second,” I said, and I spent that one second pinching the bridge of my nose miserably before I opened the door, signed for a delivery, and took a package from a young man who looked a little flustered.
Not ten minutes later, the door knocked again, and I checked the peephole. Julie Branch, wearing her suit. Out of patience now, I wrenched the door open, and before she could say anything, I took the lapels of her suit jacket and pulled her into a kiss, and she let out a muffled grunt of surprise.
“I was hoping you’d have shown up earlier,” I said, my voice low, not far from her lips.
“Some… reason… why?” she said, a little dreamy, stars in her eyes. I paused.
“Just… because I wanted to kiss you. Come inside, I made food.”
She could tell there was something more to it, but also, importantly, she didn’t press it. This whole thing went to my grave with me.
We ate together, and even though conversation flowed as it always did, Julie talking excitedly about the points she’d been able to touch on today, I found there was just one little part of me that externalized, watching from the outside. And Estelle was right, frustratingly. I did look happy.
I was in the middle of my thoughts when a series of quick, sharp knocks came from my door, and my stomach tensed at the sound. This was too many people at my door for one evening. Especially because I recognized that precise knocking cadence.
So did Julie, from the look in her eyes, the way her expression tightened. “Is that—” she started, and I nodded, standing up.
“I guess she’s heard about us,” I said. “Do you need to be in the bathroom or something? She’s probably going to be angry.”
“And leave you to deal with the angry manager? She can yell at me all she likes, I have no dignity to crush. We go together. And I come back with my shield or on it.”
“Noble, Leonidas, but try not to die.”
She followed me to the entryway, where I took a second to steady myself before I opened the door.
“Linyue,” I said at the figure, who, judging by the lack of her signature lavender suit jacket, must have been planning on sleeping for the night when she heard something about us and came running. “You could have texted me.”
“And let you squirm out of it?” She folded her arms. “Ms. Fong is not as subtle as she thinks she is. You have not been taking time off, firstly—”
“Oh, god, I should have known she’d run her mouth. Linyue—”
“And you,” she said, pointing at Julie. “Why don’t you come have a private meeting with me in the building lobby?”
“Linyue, do not kill Julie,” I said flatly. Julie put her hands up.
“Helena and I are really counting on each other right now to make this project go through, so maybe you can kill me once it’s done? I mean, I’d really hate to inconvenience her.”
“Julie. Nobody’s killing you.”
Linyue scowled, her eyes narrowed, until—clearly entirely out of her control—a laugh slipped out.
“I,” she said with a declarative air, “will pencil that in. What is happening? This one comes back, and now Ms. Fong is talking to Cheng Shiyi under my nose, and then I check in with Ms. Adesina and find out you are building some kind of unauthorized industry event for her brand under her nose?”
“Yeah,” Julie said. “We could use your help, actually, if you have time.”
Linyue threw her hands up. “You do all of this behind my back, you put Ms. Warrick through everything she’s been through, and then you ask for my help?”