13. Cera
THIRTEEN
Cera
The Maskless Hour: Even at Carnival there are private hours when the disguise comes off among trusted company, a candor only the dark allows. She turns the camera off and hands him her unguarded breath, more of herself than the costume ever showed.
I’ve barely gotten home and finished my makeup in time for our call. I wasn't sure if Wells would keep me at the office again late and was about to take my phone into the restroom to log onto my OnlyFans account to message Midnight that I needed to reschedule.
"Hey," his deep voice comes through the black screen just as I get situated on my balcony.
"Hey, yourself."
"Change of venue?" he asks.
"Yeah. It's a nice night in Peoria, thought I'd sit outside with you."
"Are you an exhibitionist? Don't you have neighbors?"
"I'm anything you want me to be. I can get off out here for you, where anyone could see, and do it only for you."
"Mmm. That sounds pretty hot. Do you do that a lot?"
I don't know why that question gets under my skin. Is he fishing?
"You know you're my only man. I don't do anything for anyone but you."
"That's right. All mine. First, tell me how you are. Then I want to make you better."
His voice pulls me back. I lean back in the chair, resting my head on the brick wall, and tuck my feet under me.
"I'm good. Tired, but good. Long day with a demanding boss."
"Demanding boss, huh? Do you ever get naughty with your boss?" Again, the question touches a nerve. Probably because I do.
"What? Ew, no, of course not," I lie. I know he wants me to role-play with him, but I can't go there, not after everything.
"Do you like your job?"
"I do. More than I thought I would. Luckily, I get to think, you know? I'm not micromanaged even though I'm expected to keep up."
"And do you?"
"I'd say yes."
I hear him moving on the other side of the black screen. He doesn't say anything.
"I have a question. Is this what we are now?" I keep my voice light. "A weird late-night book club without the books?"
He clears his throat. "Does it bother you?"
The words hit harder than an explicit command would have. My chest tightens. I remember how he used to want me, but something in me leans harder into this, being asked for nothing except to stay.
The oldest part of me doesn't trust that. It whispers that if the hunger changes, the leaving comes next.
"I'm not trying to be weird about this. I just noticed things changed.
You don't ask me to do anything anymore.
You just, I don't know, seem less interested.
Which is fine. I mean it. But if you are tired of me, you can just say so.
You don't have to keep logging on out of politeness or habit or whatever. "
My heartbeat climbs into my throat. I sound too calm, too light. I've built a life out of pretending I'm not exposed when I am.
"I'm not tired of you, Peoria. And I'm definitely not less interested. I want you to know I come here for our 'dates,' as you call them, for more than just to get off. I like you."
"I like you, too."
"Will you sleep with me tonight?"
"What?" I ask, not sure I heard him correctly.
"I want to fall asleep together tonight. Would you do that with me?"
I think about sleeping in this make-up and a mask and this wig. What if I doze off and something comes off?
"If you're okay with me turning off my screen. I'm not sure I could fall asleep with a camera on me."
"That would be fine. I want to fall asleep to your breathing."
"Okay." I stand and head inside, setting the laptop on the bathroom counter. Without warning, I turn off the camera and start taking off my makeup.
"You still there?" I ask as I wipe the smoky eye shadow off my eyelid with a makeup remover pad.
"Yes, Peoria. I'm still here. I'm not going anywhere."
Wells walks into my workspace Friday morning without knocking. I'm used to him doing it, but he still startles me.
"We're flying to Tampa today to work. I need you to go home and pack a bag because we will stay the night."
I look up from my screen. He's already got his jacket on, a leather bag slung over one shoulder, and his expression hands me nothing.
"Sorry, what?"
"Our Gulf-East terminal flagged unauthorized access on its systems an hour ago. I'm not running a port breach from a thousand miles out. I already have the jet ready for us."
I sit back, not really understanding what this has to do with me. I have nothing to do with systems security. "And I'm going why?"
"Because Rotterdam's due in a week and I'm not surrendering two days to a flight I have to take regardless.
" He says it like a logistics problem, nothing underneath it.
"We work it on the plane. We work it tonight.
You keep us on track while I deal with the terminal.
Unless you'd rather make up the time with another all-nighter once I'm back. "
The last all-nighter ended with me bent over that desk, and the memory drops low and hot before I can shut it down. I wonder if he's remembering it too, but his face is a blank canvas.
"I'll be at the terminal this afternoon for a few hours, and probably first thing tomorrow, most of the morning. You'll have a nice room, all the amenities, even a massage if you want, and the quiet to push the build while I'm gone."
"So is this work or a lavish vacation?"
"I want to make it worth your while if I'm asking you to work overtime again, on your weekend, no less."
"If it comes with a massage and room service, I'm in."
"Go home, pack for one night, and I'll have a car pick you up in an hour. Does that work? We'll be back in New Orleans by early afternoon tomorrow."
As soon as I get to my car, I call Locke. "Please answer, please answer," I say into the ringing phone.
"Hey, babe," he answers on the fourth ring.
"Locke! You're not going to believe this. I'm flying on the Stone Intermodal PJ today for an overnight in Florida!"
"Come again."
"Wells has some kind of security thing there, and he wants me to go so we can work on this project we have due next week."
"Sounds like he ginned up a reason to get you to himself for a night."
"No. Really? Do you think that's what this is?"
"Yep."
"Listen, I've got to go. The car's picking me up in forty-five, and I still need to pack. Sorry I'll miss our Saturday yoga."
"Go live your best life, girl. Yoga will be here when you're done."
I end the call and run in.
The company jet sits like a sleek beast on the private tarmac. I climb the narrow stairs with my bag slung over one shoulder. Inside, cream leather seats face each other across a polished wood table. The cabin smells faintly chemical, the air already pressurized.
Wells sits in the far seat, laptop open, his jacket folded next to him. He doesn't look up when I drop into the seat across from him.
A flight attendant appears long enough to offer drinks. I take water. Wells takes nothing. She disappears into the front of the plane, and the door seals shut with a pneumatic hiss.
"The biscuits are supposedly good. I never eat on the plane, but I wanted to mention it."
Biscuits on a plane? Okay, that's something. This is my first time on a private jet, so I'm going with it.
The engines hum as the world outside the window starts to slide backward.
The cabin is quiet, the kind of quiet money buys. There are no strangers, no buffers. Just me and Wells and the sky pulling us somewhere else.
I watch the city drop away beneath us. The Mississippi uncoils silver through the grid. The buildings shrink into geometry and then into texture and then into nothing. We climb through a thin layer of clouds and break into open blue.
Wells closes his laptop. He leans back in his seat and stares out the window. The light catches the sharp line of his profile. His hands rest flat on the armrests, controlled even in stillness.
He smells like cigarette smoke, like he always does up close. Normally, that would repulse me on a plane. On him, it goes straight through me, low in my belly, and I've stopped trying to understand why.
I wonder if the no-smoking rule applies to private jets, too.
I've never seen him outside the office. The context shift makes him less familiar, less my boss, and more a man in a suit on a plane with no desk between us and no meeting to anchor the reason we're breathing the same air.
My pulse ticks higher without permission. He turns his head, and his eyes meet mine.
"You good?"
"I'm good. Just a little giddy because I've never done this before."
"Flown?"
"Private."
He nods once. His gaze holds a beat longer than necessary, and then drops back to the window.
I pull my laptop out and try to focus on the file. The numbers blur. I keep catching him at the edge of my vision, how his shoulders drop when he exhales, his fingers tapping once against the armrest before they still.
The plane levels out. The flight attendant reappears with coffee neither of us asked for, and she offers me the biscuits. Wells takes his black. I wrap my hands around the cup and let the heat ground me, accepting the biscuits since they come so highly recommended.
I sip my coffee and watch the clouds slide past, and try to convince myself this feeling in my chest is just turbulence.
The suite has the look of money no one lives in. Clean lines, low lamplight, the Gulf a dark sheet beyond the glass. Wells hangs his jacket over a chair by the door. I set my bag down and step out of my heels, and the carpet swallows the sound.
He's already moving files from his briefcase to the messenger bag, all business again, the easy quiet of the plane gone the second we touched ground.
"I'm going to go take a look at the terminal on-site," he says. "You good here for a couple hours? Room service, a spa, high-speed internet. I had the concierge book you a massage at four, if you want it."
It takes me a second to catch up. "Really? Wow. Thank you, Wells. I'd love a massage."
"Help yourself to whatever you need, put it on the room. I'll be back by seven."