Wells
TWENTY
Lundi Gras: The Monday before Fat Tuesday is the gathering night, the courts arriving by river while the city holds its breath before the next day's reckoning. He sets the thread down and does not pull it, choosing trust on the eve of everything coming apart.
All four of my screens are filled in front of me. My hand rests on the mouse but doesn't move. I would just be getting off with Peoria if we had gotten on.
There's nothing to log on to. I deleted the account and buried the persona under enough layers that recovery would take intent I don't have. Midnight doesn't exist anymore.
I lean back in the chair and pull my hand away from the mouse. I turn my gaze toward the window and take a long drag of my cigarette. The river beyond the window reflects city lights in fractured lines across black water.
I stand up to stretch. I've been sitting here for several hours now, so I walk over to the bar. The scotch is eighteen years old, expensive enough that pouring it should feel deliberate. I fill two fingers into a tumbler and set the bottle back on the mirrored shelf.
My phone buzzes on the desk. I walk over to it to see Cera's name lighting the screen. I click the bubble to read the text.
Still awake?
I stare at the message. The answer is obvious. I grab the scotch and walk over to the window.
Working.
Her reply comes immediately.
Of course you are. I figured you'd still be awake. I'm going to bed—sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite.
That phrase stops me. It's like I got a little piece of Peoria tonight, after all.
Night.
I pocket the phone and take a drink. The scotch burns going down.
Peoria and Cera are one woman. There are not two people.
Yet somehow it's like I'm still straddling two relationships because I can't let Cera know the things I know only through Peoria.
It never occurred to me that after cutting things with one side, it would bleed over so much into the other, making it harder and harder to keep them apart.
I turn from the window and set the glass on the desk, untouched after the first sip. The problem isn't what I did. It's what I know.
Peoria told me about counting cars on the roof. She handed me a piece of her childhood in a voice that cracked at the edges, raw in a way Cera has never been with Wells. Cera mentioned her family once, a brief deflection over coffee, no details, nothing close to what Peoria gave me.
I know things about Cera that Wells hasn't earned. I carry pieces of her she hasn't offered.
I arrive at the office before seven, which is normal. What isn't normal is the way I check my phone twice on the way to my desk, waiting to see if Cera texts before she gets in.
This will be our first morning where we are sidestepping whatever it is we're doing. We named it this weekend, now let's see how that looks in the daylight, at work.
By eight fifteen, the building has filled with voices and movement. Sandra from HR laughs near the break room, and someone is running copies down the hall. The rhythms of Monday morning are settling into place.
Cera walks past my door at 8:27. I catch the movement in my peripheral vision and look up. She glances in, meets my eyes for half a second, and keeps walking to her desk.
I turn back to my screen and pull up the Singapore follow-up, forcing my attention into the data. The breach is contained, but the pattern bothers me. Three employees, one offshore account, a timing gap that doesn't add up. I flag two transactions for deeper review and send the notes to Ridge.
Footsteps approach. I know the sound before I look up.
Cera stops in the doorway, tablet in hand. "I cleaned up the Monday review notes. I was going to get started on the weekly visuals."
"That was fast."
She steps inside and sets the tablet on my desk. "I live to exceed your very rigid expectations."
I glance at the screen, then back at her.
"They are not rigid. They are precise."
She puts her hand on her hip, and I have to look away before anyone walking by notices how long I hold her gaze.
"Right. Precision." She taps the edge of the tablet. "Let me know if you need to add anything. I'll send over what I do for review."
I look up. She's watching me with that warm, guarded amusement that makes my pulse shift.
"Good job."
She turns to leave, then pauses at the door. "Oh, hold on," she says, running back to her desk in those damn high heels.
"I grabbed you a coffee. Black, no sugar."
She sets the cup in front of me on the desk. The pause stretches a beat too long.
"You do drink it black, right?"
"I do."
"Great. This is my favorite coffee spot near my place. Enjoy."
Smiling widely, she leaves before I can answer.
I sit back in my chair and stare at the empty doorway. My heart beats harder than it should for a woman bringing me coffee.
I need a cigarette.
I pick up the cup, notice "Sarah" written in green ink on the top, which makes me smile. They know her name, just not how to spell it.
I finish the Singapore file just before three and send it to Ridge. The afternoon has bled into the kind of quiet where the office empties in waves, people heading home or ducking out for late meetings. I step into the hallway and nearly collide with Cera coming out of the break room.
Naturally, I pull her into me to steady her. Her body on mine makes my dick twitch. I take a deep breath of her hair before I let her go.
She's got a stack of papers cradled in her arm, probably the weekly reports she prints for the committee.
"Did you stage that?"
"I plead the fifth. Can I help you?"
We stand there for a beat, the hallway deserted. Her eyes flick toward the far end where voices drift from an open conference room, then back to me.
"You have a minute?"
I step aside and gesture toward my office. She walks past me, and I follow, closing the door halfway behind us.
Cera places her papers on a table with several servers lined up and then turns to face me.
"We should probably talk about how this works."
I wait.
"I overheard someone at lunch commenting on how you smile now and never used to, about how much time we spend together. I didn't have to hear the whole conversation to know what they were implying."
"So?"
"So, I guess I just want to know what we're doing here at the office. Are we keeping this under wraps for now, or what?"
Her expression shifts, and she does that thing where she bites the top of her lip.
"I'm fine either way," I reply. "What do you want?"
"Honestly, I think we keep our private life private for now."
"So you're saying I can't pull you into me in the hall and sniff you?"
"Yep. Save it for after work. Consider it foreplay."
I don't answer right away, putting my hands in my pockets and studying her. She picks up the stack of papers.
"So, are we on the same page?"
"If that's what you want, Cera, then yes. We're on the same page."
The relief in her voice catches me before I can brace for it. She needed me to agree without making it complicated, and I just handed her exactly what she asked for.
I keep everything locked down by instinct. I tell Ridge what he needs to know. I tell no one else anything unless silence becomes a liability. A relationship that lives in the dark asks nothing of me that I don't already do.
But there's something different about her. I don't care who sees, who knows, or what they say.
"I appreciate you not making this a thing."
"It is not a thing. You're right."
She smiles, and the warmth in it feels like trust I have not earned.
She walks to the door, pauses, and glances back.
"And Wells? Doesn't mean I can't tell you how fucking hot you look in that tailored suit. In private." She winks and walks out.
I stand in the empty conference room and stare at the door. The conversation went exactly as it should have. Cera feels respected, her work stays untangled from the rumor mill, and I now have a boner that I'll have to deal with.
It's nearly the end of the day for most when people start clearing out. It's nowhere close to the end of the day for me. Someone knocks, and I glance up.
Cera leans in.
"Quick question on the Jakarta slide."
I gesture to the chair across from me. She crosses the room and sits, setting her phone face up on the edge of my desk while she pulls up the file on her tablet.
"You flagged the time zone conversion, but I can't tell if you want it displayed in local or GMT."
"Local. The council won't convert it themselves."
"That's what I thought."
She swipes to the next screen, tilting the tablet so I can see. I lean forward slightly, scanning the layout. Her phone vibrates against the wood.
Neither of us looks at it.
It pulses again. A text preview lights the screen, visible from where I sit. Cas Shebbard.
Hey, can I see you again?
Cera glances down, reaches for the phone, and flips it over without reading the message. Her expression doesn't change.
"Sorry. I'll silence it."
"It's fine."
She taps something on the screen and sets it back down, still facedown. Then she returns to the tablet.
"So local time, got it. Anything else?"
I force my attention back to the slide.
"No. That's good."
She stands, picks up her phone, and tucks it into her pocket.
"I'll have the updates to you in an hour."
She leaves.
I sit motionless at my desk, staring at the space where her phone was. That didn't read like a girlfriend's text, or someone checking in about yoga. That read intimately. And it said again.
My fingers rest on the keyboard. Muscle memory pulls me toward the search bar before I register the intent.
I could have the answer in under five minutes. First name, partial message, Cera's known associates cross-referenced with her location history. Whoever Cas Shebbard is, he or she is in her contacts.
I can see the search query in my head, the commands I would type, the databases I would access. It would take less time than making another pot of coffee.
My hands don't move.
The feeling in my chest is sharp and unfamiliar. It's not a concern in the operational sense, something more acidic.
Jealousy.