21. Dustin
Dustin
Nervous tension buzzes through my veins. My bones are replaced with vibrated rods. Cold sweat gathers on the back of my neck, and I need to get out . But no, I'm still in the fucking brig, shaking my leg to the beat of my racing heart.
The ship's been docked again for a while. I think it has, anyway. I can't feel the gentle sway of movement anymore. I swipe my hands down my face and let out a sigh. The anxiety doesn't abate.
Fuck. I've always been so careful. Work-life boundaries have always been my thing. I follow the rules. I play the game. I do my job to the best of my abilities.
I came to New York—to DropTop—with the intention to onboard the latest Atmosphere acquisition. But it was always doomed, wasn't it? From the instant I saw Brooke at that stupid tourist shop (sorry, Janine), I was fucked. Even when she was at my throat, I couldn't deny the animalistic attraction between us. And I may be an idiot, but god, I'm a happy idiot .
Now, if only I can keep my job and Brooke's.
"Mr. Sanders?" Nora raps her knuckles against the metal door, shaking me from my thoughts. "It's time to go."
Stumbling to my feet, I only give her a curt nod before confidently walking down the hall towards the stairs.
"Wrong way, Mr. Sanders."
Shit. I about-face and walk again—with slightly less confidence—to the corrugated metal stairs. At the top, Kenton St. Clair (the bastard) stands waiting with Travis Bellardi.
"Dustin… Sanders, you said? Well, I wish I was meeting you under more pleasant circumstances, eh?" Kenton chuckles. "Though I did introduce you. I think I did a pretty good job, wouldn't you say? Well, that's neither here nor there. I understand you've had a bit of an, ah, indiscretion with a DropTop employee."
"Uh. Yes." A mortified flush runs down my neck.
"Well, obviously, that's against policy. And I'm afraid you're being put on unpaid leave." He offers me what I'd consider to be an inappropriately timed smile. "We will, of course, reimburse you for your departing airfare."
"Departing airfare?" I mumble.
"Well, yes. You can't expect we'd allow you to stay in the company apartment, do you?" He laughs. "Oh, heavens, no. We'll need that for your replacement."
"Replacement? "
"The acquisition is moving forward as planned. You will no longer be DropTop's Onboarding Director, though. The exact replacement is to be decided. Uh, Nora? What was it we decided on, regarding Mr. Sanders here and the DropTop employee?" Kenton St. Clair turns over to Nora, who smiles simpering at the CEO.
"That they will have absolutely no contact until the investigation is complete. She is on paid leave until the investigation concludes, at which time her role will be decided. You see, we really must discover if he promised any special treatment to her or her team in exchange for, uh, favors. Quid pro quo, as it were." Nora looks over at me with disgust.
"Hey, what? No! No quid pro quo! I… I love Brooke. I always have." The words spill from my mouth before I even knew they were coming. Shit. I mean, I'd told her , but I hadn't told anyone else. Not even Alicia.
Nora's eyes nearly bug out of her head. "Always? Do you mean to say you orchestrated your presence here to… to… sexually harass a woman?"
"Oh, my god! No! What? That's insane!" I throw my hands up and stare stupidly at Kenton and Travis. "I hadn't even seen her in years; we dated in high school and college—"
"Okay, that's enough." Kenton holds up a hand, and for some weird reason, it silences me. He may be a pompous ass of a CEO, but he can work a crowd. Even when the crowd is just us four. "I may not be a practicing lawyer anymore, and I've certainly never been your lawyer, but I would highly suggest you stop talking."
Oh, fuck . Holy shit, do I need a lawyer?
Kenton St. Clair didn't come back to the apartment with me to watch me pack up. That'd be absurd. He had his security team do it, which felt all the more embarrassing. They silently watched me pack everything into my wheeled suitcase. They silently watched me purchase my airfare. They requested that I email the invoice to a specific accounts payable email, and I got the notification that I'd be reimbursed mere moments later.
Who knew corporate America could be so efficient?
Considering I didn't have anywhere else to go, and the flight I got was only a few hours later, they dropped me off at LaGuardia with silent nods. So, here I sit in Terminal B, with nothing to keep my attention but my phone and the millions of thoughts racing through my head. I pick at the limp salad I picked up from one of those grab-and-go kiosks directly outside of security. A wrinkled tomato bursts between my teeth, and I cringe at the decidedly off texture .
I don't know if I still have a job. I can't talk to Brooke, or I know I won't have a job. I don't know what happens next. Financially, I'll be okay—assuming I can find another job in the next two years. Shit, I'm getting ahead of myself. Maybe Atmosphere will take my profession of love into consideration, and I'll go back to Onboarding Directing in a few short weeks.
Maybe Brooke and I will be okay. Maybe. Who knows?
Eyeing my phone, it's definitely too late to call Alicia. My thumb hovers over Brooke's contact info. I want to call her so bad. I want to tell her it'll be alright, no matter what happens. I want to ask her to come see me in Chicago. I want to sleep in her cramped bedroom in Brooklyn. I want to scratch Huey behind the ears and under the chin, just the way he likes it.
Will I ever get that chance again?
Heaving out a defeated sigh, I click my phone off and stare out the massive windows. I watch the patterns in the blinking lights on the runway. They flash in threes. I love her. I love her. I love her. My constant sighs morph into distressed groans. I hate this. I hate this feeling. I hate not knowing.
I adore a plan. I spend hours making airtight plans in all parts of my life, but when Brooke waltzed right in and smashed my careful goals to pieces? I loved her for it. I still love her for it. She's always been absolutely fearless, and I so badly wish I had a little of her bravery right now. If I could just talk to her, everything would be okay.
I desperately want everything to be okay. It will be, or that's what I try to convince myself as I while away the hours in this fucking airport. The plane to Chicago rolls up to the gate, and I gather my things. I can only bring myself to tightly smile at the flight crew once they allow us to board and settle into our seats for this red-eye flight.
Usually, I'd be happy the flight only takes a few hours. Thanks to modern technology, I can be home before my sister and her unruly brood wake up. But it all starts to feel more real as the jet takes off from the runway, jolting me into my seatmate who looks even less awake than I am. He's an older man, grey whiskers forming his scraggly beard, with tired blue eyes and a New York Yankees baseball cap.
He pulls the hat low over his eyes and quickly falls asleep the instant we're at cruising altitude. I envy him. I so badly want to let the world slip away for a few hours. Unfortunately, I can't. I've never been able to sleep on planes, and the anxiety running rampant in my bloodstream certainly isn't helping.
Yet, for the first time in many years, I don't pay for the in-flight WiFi. While everything else is crashing down around me, that at least feels like a big middle finger to Atmosphere .
My emotions ping-pong from one extreme to the other. I'm crushed, but I'm furious. They worked me to the bone for years (not for nothing, my paychecks are pretty good) but won't even allow me to explain? And I can't talk to Brooke, the one person who I know would make it all okay.
Misery swirls in my chest as the plane descends, and I robotically follow the flight crew's directions when we sidle up to the gate. I don't even know how I left the airport in one piece, but a cab driver gives me a sullen thumbs-up when I show him my address.
Exhausted and defeated, I stagger into my condo right as the sun peeks over the Chicago skyline. My eyes feel as dry as the desert, and my throat feels parched. Recycled airplane HVAC always makes me feel disgusting, and the situation with work (and Brooke) makes me feel even worse.
The tasteful minimalistic design of my home feels sterile. Stale. Empty. It's the polar opposite of Brooke's cluttered and cozy bedroom. There's no lingering scent of vanilla extract. There's no weird roommate slurping on cans of spaghetti rings. There's no life . It looks like the beige and white condo of a serial killer who desperately wants to fit in.
I don't want to live like this. Less than twelve hours ago, I was holding Brooke in my arms. I was kissing her against the wall. I was so grateful for her touch, for her support, for her . I miss her already. I can't do this.
My phone vibrates against my leg, and I scramble to get it—what if it's her? But disappointment rushes through me when I see it's just a marketing email from the airline. With a disgusted groan, I toss my phone onto the couch and rake my hands down my face. I'm spiraling. I recognize that I'm spiraling. I need to go to bed—maybe tomorrow will be better.
But I can't. I can't sleep. I haven't even tried, and I know I won't be able to. So, instead, I plod off to my shower and stand there, waiting for the water to run hot. I don't miss the luxury of that stupid apartment's tankless water heater. I kind of miss the view, but most of all, I just miss the proximity to Brooke.
I even kind of miss that conference room. Under those fluorescent lights, she shone bright like the sun. Her fiery rage enveloped me from day one, but she didn't burn me. She never could. She melted me. She melted away all those years of anger and resentment. She felt as refreshing and soothing as the gentle steam rolling out of my shower stall.
Shit, I miss her.
After taking a few days to mope around my condo, I finally call my sister. If I can't talk to Brooke, I know Alicia will tell me what I need to hear—not necessarily what I want to hear, though.
"Jeez, I thought you dropped off the face of the earth!" Alicia's laugh comes through the phone without a hello .
"Hey."
"Shit." Her tone drops, and I hear muffled static as she moves the phone away from her ear. "Kids? Mommy needs to have a grown-up conversation. Why don't you go see if Mr. Delaney's puppies are outside?"
The little chorus of voices yelling about puppies almost makes me smile. Almost.
"Delaney's dogs had puppies? Doesn't he know spaying and neutering is, like, the most important part of pet ownership?" I gripe.
"No, he's fostering. They're cute, and the kids love them. But that's not what you called to talk about, is it?"
"No." I fall silent and pick at the calloused skin on my thumb. "I don't know what to do, Leesh."
"Did Brooke—"
"No!" I interrupt. "No. It was me. I fucked it up—we fucked it up. Bad. Uh, not to get blue with you, but we had a bit of a… well. Here's the whole thing. We engaged in coitus in the bathroom during the dinner cruise."
"Gross, but how did that fuck everything up?"
"We got caught. "
Her sharp inhale wheezes through the phone. "By who?"
"HR. And then the DropTop CEO got involved, and so did Kenton St. Clair, the bastard." I grimace.
"Why is Kenton St. Clair a bastard?"
"He made me give a speech in front of—it doesn't matter! I've been put on unpaid leave, pending investigation. And I'm not allowed to have any contact with Brooke." I pinch the bridge of my nose. "Should I get a lawyer?"
"Probably. Damn, Dusty. Remember when I told you to keep it in your pants?" I can practically hear the smirk in her voice.
"Not fucking helpful."
"Nah, I know. You were always so stupid over her. Dumb of me to assume you'd be anything else, even now." She sighs. "I'm sorry, Dusty. I don't know what you should do here, either. I'm not the expert on corporate America. I'd usually run to you for stuff like that. But let me ask you this, yeah?"
"Mmhm," I grunt.
"Do you see a future with her? Like, a real future. Either in New York or out here. Hell, maybe even back to Michigan—the kids would love that, you know? But really, though. Do you want to take care of her when she's sick? Hold her hair back when she pukes? Run to the store in the middle of the night because she just realized she's out of tampons? "
The answer is immediate and fills me with joy—a feeling I thought I'd lost over the past twelve(ish) hours. "Yes."
"Then I think you have your answer, bud."
"I think I do, too."