5. FIVE #2
I found my phone charging on the nightstand — he'd plugged it in while I slept, because naturally even my battery had been handled before it could become a problem — and the notification wasn't from Lola.
It was an email from the Hawthorne Library.
I sat on the edge of the bed and opened it.
Dear Ms. Carter, We were impressed by your initial interview and would like to invite you to the final stage of consideration for the curator position—
My pulse jumped. I read the rest twice before it became real.
A permanent role. A private research collection in Boston.
A conservation budget that actually existed instead of depending on whether rich trustees felt generous.
Staff. Authority. The chance to stay with a collection long enough to finish what I started instead of stabilizing the damage and leaving before the glue dried.
Everything I'd been chasing for the past three years.
Alex appeared in the doorway. He looked at my face first, then the phone.
"What happened?"
"I got a second interview."
"For what?" The shift in his voice was so slight most people would've missed it.
"Curator position. The Hawthorne Library."
"Where?"
"Boston."
That had clearly not been the answer he wanted. He came into the room.
"When did you apply?"
"Before the Sterling contract. First interview was two weeks ago."
"You didn't say anything."
"You didn't ask." I could see the objection forming. "You asked me whether the archive boxes could stay in the west room. That's not really the same thing."
"No," he said. "It isn't."
Alex stopped beside the bed. "Do you want the job?"
I looked at the email again. "Yeah."
It cost more to say than I expected. Not because it wasn't true — I wanted what it offered, the permanence, a real professional home, the chance to stop planning my life in six-week stretches.
But yesterday Boston had been an opportunity.
Today, wearing his shirt with his coffee still warm in my stomach, it was somewhere very far away from this floor.
"I haven't been offered it," I added. "This is just the final interview."
"They'll offer it."
"That's weirdly supportive."
"I've watched you work." No flattery in it — just this calm, total certainty, like he was stating a physical law. And the faith in his voice pulled at something I couldn't afford to look at too closely, not while I was barefoot in his bedroom holding an email that could change everything.
"When is it?"
"Friday."
"How long would you be gone?"
"For the interview? A day."
"That's not what I asked."
I turned the phone facedown. "It's a permanent position, Alex."
Something closed behind his face. Last night he'd asked me to stay like the word had been torn out of him. Now I'd introduced a departure date neither of us expected to be discussing over pancakes.
"My contract here ends in a month," I said. "I was always going to need another job."
"You could stay here."
No pause. No thought. Just reflex.
"As what?"
"The collection needs a permanent curator."
"Did it need one yesterday?"
"Yes."
"But you hadn't hired one."
"I hadn't met you."
My heart moved before my brain could catch it. I stood and crossed to the window because I needed distance from him and from the part of me that wanted to say yes before thinking.
The city below looked washed clean — taxis along the avenue, people with umbrellas ducking beneath awnings, all of them moving through lives that had nothing to do with Alex Black's private floor.
"You can't create a job because we slept together," I said.
"I'm not."
"You've known me for three weeks."
"I know your work."
"You also know what I eat on Tuesdays, so you'll forgive me if the professional and personal lines are a little blurry right now."
Alex stood. "I don't want you to leave."
Wrong reason. Also the most honest thing he could've said, and I felt both of those facts at the same time.
I turned to face him. "You can't keep people by removing every reason they might go."
"I can give you the position you want."
"You can give me a position. That's not the same thing."
His jaw set. "What's the difference?"
"The difference is I chose it. You changed my building access without asking. You arrange cars before I say yes. You ordered my breakfast before I opened my eyes." I kept my voice soft because none of it had been cruel. "You fix problems before anyone else gets to decide whether they're problems."
"I'm trying to make things easier."
"I know. And you can offer me something, Alex. You can tell me what you want. But you can't build the answer before I've had a chance to think about the question."
"I want you here." Raw and simple and so unguarded it pressed against my throat.
I lifted my hand to his face. He leaned into the touch — barely, just enough that I might've imagined it.
"I'm here now," I said. "The interview's Friday, and I don't know what happens after that."
"I do."
"You think you do."
His arms came around me, and for a moment neither of us said anything.
Then he kissed me, and there was none of last night's desperation in it — it was quiet and deep, his hands steady at my waist while mine slid around his neck.
He wasn't using it to change my mind. That mattered more than anything he could've said.
When he pulled back, his forehead rested against mine. "Go to the interview."
"I'm going."
"I'll arrange—"
"No."
He stopped.
I smiled. "I'm taking the train."
"That's inefficient."
"It goes straight to Boston, I can read for four hours, and I don't need an airport. It might be the most efficient system ever designed for a librarian."
"Can I at least have a car meet you when you get there?"
I looked at him. The effort behind the question was visible — the work of asking instead of arranging, waiting instead of solving. I kissed him once.
"Yeah. Thank you."
He looked faintly annoyed by how easy it had been. "You could've just said yes the first time."
"You could've just asked."
"I did. Eventually."
"You're getting better at this."
His hand slid under the shirt and spread warm against my bare back. "I'm a quick study."
Heat followed the touch. I glanced at the bed.
"So I've noticed."
His eyes sharpened, and the interview email was still facedown beside us, and Boston was still out there, and so was the end of my contract and every decision neither of us was ready to make.
For the next hour, none of it mattered.