Chapter 9 #3
“Saylor, this isn’t a small apartment. This is an entire suburban house. Five thousand square feet. Five bedrooms. Four full bathrooms and two half-baths. An entire backyard with a deck that’s falling apart. It would take a small army to make that house presentable in time.”
I lean against the wall, smiling at her smugly. “You just said you don’t have time to vet contractors and manage a rapid renovation while running a company and fighting a custody battle. But you’ve got me. And I’ve got nothing but time and a really strong opinion about wallpaper.”
She’s studying me. I can practically see the calculations running behind her eyes—the risk, the logistics, the fact that letting me into her childhood home is a different kind of intimacy than letting me read her eulogy.
One is public. The other is closets full of old photographs and rooms where she grew up and the particular vulnerability of showing someone the place where you became yourself.
“Why?” she asks. Not confrontational. Genuinely curious. “Why are you so insistent on being a part of my life?”
I point at her. “I promise you, when I figure that out, you’ll be the first to know. All that matters is right now, I do…want to be a part of this. I want to help.”
The office is quiet. Through the glass walls, the forty-seventh floor continues its choreography—designers moving, machines humming, Margot presumably googling “how to operate a Google calendar.” But in here, it’s just us and the Rolex on the desk and the question of what happens next.
“I’d pay you,” Celeste says. “For the work. Contractor rates.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I’m not going to let you renovate my house for free. This isn’t a favor. It’s a job. You’ll be compensated, and we’ll keep it strictly professional.”
“Professional. Right. Like the funeral.”
“The funeral was professional.”
“I mean…we did sleep together.”
Her face flushes and she looks around the office as if there’s anyone besides the faceless mannequin to hear us. “We did not.”
“You fell asleep on my shoulder watching Clueless.”
“That’s not sleeping together.”
I blink at her. “We slept. We were together. What part of this are you struggling with?” It takes Herculean effort to keep my smirk from breaking free.
“Saylor, I want to make something clear.”
I roll my wrist, gesturing for her to continue.
“My divorce was really hard on me. And unfortunately, Greg and I can’t seem to escape each other’s orbits.
I’ll admit, Rina and her agency helped me feel less like a loser.
That’s why I brought Forrest to a few weddings and ceremonies.
That’s why I brought you to the funeral.
I’m not proud of it; it was a survival mechanism.
But I’m knocking on the door of forty, okay?
A hot and heavy romance with a guy that’s way too young for me is not a destination, it’d only be a detour.
And I don’t have time for detours. So when I say professional, I mean it. ”
I let the silence do its dance, too afraid to disturb the thick tension growing between us. I love the way she’s staring at me like she wants me to look away first. To prove I see her truth and understand it. But I don’t. “So what I’m hearing is you think our romance would be hot and heavy?”
“Saylor,” she snaps.
I grin. She doesn’t—but she wants to. I can see it in the fault line forming at the corner of her mouth, the tremor before the quake.
“Fine,” I say. “Contractor rates. Pay me whatever you like. I’ll start this very weekend if you give me the address and a key.”
She sighs. “I’ll drive you out there tomorrow morning.
You’ll need to see what you’re working with before you commit.
I have an early Zoom meeting I have to take from my office.
Can you meet me here right after, at ten?
” She slides her glasses off and sets them on the desk, and without them her face is the one I remember from the couch—open, unshielded, the version of Celeste that exists after all that pretty armor comes off. “And Saylor?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll have a badge made for you, in case you plan on breaking into my office again. Please scan in properly and don’t sneak past my security.”
I look at her—glasses off, arms uncrossed now, sitting on the edge of her desk in her corner office forty-seven floors above a city full of people who would kill for five minutes of her attention.
And I think about telling her exactly what’s going through my mind.
This feels big. Earth-shattering big. Like a meteor crashing into a planet.
The entire ecosystem of our lives is about to change. I can feel it.
But she’s not ready for that. And maybe I’m not ready to say it in a glass office where anyone walking by could see the moment it lands.
“Yes ma’am.”
She reaches across the desk to snag a simple black business card with the Celeste logo on it. “This has my cell and my office number if you need anything.” She points to the watch box. “Don’t forget the watch.”
“Nope. Leaving it. I will take this though.” I snag the green smoothie. The condensation racing down the thin, plastic cup instantly soaks my hand.
“Gen Zs,” she mutters under her breath. “Obsessed with drinking your vegetables.”
“You millennials,” I answer. “Always commenting on Gen Z behavior. Do I detect a hint of bitter jealousy, Ms. Brinley?”
“Absolutely. I’d kill for your birth year. I’m tempted to kiss you just for a taste of youth.”
I’m sure she meant it as a joke, but she’s got my attention. “I’m right here. Try it out.”
Yes, she rolls her eyes. But she also blushes, so I’m calling it a win. “Goodbye, Saylor. I have work to do. See you tomorrow?”
“You got it. Ten o’clock.”
Sipping on the fresh and creamy green smoothie that Celeste is most definitely missing out on, I leave the Rolex on her desk and walk out before she can argue.
Down the hallway, past the mannequin in the corner wearing half a dress and looking better in it than most people look in a finished one.
Past the workrooms and the garment racks and the woman still arguing about hand feel. Into the lift. Down forty-seven floors.
The lobby. The turnstile. The guards who still don’t look at me.
Manhattan is bright and loud and exactly the same as it was forty minutes ago, and yet I am not the same at all.
I’m walking back toward the subway when I pass a kitschy, boutique coffee shop with a giant decal of the Eiffel tower on the front window. I don’t know if this is where Celeste wanted coffee from, but this place reminds me of her, so I walk in.
The smell of fresh bread, lined with a rich sweetness, makes me want to stop, sit, unwind, and bask. But I’m on a mission. I head straight to the line-less counter and ask for a cortado.
“That all?” the barista in the brown apron asks.
“Yes, but can you have it delivered? Right across the street.”
“To the Celeste building? Sure, we have a group order heading out in about five minutes. So no charge for delivery. Which floor and office?” She holds up a paper cup, wielding a Sharpie in her other hand.
“This needs to go to Celeste Brinley. CEO’s office. Can you also throw in a pistachio muffin? I have to make sure my boss is fed.” I pull out one of the last twenties in my wallet and hand it over.
The barista smiles at me. “Oh, you’re the new assistant? I’m not surprised, the last one was useless. Ms. Brinley is here more often than not, getting her own coffee.”
My chest swells with pride knowing this must be a regular spot for Celeste. It makes me weirdly proud that I already seem to know her better than either of us thinks.
“No, Margot’s still around…for now. I’m a contractor.” I shrug it off. “Keep the change.”
With that, I’m on my way, back to the subway, back to home. But newly equipped with hope and excitement.
Tomorrow. I’m going to see her childhood home.
I’m going to strip wallpaper and paint walls and fix whatever needs fixing in the house where Celeste grew up.
I’m going to build something. Not for a client.
Not for my mum. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I’m building something that I actually want to see finished.
I take the subway home and I don’t check my phone once.
I don’t need to. I know exactly where I’m going.