Chapter 7 #2
I walked the rest of the distance between us.
Up close, the situation did not improve.
It got worse in bright light.
Her skin. Her mouth. The way the knit held her. The fact that I could still catch something warm and expensive on her even in a lobby full of hotel air. And those eyes again, amber and steady, with that little flash in them that told me she was amused before her mouth ever bothered to confirm it.
She looked me over once, from shoes to face.
That did something immediate to me.
“You came.”
“You thought I was joking?”
“I thought you were bold for midday.”
“I am.”
That got a laugh out of her.
“There you are,” she said.
“There who is?”
“The man who thinks fifteen minutes is enough to satisfy his curiosity.”
“It’s not,” I said. “That’s why I came in person.”
That made her mouth soften just a little.
Then she glanced at the open laptop and lifted one shoulder. “Okay. You’ve got twenty-seven minutes before I have to get back to pretending I care about follow-up notes.”
“I appreciate the generosity.”
“I’m a giving person.”
“That’s not what I’ve heard.”
Her eyes narrowed a little with amusement. Even that got me now, the way those amber eyes seemed to brighten when she was entertaining herself.
“From who?”
“My instincts.”
She laughed again and closed the laptop, sliding it aside before motioning for me to sit.
The server came fast. She ordered an iced tea. I got a coffee I did not need. The moment we were alone again, she leaned back in the chair and looked at me like she still had questions she hadn’t let out yet.
“Well?” she said.
“Well what?”
“You’re the one who pulled me off a rooftop in the middle of the day because beige apology offended your spirit.”
I smiled into my cup. “It did.”
“I knew it.”
“And you can’t text something like that and expect me not to want the full version.”
She shook her head once, smiling like she already knew I was a little ridiculous and hadn’t decided whether to hold that against me.
“It was bad,” she said. “Beautiful space. Terrible instincts. Everything too pale. Too cautious. One of those setups where you can tell somebody wants Black people present but not too present.”
I sat back. “Ah.”
“Exactly.” She held my gaze over the rim of her glass, those amber eyes warm and bright in the daylight between us. “You know it when you see it.”
“I do.”
“They kept calling it elevated.”
“That word needs jail time.”
She laughed so suddenly she had to set the glass down.
“See?” she said. “That’s why I said it to you. I knew you’d get it.”
That did more for me than it should have.
Not the compliment exactly.
The fact that she had thought of me first.
I leaned one forearm on the table. “So what you tell them?”
“That it looked like a bridal shower apology letter. That if they wanted warmth, they were gonna have to stop being scared of color. And that if I saw one more acrylic sign with fake-script font pretending to be luxury, I was going home.”
I laughed, full and easy.
“Damn.”
“I was nicer than that in the room.”
“Were you?”
“By a little.”
I looked at her for a second.
“How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“See a room like that.”
She tipped her head. “That’s my job.”
“No. That’s your title.” I held her eyes. “I’m asking something else.”
Her face changed a little then. Less banter. More thought.
“I don’t know,” she said after a second. “Maybe because I’m always clocking what people are trying to make a thing mean versus what it actually feels like when real people get inside it.” She shrugged. “Maybe because I know when a room looks expensive but doesn’t feel alive.”
There it was. That mind again.
That turn in her thinking that made me want to keep her talking longer than was reasonable.
“That makes sense,” I said.
“I know.”
That got me.
I laughed and shook my head.
“What?”
“You don’t waste a good opening.”
“Why would I?”
We sat there a second smiling at each other, the kind that sat just on the edge of something warmer than either of us had named yet.
The server brought our drinks. We thanked her. The pause that followed wasn’t awkward. Just charged in that subtle way certain pauses got once two people had enough interest in them to stop rushing to fill every inch.
Then she asked, “How’s your day?”
“Long.”
“But survivable?”
“Barely.” I took a sip of the bitter brew that was only adding to the edge i felt being around someone I had to look at and not touch. Yet. “One client wants money he hasn’t earned yet. Another wants me to believe his vision is a financial document.”
She laughed. “Men and vision. Dangerous combination.”
“I blame podcasts.”
“I blame confidence with no evidence.”
“That too.”
I looked at her over the cup. “See? This was worth leaving the office for.”
“You just wanted an excuse to look at me in daylight.”
I set the coffee down. “You say that like it wasn’t a solid reason.”
Her mouth shifted around the laugh she was trying not to give me too easy.
“Wow,” she said softly.
“What?”
“You really do say things like that with your whole chest.”
“I’m too old to mumble around what I mean.”
That changed something. Not wildly. Not enough for anybody else in the room to clock. But I felt it.
The way her eyes held mine a beat too long, like she knew exactly what she was doing every time she let them rest on me.
The way her fingers moved slow up and down the sweating glass, absent and easy, while my mind took that and went somewhere it had no business going.
Wrapped around me. Stroking me like she had time.
Like she knew what kind of pressure would make me curse under my breath and lose my train of thought right there at the table.
And the air between us shifted.
“Good,” she said.