Chapter 12 Thraka #2
Maybe forget the smell of her shampoo, the way she bites her lip when concentrating, how she feels pressed against the wall of a tool shed with rain hammering the roof.
Maybe.
Maybe I can erase the memory of her organized chaos, her color-coded calendars, the way she mouths calculations when she thinks no one's watching.
Doubtful.
Very, very doubtful.
Behind me, a sound cuts through the rainfall's steady percussion, piercing the white noise of drops hitting concrete and car roofs and trash bins. Sharp, rhythmic, familiar in a way that makes my chest constrict. Click-clack. Click-clack. Click-clack.
The cadence is unmistakable, stilettos on pavement, moving fast. Not the measured, confident stride I've watched navigate office corridors and conference rooms. This is urgent. Reckless. The kind of pace that risks twisted ankles and broken heels.
Running.
Someone is running after me through the rain.
I freeze. Every muscle locks, warrior instinct warring with hope warring with the certainty that looking back will hurt worse than anything. That seeing her face, her determination, her sharp eyeliner starting to run in the rain, will destroy whatever fragile control I've maintained.
The click-clack grows louder, closer, accompanied now by breathless panting. She's not built for running. Too much time behind desks, not enough conditioning for sprints. But she's doing it anyway, chasing me down the street in designer shoes that cost more than my entire wardrobe.
"Thraka!" Her voice, sharp and commanding even winded. "Thraka, stop!"
I stop. Can't help it. Three months of conditioning, of learning to respond to that particular tone, the one she uses when issuing directives or correcting my reports or gasping my name in the dark.
Turn around, something whispers deep in that part of me that still believes in impossible things, in glory and honor and warriors who fight for what matters.
Turn and see what she's willing to risk, what she's willing to sacrifice, her composure, her dignity, those ridiculously expensive shoes, just to catch you.
I turn.
The movement feels slow, weighted with significance, like pivoting to face an enemy on the battlefield or turning to witness the sunrise after a night of siege.
My boots scrape against wet concrete. Rain hammers my shoulders, my back, streams down my face.
The world narrows to this single moment, this rotation of my body, this acceptance that whatever comes next will change everything.
I turn, and my heart stops.
She stands fifteen feet back, soaked through, blazer clinging to her frame, hair plastered to her skull, mascara tracking down her cheeks in dark rivers. Her chest heaves with exertion. She kicked off the stilettos at some point, holds them in one hand, standing barefoot on rain-slicked pavement.
She looks destroyed, utterly, completely wrecked in a way I've never seen before, not in three months of working beside her, watching her demolish incompetent colleagues with surgical precision, seeing her maintain absolute composure through budget disasters and boardroom battles.
She looks beautiful, more beautiful than she's ever been in those perfect power suits with every hair in place, every line of eyeliner sharp enough to cut, every detail precisely controlled and optimized for maximum professional impact.
"What are you doing?" I ask, because words need to fill this space between us, this charged air crackling with rain and unspoken things, with everything we've been to each other and everything we might lose.
"Stopping you." She gasps, catches her breath, one hand pressed to her ribs like they ache, like she ran further than her body was prepared for, pushed past the limits of what her spreadsheet-planning mind would consider reasonable or efficient. "From making the stupidest decision of your life."
"I am saving your career," I say, and even I can hear the way my voice cracks on the words, the way the truth of it sits heavy in my chest like armor that doesn't fit right anymore.
"I don't care about my career!" The words explode from her, raw and desperate and so unlike the controlled, measured Orla Peace who schedules her coffee breaks and color-codes her calendar and has contingency plans for natural disasters.
The words echo off buildings, bounce back at us. Her eyes go wide, like she shocked herself, like she didn't mean to say it out loud, didn't mean to admit that particular truth to the world or herself or me.
"Yes, you do." I keep my voice gentle. "You care about efficiency and protocols and five-year plans. You care about quarterly projections and budget reports and proper filing systems. You care about this."
"I care about you more!"
Rain hammers down harder, drowning the city in white noise.
Cars pass, throwing up spray. Somewhere a horn honks.
The world continues its relentless spin, unconcerned with two figures standing in the downpour having the kind of conversation that should happen in private, in warmth, anywhere but here.
But she's here anyway.
Barefoot, drenched, ruined makeup streaming down her cheeks in dark rivers, professional facade completely shattered like safety glass after impact.
Here for me.
Standing in the rain, having chased me down these city streets, having abandoned everything she holds sacred, order, control, the carefully maintained image of corporate perfection, all of it discarded on wet pavement like those expensive stilettos dangling from her fingers.
Here. For. Me.
"Orla." Her name tastes like prayer, like plea, like everything I want and desperately can't have, shouldn't have, can't let myself reach for no matter how much every instinct screams to close this space between us. "You cannot throw away everything you built for—"
"For what? For you?" She steps closer, those shoes swinging from her grip, rain plastering her shirt to her skin, her hair, that perfect sharp bob, now a disheveled mess framing her face. "Watch me. I already told the CEO exactly where he could shove his policy manual."
That stops me cold. Stops my retreat, stops my breath, stops everything except the thundering of my heart against my ribs.
"You didn't."
"Direct quote was actually 'I respectfully resign, effective immediately, and furthermore, your corporate fraternization policy is archaic, discriminatory, and I'll be filing a formal complaint with the labor board.
'" She smiles, sharp and fierce. "Then I may have thrown my employee badge at his head. "
"Orla."
"I'm not done." Another step. "I also told him that Thraka was the best hire this company ever made, that his conflict resolution strategies, while unconventional, reduced departmental disputes by forty-three percent, and that firing him was the stupidest business decision since New Coke."
"You did statistics?"
"I always do statistics." She's close now, close enough to touch. "I spent the last hour running projections. Know what I found?"
I shake my head, not trusting my voice.
"Every scenario where you leave, where we don't try this, where I stay in that office and pretend my heart isn't walking out the door in a suit three sizes too small, every single one ends with me miserable.
Efficient, professionally successful, completely optimized for corporate advancement.
" Her voice cracks. "And absolutely fucking miserable. "
"Language, Little Manager."
"Don't 'Little Manager' me right now." But she's smiling through tears, through rain.
"I'm trying to make a grand gesture here.
Trying to do the big romantic speech where I chase you down and tell you that nothing matters without you.
That I'd rather file unemployment paperwork than spend another day in that building without hearing you try to challenge the printer to single combat.
That you made me laugh for the first time in years with a dead rat, and I think I started falling for you right then, and I definitely finished falling when you pinned me against that shed wall and—"
I drop my box.
The cardboard hits pavement, contents spilling. Dead rat rolls into a puddle. Stapler clatters against concrete. Coffee mug shatters, ceramic shards mixing with rain.
Don't care.
I close the area between us, cup her face in my hands, tilt her head up. She's so small compared to me, so fragile, but she's the strongest person I know. Strong enough to chase me into the rain. Strong enough to throw away everything safe and planned for something wild and uncertain.
Strong enough to choose me.
"You are insane," I whisper, thumbs brushing along her sharp jawline, feeling the delicate bone structure beneath rain-slicked skin.
"Probably." She grips my wrists with surprising strength, fingers digging in like she's afraid I might disappear if she lets go.
"But I'm your kind of insane. The kind that brings a battle-axe to a board meeting.
The kind that thinks challenging a printer to single combat is a reasonable conflict resolution strategy. "
"We have no jobs, Orla." The reality of it settles over me, but it feels less like a burden and more like freedom.
"We'll get new ones." Her voice is steady, certain. "Ones where they don't punish us for being happy. Where I don't have to pretend I don't want to climb you like a tree during quarterly reviews."
"No plan."
"We'll make one. Together." Her smile turns wicked, that sharp corporate edge now aimed at the world instead of at me. "I'm very good at plans. And you're very good at creative problem-solving. We'll be unstoppable."
"The CEO will blacklist us." I trace the line of her cheekbone, still marveling that she's here, that she chose this. "Make sure neither of us works in this industry again."
"Let him try. I know where all the bodies are buried.
Metaphorically speaking." She pauses, and something dark and satisfied flickers across her expression.
"Mostly metaphorically. I have six years of documentation on every labor violation, every creative accounting decision, every inappropriate comment he's ever made.
He blacklists us, I forward it all to the Department of Labor. "
I laugh, the sound torn from my chest, raw and real, echoing off the wet pavement and rain-dark buildings. "You are going to regret this."
"Maybe. But I'd regret not trying more." She rises on her toes, pulls me down. "Now kiss me before I remember I'm standing barefoot in the rain having a breakdown in public."
Our lips meet, and the world narrows to this. To her mouth, warm despite the cold rain. To her hands fisting in my soaked jacket. To the way she melts against me, all that rigid control dissolving, leaving only the woman underneath. Soft and fierce and mine.
Mine.
When we break apart, she's shivering. I shrug out of my jacket, drape it over her shoulders. It swallows her, hangs past her knees.
"Your plan, Little Manager. What happens now?"
She considers, rain streaming down her face. "Now we go to that dive bar you think I don't know about. Get drunk. Figure out our next move." Her grin turns sharp. "And maybe find a hotel. Celebrate our newfound unemployment properly."
"I like this plan."
"Of course you do. I made it." She retrieves her shoes, links her arm through mine. "Come on, warrior. Let's go be unemployed together."
We walk, leaving my scattered possessions behind. The rain continues falling. My suit is ruined. Her professional reputation is shattered. Everything we built these past three months, gone.
And somehow, impossibly, I've never been happier.