Aubrey
Iarrive at Lantern House for my day shift with Dora my bodyguard half a step behind me.
The main door is still sticky. The lower windows still have blackout film. My staff badge still opens the second door after one annoying beep.
The Blackline panic phone sits in my tote beside my phone. I'm too aware of it. Corporate hostage brick.
Twenty-four days left in the first public window of this marriage, and I'm already entering my own workplace like visiting personnel.
Nels, the other security agent assigned to me, is inside the intake hall with Marnie Kells, Lantern House's executive director and my boss. He stands just far enough from the inner door to avoid blocking it.
And yet his presence itself is the blockage.
Marnie looks at me.
"Blythe's staying late for the handoff," Marnie says.
Blythe's been moved to the night shift, and I've become her day-side counterpart.
Blythe is not too happy about that. "Donation load came in from Jessa.
" Jessa runs estate cleanouts and sends Lantern House whatever she thinks we can use.
"Basement needs sorting before noon if you're determined to be useful. "
"Got it," I tell her.
Dora steps to the side of the hall and goes still. Nels confirms the exterior door protocol with Marnie in calm, exact phrases. I walk past them toward the overnight desk with my ankle behaving just enough to pass inspection.
I can still feel that latest night with Linden... that momentary lax in judgment, that mistake... the memory lives in my hips when I climb stairs, in my skin when my hoodie rubs my shoulder, in the stupid place behind my ribs when anyone says husband.
Work is supposed to clear that out.
Work is intake forms, cot counts, pantry bins, safety plans, missing chargers, kids who need applesauce at midnight, women who need to make one call and then not be asked why their hands are shaking.
Work is mine.
That's what I tell myself anyway.
It's not helping.
Blythe, my usual sanity bridge, is at the overnight desk with three folders open and her hair coming loose around her face.
"Don't say it," I tell her.
"I was going to say you look rested," Blythe comments.
"Liar," I reply.
She slides the incident binder toward me, then lowers her voice. "Room three asked if your bodyguard hears what they say to you."
My hand stops on the binder.
Blythe looks down at the desk. "I told her no. I told her Dora stays outside restricted areas, and resident conversations stay private."
I nod. "Good."
"She asked if Linden Dunleavy gets reports," Blythe adds.
"No." My answer is immediate. "Security doesn't report my conversations to him."
"Okay." Blythe believes me. At least I think she does.
She also closes the folder I should have finished yesterday but haven't because I've been so distracted and tucks it under her arm.
"I handled the school transfer call," she says. "And the pharmacy hold. You were in transit."
"In transit," I repeat.
The words make me sound like cargo with opinions.
"I can take the next one," I say.
"You're taking the desk," Blythe says. "I'm taking these upstairs."
I shake my head. "Blythe. Go home."
"Aubrey." She gives me the look she uses on interns. "I can handle this."
The front monitor chirps. Rear service gate.
"Donation load," Blythe says. "Basement."
"I've got it," I leave before she can refuse.
Dora appears in the corridor. "I'm walking you."
"Of course you are," I say brightly.
Downstairs, Jessa Kessler is already backing in with a dolly stacked with boxes. She's in work clothes, wearing the expression of a woman who has spent the day inside other people's closets and judging everybody.
"Bell," she says. "You got married and acquired a backup dancer?"
"Bodyguard," I clarify.
Dora doesn't react.
Jessa points toward Nels, who's taken up a position near the basement stair landing. "That one too? Does he sing?"
"He harmonizes on door protocol," I agree.
Jessa snorts. "Rich people are wild."
I grab the donation clipboard. "Linens?"
"Two boxes. Kids' coats. Kitchen stuff. One box of books."
We start sorting. This is better. My hands know this. Tape split with the cutter. Towels to the right. Twin sheets to the shelf. Kids' coats checked for broken zippers. Jessa moves fast, lifting and stacking. Dora stays near the door, Nels by the landing.
A resident passes the open basement door, sees Dora, and slows. Her eyes flick to me, then away. She keeps walking.
The cutter slips against the tape and I nick the cardboard instead of the seam.
"Careful," Jessa says.
"I'm a trained professional," I lie.
She nods toward the top shelf. "Heavy one up there is pantry overflow. I need it down so I can stack the coats."
"I've got it." I'm already pulling the step stool over.
The box is above shoulder height, shoved too far back on the shelf. I climb one step, then the second. My ankle hurts. I ignore it.
The stairwell door beeps behind Dora. Her voice changes. "Mr. Dunleavy, threshold only."
Mr. Dunleavy?
I must have imagined it.
I get both hands on the box and tug. It doesn't move. I tug harder. It comes loose all at once, and I have a box of canned goods sliding toward my chest with more weight than I can handle.
But then a hand closes over the side of the box above mine and the weight disappears.
I freeze, both arms still up, cheek inches from the cardboard.
Linden stands beside the shelf in a suit that looks twelve hours old.
"What are you doing here?" I demand.
"Taking that before you fall," he counters.
"I meant in the building," I reply.
He shrugs. "Dunleavy Media is the donor on this load. Basement clearance came with the paperwork."
He lowers the box to the floor without making it look heavy. Then he looks up at me on the step stool. He doesn't touch me until I shift my sore ankle.
His hands come to my waist, firm through my hoodie. Not grabbing. Bracing.
"Step down," he says.
"I can manage a step stool," I tell him.
"Step down, Aubrey," he repeats, not letting go.
Professional. That's what I'm going to be. A woman who's never seen this man without his clothes.
Right.
I put one foot down. The stool wobbles anyway.
His grip tightens. My hands land on his shoulders because apparently my body enjoys humiliating me. He steadies me until both feet are on concrete, then lets go first.
Jessa looks between us with open delight. Dora looks at the wall. Nels looks at nothing.
Marnie appears at the basement doorway at the worst possible time.
"Mr. Dunleavy," Marnie says.
Linden steps back. "Marnie."
He doesn't call her Mrs. Kells or Executive Director Kells.
"I was nearby," he adds.
"People with your calendar are never nearby by accident," Marnie adds.
He doesn't deny it.
"You're not on the pickup list either," I say.
"I know."
"So you came in with the donation," I tell him flatly.
"I came in with the donation," he repeats. When the rest of us remain silent, he adds: "I wanted to see my wife. My apologies."
And with that, he's gone. A part of me regrets being so hard on him, but the other part is like what the hell is he doing intruding on me in my workplace and all...
Still, it was somewhat sweet.
Somewhat.
"Okay," Jessa says under her breath. "He's hot."
"Shut up," I tell her.
"Hey, just saying," Jessa tells me.
I slap a label on a box too hard.
At 2:30 p.m., Jessa's still cleared in because the kitchenware inventory needs finishing and the donation receipt is taking forever. She finds me in the kitchen labeling mugs, with Dora watching from the hall.
"You got five minutes?" Jessa asks.
"No," I tell her.
"Great. I need four." She takes the marker from my hand and caps it. We stand by the pantry bins.
Jessa doesn't do soft starts. "Are you choosing this?"
My skin goes cold.
"This meaning mugs?" I ask. "Because I have strong feelings about chipped handles."
"This meaning the husband, the security people." She nods at my tote. "That phone. The way nobody here knows who gets to decide where you sleep now. The way everyone pauses before talking to you now."
I look toward the hall. Dora's visible through the kitchen door, turned away enough to give us space and close enough to remind me she's there.
"I'm married," I say.
"That's not what I asked."
I sigh. "I know what you asked."
"Do you?" Jessa's voice stays low. "Because I clean out houses where women lived thirty years in beautiful rooms they never picked. Everybody says, look how lucky she was. Nice kitchen. Good sheets. Driver took her everywhere. But nobody asks if the door was open from the inside."
My throat tightens.
"I'm not trapped," I say.
Jessa nods. "Okay."
"I'm still working," I add.
Jessa nods toward Dora. "You're working with a guard at the door."
"She's not a guard," I reply instinctively.
Jessa waits.
Fine. She's absolutely a guard.
"That security exists because people are weird," I explain. "Because Linden's name makes normal sidewalks unsafe."
"I believe you," she says.
"It's not him ordering me around," I tell her.
"I didn't say it was." Jessa rests her hip against the worktable. "Protection can still trap you, even when he thinks he's keeping danger out."
I face Jessa. "Look, Lantern House was going to get gutted by debt. I'm married, but I get to keep my job, my testimony, and my self. I'm no one's slave."
Jessa nods once. "And did you choose the way people look at you now?"
My mouth opens.
Nothing useful comes out.
Because no. I chose clauses. I chose protections. I chose a courthouse and a ring and a man who can stand in a shelter basement exhausted and still make every person in the building recalculate my freedom.
Money can pay a debt. Security can block a camera. A car can take me home.
None of that makes a resident believe I'm alone with her when she speaks while my security detail is nearby.
At five, my ankle is stiff, my eyes feel sanded, and Dora walks me to the rear exit because the front steps are still for cameras.
Marnie catches me by the staff office door.
"You did good work today," she says.
My chest loosens a little.
Then she adds, "That doesn't mean the work reads the same with all this going on around you."
Dora checks the alley before letting me step out. The Blackline phone buzzes in my tote with a movement update I don't need to read.
I leave Lantern House through the staff route I've used a hundred times, past the trash bins, with my badge clipped to my hoodie and my ride waiting beside security.