Chapter Text
The office is still and painfully quiet at 8:30am on Monday morning. In the past I would have found this moment to myself soothing, a brief respite to rally myself before a gruelling day of top floor dumpster fires and workplace sniping and simmering sexual tension took off. But today I am completely thrown off. I haven’t looked at my desktop planner yet or my emails and I can’t seem to make myself do so. Instead my eyes keep flicking over to the desk across from me, empty and strange. The chair seems sadly bereft without Josh’s body in it. For the tenth time since I arrived half an hour ago, I heroically battle the urge to cover my face in my hands and make unprofessional squealing noises. Helene will be in in an hour and I’m convinced that satisfied, post-coital hormones are fogging out of me. If they aren’t, my walk of shame clothes are enough of an advertisement of how my weekend with Josh played out. He’s convinced that no one notices these things, but he is not a woman.
I glance at the clock and do the mental math. Nine and a half hours until I can see him again. I think I am going to die.
This morning I had lain watching Josh’s sleeping face in the grey light before our alarms went off in unison at six-thirty. To think that we’d been waking up at exactly the same time this past year—so in sync in spite of being so at odds. He’d blinked awake, smacked at his phone, and regarded me with a sleepy, confused expression that blossomed into a smile. Pulled me closer to him with a satisfied sigh.
He’d dropped me off in the underground parking and helped me move my suitcase from the back of his car to my own. “Hurry,” I’d urged him, scanning the garage to make sure that none of our—well, my—coworkers were lurking behind the concrete pillars, waiting in hiding to witness this damning tableau.
“Relax, Shortcake. No one rushed in early on a Monday to hang out in the parking lot to see if I drove you in today.” He tossed my suitcase effortlessly into the back of my car.
“So. Have a nice day.” He’d smirked at me, stooped in for a lingering and thorough kiss, and then left.
That kiss was calculated to leave me distracted for the rest of the day.
I can see the elevator floor numbers lighting up sequentially, wondering with apprehension if they’ll make it all the way to the top floor. They do. The elevator chimes and with a low sigh the doors heave open and Helene, in sunglasses and wheat-coloured linen blazer, breezes into the office early, her handbag dangling chicly from her forearm. She stops in front of my desk, hip jutting out, and peers at me from over the top of her designer shades like some fashion spread goddess stepped off the pages of a 1960s couture magazine.
“You know, darling, that blouse really does suit you. I thought so on Friday.”
I look like a fawn caught wide-eyed in the headlights. I know this, because the mirror-like surfaces of this office are gleefully reproaching me.
“Good weekend, darling?”
“It was very good to get away for a couple of nights.” I immediately regret saying “nights” instead of “days.” I avoid further eye contact by pulling Helene’s planner close and making a show of examining it. Unfortunately Monday is completely empty of meetings and scheduled phone calls. I’m not sure how to change the subject.
“So you did go on the road trip after all.”
I glance sheepishly up at her. There is laughter in her eyes. I nod.
“I’d been hoping that was the case.” She raps my glass desk with her knuckles and glances at the empty black chair across from us. “It’s going to feel so very different in here without Joshua, isn’t it, darling? It will be strange not seeing him everyday.” My face is incredibly hot, and I foolishly try to cover my blush by resting my face in my hands. I have every intention of continuing to see Josh everyday, forever, until my aged eyes succumb to the film of cataracts. Helene is watching my awkward pantomime closely, an amused smile at her lips.
“Richard will be depending upon you in the meantime, I’m afraid. We’ll need a new executive assistant soon enough, too. Just one, this time. Richard and I have to learn to share. Will you have time to start the recruitment process this week?”
“I’ll start today,” I say brightly, grateful for a subject change.
“Thank you, darling.” Helene sashays into her office and shuts the door gently behind her.
With Helene gone, I’m back to staring at the empty black chair.
The description of the job posting takes all of half an hour to draft and mail to HR, after which my infatuation-addled brain spins hopelessly in circles. For the rest of the morning, pornographic flashbacks replay in my head. When I catch a glimpse of myself in the reflective surface beside my desk I look vacuous and deranged. I stack and sort and fruitlessly re-stack and re-sort piles of department reports, but my brain refuses to engage. It is busy running the weekend’s highlight reel.
I open and close spreadsheets, distractedly, all the while thinking back to weekend stubble brushing up against my body as he trailed kisses in the most intimate places.
I pick up my phone and my finger hovers over the numbers, uncertainly. I’ve already forgotten who I need to call. It doesn’t matter. I’m thinking of golden skin, and powerful hands, and…
My glib threats to Josh about shredded sheets had turned out to have weight to them after all. We did, in fact, split his bottom sheet at some point yesterday afternoon during a clumsy position change, but it hadn’t slowed us down and we hadn’t changed them. Josh had commented that we may as well give his old sheets a proper send off, and I’d laughed and bit his neck.
By the time we crawled out of bed, parched and starving, afternoon had become evening and the apartment was dim and the street outside, quiet. I followed him into the kitchen wearing nothing but his white Hugo Boss shirt for the pure pleasure of it.
“I think I look a little less Julia Roberts and more five year-old dressing up in her daddy’s business clothes,” I said, plucking at the oversized shirt.
Josh caught sight of me and nearly spat his water out of his nose.
“Yeah,” I say morosely, “I thought as much.”
He’d laughed and picked me up easily, guiding my legs around his naked waist. “You’ve got the eighties sex hair nailed, at least.”
I’m rudely torn from my reverie when Bexley wanders in like a lost child at eleven. Over the weekend, outrage and indignation seem to have given way to a cloud of depression. The stages of grief, I think.
“Good morning, Mr Bexley,” I chirp. “I’ve got Josh’s line directed to my desk.”
He grunts and pinches his eyebrows at me, a standard Monday morning greeting for him, and bumbles into his office.
During my lunch break the analysis of the sandwich Josh handed me this morning—very finely crafted and folded up in wax paper in the manner of a sandwich deli that tries a little too hard—I reflexively pick up my phone to text Josh before I realize it’s not a very chill thing to do. I’m about to put my phone down when I see “…” come up in our texts window. It disappears and reappears a couple of times, and then stops. Maybe I’m fairly matched in being not very chill. I think I blush a new, radioactive shade of red. I catch a glimpse of my delighted grin in the reflective wall next to me.
Doesn’t feel the same here without you, so I’ve improvised, I text him, attaching a photo of his desk and chair. I’ve drawn a really terrible scowly face on a piece of paper and taped it to the top of his chair.
He looks like a real dick, Josh texts back immediately.
The ellipse appears, disappears again, and then, finally, Will I see you after work?
How are your poor sheets? I shoot back.
It’s kind of you to be concerned. Unfortunately they were beyond recovery, but they will be remembered with fondness. You are invited to a celebration of life tonight.
I cackle to myself. I’ll have to come pay my respects. Perhaps I should say a few words, recite some poetry.
A moment later, Come for dinner? I’ll cook.
6 pm? I’ll swing by my place first to change.
The ellipse again appears for a painfully long minute. It’s either a Russian novel of a text or he’s really choosing his words.
Finally, …and pack some clothes for tomorrow?
Again, I grin. I’m about to text back when my phone vibrates in my hands and I see an incoming message from Danny.
Shit.
I had completely forgotten that he is expecting to meet with me tonight.
I text Josh. Fuck, I forgot. I told Danny I’d meet him tonight for pizza to go over the eBook. Just let me deal with this.
It’s a no brainer to cancel with Danny. It’s all kinds of awkward and embarrassing, but I have to change arrangements with Danny, which I do, in bright tones with smiley faces. I read my message to him five times before pressing send. It’s brief, funny, and I’m convinced there’s no way he could actually be offended. Still, I can’t shake an uneasy feeling in my stomach.
Twenty minutes later I get another text from him. So is this a rain check for tonight, or for this lifetime?
I’m confused. Before I can reply with a “?,” another text comes in.
You’re with Josh now, aren’t you?
I feel embarrassed—which makes me feel angry, because being with Josh is nothing to feel embarrassed about.
I deliberate over my response. I am seeing Josh now. It’s really all I need to say. Danny and I ended it fair and square a week ago today, after two lukewarm dates spread out over a couple of weeks, chased with a lukewarm kiss in a parking lot. There’s no reason I should have to baby his ego over this new development. It would be insulting to him for me to do that. I ask him if we can meet for coffee today or tomorrow at the Starbucks across the street instead.
Danny’s response is silence. I tell myself I’m fine with that, that Danny has every right to put his focus on paying clients right now during his workday, and after giving up his weekend to me for a favour it’s a lot for me to expect him to be prioritizing my texts. But uneasiness washes over me at random intervals all afternoon.
Centuries pass and by 4 pm and all I can think about is the mental math of time as a function of speed and distance, and how many minutes it will take before I can squeeze Josh’s pouty, beautiful face in my hands again. When Helene offers me early dismissal I bolt out of my chair like a spring-loaded jump out monster at a haunted house, and my crazed expression is probably just as terrifying. I slap my keyboard to lock my computer, grab my purse and coat, and punish the elevator button with one finger until it finally makes it to the top floor.
Forty-five minutes later, after a quick pit stop at my place to upend the contents of my suitcase onto my bed and repack it with an outfit for tomorrow, I’ve followed a sweet-faced old lady into Josh’s building and made my way up to the fourth floor. I rap a silly little knock on his door, because I’m an incurable dork, and stand there, trying hard to be nonchalant when he opens the door. He’s wearing a t-shirt the exact shade of his beautiful eyes and his second-day stubble is divine.
“Lucy?”
“I got off early,” I say brightly. So much for nonchalant.
But Josh’s jaw is grim and his eyes flinty. He doesn’t step out of the doorway to let me pass. A wave of unease rises up.
“What gives?” I ask. “Weren’t you expecting me?”
“Well, no, actually,” he says a bit frostily. “You told me you were going to have pizza with Fuckwit Fletcher.”
I bark out a laugh. “What? No, of course not. I canceled with him.” With horror I think back to the text I sent Josh and realize that I had not, in fact, made it obvious that I intended to cancel with Danny. My dismay must show on my face because Josh’s frown is easing marginally.
“You didn’t actually think I’d blow you off to have pizza with him, did you?”
Josh has a regretful look on his face. He is thawing rapidly.
“I never did the grocery shopping. I thought you weren’t coming.” Josh is no longer blocking the doorway with his hulking frame, and so I brush past him, affectionately tugging him back into his apartment by his belt loops.
“I actually think what we should do tonight is finally go on a proper date. Josh, can I take you out to dinner?”
I’m a magician, and my first trick has been to transform Josh’s scowl into a blinding Josh smile. I grin foolishly back at him.
I’m still tugging gently on his belt loops. He takes my hands in his own.
“Let me grab my coat.”
Josh leads me a few blocks away to a cute little Thai restaurant, and within five minutes I’m already daydreaming about a rosy-tinted future where Josh and I schlepp ourselves here whenever we’re too tired to cook. Josh reaches across the table and takes my hand. For two minutes I stare at him and realize I don’t know where to start. What does one say to a man 24 hours after declaring your love to him?
“How was your day?” he asks me.
That’s one place to start. “Boring without you.”
He smiles at me and strokes my hand with his thumb. “I missed you too.”
“I didn’t say I missed you,” I say cheekily.
We’re silent again and nerves overtake me as I stare at this big, beautiful man who is, for some reason, staring equally intently at me. I feel like I know Josh, and I don’t. The more of him I learn about, the more I find to love, and yet I’m on edge with worry that at some point in our conversation there will be a misstep, and some deeply unpleasant viewpoint or detail of history or value system is going to rear its ugly head and mar the ease and perfection of our dynamic. I’m so far gone, I wouldn’t have the resolve to break it off with him, even if he came out as a cult member, or asked if I wanted to see his tinfoil hat. Instead I would continue to lurch along, attempting to justify to myself his idiotic ways. I remember how I once dated, for six whole months, an otherwise normal guy who sincerely believed the pyramids were built by aliens, just because he introduced me to admittedly pretty decent oral sex. I hate to think what I’d put up with to stay with Josh.
“What’s your favourite book?” I ask suddenly.
Josh blinks.
“We’re in publishing, Josh. I don’t even know your favourite book.”
He smiles and pointedly looks me up and down. “Thumbelina. The Hans Christian Andersen classic. Yours?”
“Jerk. That’s not a book.” I sip my water. “Mine is ‘The BFG.’”
“Friendly?” Josh says skeptically.
I roll my eyes.
“Fine. American Psycho.”
I get a grin for my harshness. “I’ll loan you my favourite book, if you want to read it.”
“I’d like that. I’ll loan you mine. Actually, I’ll loan you my top five. You do the same.”
“I already read your Smurf figurine catalogue.”
“You may be surprised to know that there are no reference books in my top five. Maybe one or two smutty romances, though.”
Josh smiles. He suddenly looks shy. “What’s this about? Trying to get to know me or something, Shortcake?”
“I told you. I want to juice your head like a lemon.”
“And what are you going to do with all this lemon juice?”
“Sprinkle it on the paper-cuts of my enemies.” He laughs and my heart glows in my chest.
“Did you talk to your mom today?” She’d called Sunday evening, on schedule, and Josh had lurched out of bed at the sound of her ring tone. It had been impossible not to laugh at the alarmed and embarrassed expression on his face as he stood there—alarmed to be interrupted by his mom while naked in bed with a girl, embarrassed to be caught by said girl, also naked, having a monosyllabic conversation with his mom while attempting, and failing, to pretend it wasn’t who it obviously was. He’d told her he would call her the next day.
Josh flushes a little. “Yes.”
“And? Is your dad buried in a shallow grave somewhere?”
“No. It seems he’ll survive the verbal thrashing you and Mom gave him.” Josh fiddles with the serving spoons, a flicker of a smile teasing his lips. “She’s eager to strike while the iron is hot, though. She wants to take you up on your invitation to do lunch and a movie.” He’s watching me closely.
“Huh. When?”
“You’d do that? You don’t have to.”
I shrug. “A close acquaintance with your parents comes with the territory, doesn’t it?”
“I guess we’ll figure out a time. I’m not in any rush, though. I feel like I got a near lethal dose of family this weekend.”
“Not a family man?”
Josh shrugs. “I like some of them. Yvonne, and my Dad’s brother, Ted—he wasn’t there this weekend, but he’s great. Most of them—it’s been a really awkward five years. You saw that. My dad controlled the narrative after I ducked out and it’s just been weird ever since.” He deflects back to me. “What’s your family like?”
“There’s not many of us apart from my parents and my mom’s sister. My grandmother used to live with us before she died, but the other grandparents lived far away. Honestly, I’d have trouble filling a church at my wedding.” I catch his eye, and I’m suddenly filled with awkward horror. “I mean, talking of weddings and all. Hypothetically.”
Josh smirks. “Hypothetically.”
I blush. I was a bit of a freak this weekend, making references to wedding bands and even bawling at the wedding of a pair of virtual strangers. It was all good and fine when Josh was just my weird colleague I was having a sexual flirtation with, but with the unexpected shift in our relationship I need to rein it in a bit. “Personally I don’t really want to get married, if you know what I mean,” I say, thinking to myself that marriage is well and fine, but the ordeal of a wedding seems hugely unpleasant and stressful. “I’m never going to wear a fluffy white chiffon dress or plan centrepieces and buttonholes. But you know, I like going to weddings. If other people are dealing with the stress of planning them.”
“Well, luckily for you I have a busy schedule this summer full of the weddings of ex-girlfriends. You can be my plus one.”
At last, a segue to a question I’ve harbored for weeks now. “So, were there many?”
Josh’s eyes flick up to mine. “Many what?”
“Girlfriends.”
“Why do you ask?”
“I guess I’m wondering if they all form a support group that meets up in a church basement somewhere. Josh Addicts Anonymous. Maybe I should go and try to learn a thing or two. Me sniffing your skin at every turn is probably getting a bit weird.”
Josh looks vaguely persecuted. He ignores my joke and regards me seriously. “Are you sure you’re not just asking me for a body count?”
Now it’s my turn to feel uncomfortable. “I’m sorry. It’s just that…I have this picture of you in my head of being able to walk into a bar or a club or whatever and walk out with whichever tall gorgeous blond you like. It’s kind of intimidating.”
“As a matter of fact I’m into vertically challenged, gorgeous brunettes.”
I give him a skeptical look.
“I just can’t imagine women leaving you alone.”
“I could turn that around on you.” He shrugs and frowns. “I was never into hook up culture.”
“Right, well.” I clear my throat primly. “I’m sorry. I kind of meant dating in general, but I guess this conversation took a turn for the awkward so I may as well roll with it. Let’s talk health and other logistics.” It can be a stressful conversation to have usually and I brace myself.
Josh’s eyebrows shoot up and he glances about us, but the music is loud in here and the restaurant mostly deserted at this early hour.
“I don’t usually mess around without having this conversation first, but this weekend was, well….” To be completely honest, I would do it again.
Josh nods as if he’s right there with me. “Me either.”
“I got tested after Snaggletooth and I split. I’m all good.”
Josh snorts at my nickname for my ex and the awkwardness eases.
“Same. And I don’t take risks. I always use condoms. It’s just non-negotiable for me.”
“I am on birth control.”
Josh is silent at that for a moment, considering the obvious implication. “Well, it shouldn’t be only your responsibility. No one takes their birth control perfectly everyday.”
“I do. My womb is an arid wasteland.” Josh’s lips twitch.
“Huh. And what if it turned out to not be the case?”
I'm glad he's asked.
“Josh. I’m sure you would make exquisitely beautiful children, but I’m not on the market for a kid.” It’s the first time I’ve said anything of the sort out loud. It’s a feeling that’s been brewing steadily and silently for years, ever since I realized that the end to Mom’s journalism career synchronized perfectly to my birth. If my previous boyfriends are anything to go by, it is too much to expect to find a man who will fairly divide all the work involved, and I’ll be damned if I sacrifice my dreams one bit.
Josh gives me a long, thoughtful look. He looks almost relieved, although I’m not sure that’s exactly the expression. “Still, it’s not just your job. Did you know that nearly half of pregnancies are unplanned?” It’s not just an interesting statistic when Josh says it; I can’t help but think back to what he told me on Saturday night—that he was the unplanned second child. “I think it’s fucking ridiculous for a man to risk inflicting an unwanted pregnancy on someone because he’s too precious to wear a condom.”
It’s settled. I’ve never met a guy like Joshua Templeman before.
“Suit yourself. So, what do you do on weekends, when you’re not kidnapping coworkers and taking them to weddings?”
We pass the rest of the meal like that, mostly me grilling Josh about everything from his childhood hobbies to his most embarrassing moments, and him lobbing my questions back at me. By the end of the meal I’m heady with knowledge. His paternal grandmother was named Penny (as was mine—weird coincidences abound), his childhood plushy was a rabbit, and he had a childhood allergy to strawberries, which never prevented him from eating them and making himself sick. He never worked a summer job as a teen but he used to volunteer for a cat rescue, of all things. The only sport he watches is women’s soccer. I decide that based on an extrapolation of the data presented to me, I probably like everything about him. He’s leaning back in his chair, loose and relaxed, smiling at me openly, in a way I’ve never seen before. It puts a stupid grin on my own face. When the bill comes I pay for it.
“You can get it next time,” I say, and Josh grumbles when I insist.
“Is this part of your obsession with us always being even?”
“Maybe it’s a ploy to ensure we do this again.”
We step out onto the pavement into the brisk May evening. The days have been getting longer and the evenings brighter, and there’s the promise of summer in the air in spite of the cold. Josh stands in front of me, hands in pockets.
“So am I hired?”
“Sorry?” I ask.
“You grilled me in there. I feel like I was just given a job interview. If you could name your biggest flaw, what colour tree would you be? Should we shake hands?”
I blush. I put on my best imitation of Jeanette from HR’s voice—schoolteacher clarity with a ring of brisk, fake maternal warmth. “That was actually just tier one of the application process. I’ll be inviting you back for a more in-depth interview.” Or maybe I just sound like prissy librarian again.
I must sound like a prissy librarian, because his serial killer eyes flick on. “Can we do that at my place?”
“I think we’d better. The next phase involves me taking a look at your technical skillset, on the job. Testing your knowledge base. Etcetera.”
“Ah.”
“Do you have a place where we can be sure we are free of interruption?”
“That can be arranged.”
We turn down the street and Josh’s warm hand slips up under the hem of my jacket and rests on my lower back. “But at some point we’re going to need to discuss compensation. Benefits. Perks.”
“Compensation is based on a predetermined grid,” I say crisply. “There’s lots of room for growth in this position.”
“But seriously.” Josh’s tone changes subtly. “I’m a bit of a freak for order. I like things to be neatly labeled.”
“Yes?” I’m confused. When I look up at him his eyes are dark.
“What’s my job title? Am I Lucinda Hutton’s Boyfriend?”
My stomach whomps delightfully and a smile spasms involuntarily. I try to rein it in by biting my lower lip.
“The job is yours. The pay’s shit but it’s honest work.”
He’s grinning at me now. We’re just a pair of dorks in love, leaning into each other, drinking each other in.
“It’s not a dead end job, is it? There’s room for advancement, right?”
The whole analogy is getting ridiculous and he’s completely lost me. I thread my arm around his waist.
“Shut up and take me home.”