by Vi Keeland
Even though I could tell it took a lot of effort to share that much, and I knew I should probably leave well enough alone, I couldn’t help myself. “Did you have a long-distance relationship?”
“Not in a physical sense, no. That bitterness today was purely from my experience in divorces. The number-one reason people wind up in my office is they don’t spend time together.”
“I’ll admit, a lot of my counseling cases are similar. It’s not always a long-distance relationship like the one you heard me talking about today, but in the majority of my counseling, the couples don’t spend time together. They’re either working a lot and don’t make time for each other, or they’re still hanging on to the separate lives they had before they were married.”
“I bet our cases are very similar. Come to think of it, maybe you can hand out my business cards, for when your counseling doesn’t work.”
My eyes widened. “You’ve got to be joking?”
A slow smile spread across his face as he brought his beer to his lips. “I am.”
The waitress returned with the check, and Drew took out his wallet. I went to take out mine, and he stopped me. “Dinner’s on me. It’s my apology offering for being a dick today, remember?”
“Well, thank you. I hope you’re a dick often,” I joked. “I have ten grand to save up again.”
Drew stood and walked around to my chair, pulling it out as I stood. “Oh, that won’t be a problem. I’m pretty much a dick every day.”
The lock on my apartment door was tricky. I had to wiggle it around and pull the key in and out a few times before finding the exact right spot that allowed me to turn the bolt. Baldwin must have heard my keys jingling. His apartment door, next to mine, opened.
“Hey. I knocked earlier to see if you wanted to grab some dinner, but you weren’t home yet.”
“Oh. I had dinner with Drew.”
Baldwin took the keys from my hand. Somehow, he got the lock on the first try every time. The door opened, and he followed me inside. “Drew?”
“He’s the real tenant in the office I thought I rented. The one who’s letting me stay for a few months?”
Baldwin nodded. “You’re dating him now, too?”
I snorted. “No. He was a jerk today and made it up to me with dinner.”
“Why was he a jerk?”
I went into my bedroom to change and continued our conversation through the partially closed door.
“I guess he really wasn’t a jerk. We just have very different opinions on counseling relationships. He overheard me on a call and gave me his thoughts on how my advice to my patients would work out.”
After I’d slipped into some sweats and a T-shirt, I went out to the living room. Baldwin was sitting where he always sat when we hung out. I took the couch, and he sat on the oversized leather chair. Sometimes it made me feel like his patient.
“He shouldn’t be listening to your counseling sessions. They’re confidential.”
“It was my fault. I tend to yell when I’m on those video conferences, and I left my door open.”
“Maybe I should stop by the office?”
“For what?”
“I don’t know. Check things out.”
Baldwin was being sweet. Hearing that someone had been a jerk to me brought out his protective side. Although the thought of Baldwin vs. Drew was actually pretty comical.
The two were polar opposites. Baldwin was thin, well mannered, average height, and looked every bit the professor he was. He even wore bow ties and glasses that made him appear older than his thirty-five years. Drew was twenty-nine, tall, broad, and thick. He also cursed whenever it suited him, regardless of who was around. Even though I would never describe Drew as well mannered like Baldwin, there was something very chivalrous about him beneath the rough exterior.
“I don’t think that’s necessary. I’m fine. He’s just a little jagged around the edges is all. Funny, I hadn’t thought of it until now—his last name is Jagger…jagged. Sort of fitting.”
Knowing Baldwin liked a late-evening glass of wine, I walked to the kitchen and opened the fridge, taking out the bottle I kept for him before he’d even responded to my question.
“Would you like a glass of wine?”
“Yes, thank you.”
I poured it and grabbed myself a water. As I handed it to him, he said, “You’re not joining me?”
I plopped down on the couch. “I’m too full. I ate a huge burger for dinner. Drew ordered me a double cheeseburger deluxe.”
“He ordered for you? You’re such a picky eater.”
“He knew I liked burgers.” I shrugged. Untwisting the cap from my water, I asked, “What did you wind up eating?”
“I had sushi from Zen’s delivered.”
I scrunched my nose. “Glad I missed that.”
“I would have ordered something different if we were eating together.”
Baldwin always deferred to me for ordering. It was one of the things I loved about him. Sushi seemed to be his go-to meal for dates, so it wasn’t like he was deprived of his favorites.
“No date tonight?” I asked. Normally, I avoided the topic of his love life. It was difficult to see him with women, and hearing about them in any detail would kill me. But tonight I felt less hesitant for some reason.
“Papers to grade. You would have appreciated the answer I received from a female student.”
“What was the question?”
“I asked them to give me a sound argument that Freud’s psychoanalysis techniques were flawed. We’ve spent the last three weeks studying Grünbaum and Colby, so it should have been an easy question.”
“Yes. I agree. What did you get as an answer?”
“Ms. Balick wrote, ‘Freud was a man.’”
I laughed. “I think that might be a valid argument. You should probably give her some points for that.”
“Cute. But I don’t think so.”
“You were always a tough grader.”
“I always gave you good grades.”
“I earned them.” Which was true, but it got me thinking. “Have you ever given anyone points they didn’t deserve? Maybe because they were pretty or you felt bad for them?”
“Never.” His answer didn’t surprise me. Baldwin sipped his wine. “So where do you want to go Thursday night?”
“Thursday?”
“Your birthday dinner.”
“Oh. I forgot. I’ve been so busy lately, it totally slipped my mind that my birthday is coming up.”
“Well, it didn’t slip mine. I was thinking we could go to Ecru. It’s a new French place on the Upper East Side. The waitlist for a reservation is three months long, but a colleague of mine is friends with the owner and said he could make sure we get in.”
“That sounds great. Thank you.” If I was being honest, I would have preferred to go to Joey’s again for a big, greasy burger. But Baldwin was a foodie and always trying to expand my palatal horizons. On occasion, I even liked some of the fancy foods.
Baldwin stayed for a while, and we talked shop. He told me about a paper he hoped to get published, and I told him how nervous I was to meet two of my video clients in the office tomorrow. After I relocated to New York, some of my video and phone clients who were local to the area had become face-to-face clients. It was always odd meeting them that first time, but tomorrow’s appointment made me particularly nervous because I suspected the husband could be physically abusing the wife.
It started to get late, and at one point I yawned and stretched. My thin T-shirt rode up and exposed some of my stomach. Baldwin’s eyes zeroed in on the flesh, and I watched as he swallowed. Moments like these confused me the most. I wouldn’t claim to be an expert on men, but I’d dated a decent amount myself, even had a few long-ish relationships. Generally, I could read a man’s attraction to me pretty well, and in this moment, I would have sworn Baldwin was into me. It wasn’t new. I’d felt it on plenty of other occasions. Which might be the reason I was still han
ging on after so many years.
Sometimes a spark turns into a fire.
Baldwin cleared his throat and stood. “I should get going. It’s late.”
“Are you sure? Maybe I’ll pour a glass of wine for myself if you want to have a second…”
“I have an early lecture tomorrow.”
“Okay.” I hid my disappointment and walked him to the door.
Baldwin said goodnight, and then stopped and turned back. For a brief second, my imagination got the best of me, and I imagined him turning around and shutting the door—deciding to stay.
Instead, he said, “I’m expecting a package tomorrow. If you see it in the hall, can you grab it for me? I won’t be home until late.”
“Sure. Is tomorrow night the New York Psychology Symposium you were telling me about?”
“No. That’s next week. Rachel has tickets to see an off-Broadway play tomorrow.”
“Oh. Rachel.”
“You met her last week briefly at the coffee shop.”
“Yes. Rachel.” Like I could forget. She’d been wearing the dress shirt he’d worn the night before when I heard his door open and peeked through the peephole. “I’ll grab anything outside your door. Have fun tomorrow night.”
After he left, I washed off my makeup and brushed my teeth. Of course, even though I’d been yawning not five minutes ago, I was wide awake once I could go to sleep.
Story of my life.
I thought about my conversation with Drew earlier in the day—it seemed like it had occurred a week ago. Captain Prolactinator had suggested I masturbate before bed. But I was in no mood to think about Baldwin after hearing about his date tomorrow with Rachel.
Although…
I didn’t have to visualize Baldwin, did I? A vision of Drew suddenly popped into my head. He was definitely good looking enough…
But I shouldn’t.
I turned over and forced myself to close my eyes. An hour later, I reached over to my end table. I was desperate for some sleep after the long, draining day.
I turned on my vibrator and closed my eyes, attempting to relax to the hum.
Ten minutes later, I was sound asleep with a smile on my face.
Drew
Alexa had ruined my job for a long time. After my divorce, I found bits and pieces of my marriage in every client’s bitter battle. It reminded me how much time I’d wasted, how from that first night I’d let my dick make decisions when it came to Alexa, instead of my head. Everything in my client’s files became personal to me, and it was like reliving the worst nights of my life on a daily basis.
Eventually, I learned to separate things—somewhat. But I’d lost something along the way. My job became a source of money and not something I enjoyed doing. While I no longer dreaded going downstairs to my office, I also didn’t look forward to it anymore.
Until today.
I was up even earlier than usual. After hitting the gym, I was in my office by seven, reviewing a case file. Henry Archer was one of the few clients I truly liked. His divorce was even amicable because he was a genuinely nice guy. I had his settlement conference today at eleven. The entire gang would be here to try to hammer out a final deal. Miraculously, I didn’t despise his soon-to-be ex-wife either.
I was in the copy room when I heard Emerie come in. Her heels clanked as she came down the hall carrying a large brown box. I stopped what I was doing and walked to take it from her hands.
“Thank you. Do you know no one offered me a seat on the subway carrying that thing?”
“Most people are assholes. What the hell do you have in here? It’s heavy as shit.” I set the box down on her desk and opened it without asking. Inside was a glass paperweight, but it might as well have been made of lead. “This thing is ten pounds. Are you worried a hurricane is going to gust through the office and blow around all your papers?”
She swiped it from my hand. “It’s an award. I earned it for a paper I wrote that was published in Psychology Today.”
“It’s a weapon. Glad you didn’t have that thing when I found you in my office that first night.”
“Yes, I could have put a dent in that pretty head of yours.”
I smirked. “I knew it. You think I’m pretty.”
I attempted to see what else was inside her box, but she swatted my hand away.
“Nosy.”
“You unpacked my boxes.”
“That’s true. I guess you can look.”
“Well, now I don’t want to, since you told me I could.”
“You’re like a child, you know that?”
I’d left my cell phone at the copy machine and heard it ringing from down the hall. I went to answer it, but the caller had hung up. After finishing making my copies, I gathered the stack of papers and stopped by Emerie’s office again.
Standing in the doorway, I teased, “You’re early today. Did you take my advice on falling asleep?”
“No.” Emerie’s rapid answer was…too rapid. Years of running depositions had made me skilled at picking up on small clues—sometimes something ever so slight took me down a path I hadn’t expected and led to something interesting. I’d picked up a scent from her two-letter word and was about to follow the trail.
“So you didn’t have trouble falling asleep last night, huh?”
When she started to blush and attempted to busy herself at unpacking her box, I knew I was on to something. Curious, I walked into her office and around to the other side of her desk so I could see her face even though she was looking down and unpacking.
I ducked my head and looked up to catch her eyes. “You masturbated last night, didn’t you?”
Her blush reddened. “Did you?” she countered.
Deflecting. We all know what that means. I grinned. “I did. And this morning, too. Wanna know what I was thinking about while I did it?”
“No!”
“You’re not even the slightest bit curious?”
Even though she was red-faced, I loved that she pushed through it and faced me. “Don’t you have any marriages to desecrate, pervert?”
“Come on. Admit it. You masturbated last night, and that’s why you had such a good night’s sleep and got to work on time for a change.”
“Why do you care?”
“I like to be right.”
“You’re really a giant egomaniac.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Will you drop the subject if I tell you the truth?”
I nodded. “I will.”
She looked me directly in the eye. “I did.”
“What?”
“What do you mean what? You know what I mean.”
Of course I do. “I’m not sure I do. Why don’t you explain what you’re referring to?”
“Get out.”
“Say you masturbated, and I’ll get out.”
“Why? So you can get off on the thought of me masturbating?”
“I thought you didn’t want to hear what I was thinking about this morning when I took care of myself?”
I chuckled. Emerie was trying to be tough, but her voice told me she was more embarrassed and amused than pissed off. Feeling unusually kind, I decided to let her off the hook before I pushed my luck.
“I have a conference at ten today that will probably turn into lunch with my client afterward. There are menus in the top right drawer of the reception desk if you want to order in.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
I stopped just outside of her doorway. “One other thing.”
“Hmm?”
“Were you thinking of me when you masturbated?”
I’d said it just to be an ass, but her sudden deer-in-the-headlights face told me I’d actually hit the nail on the head. Well, shit. Coming to work just got even better. A part of me (a very large part of me, of course) wanted to stay and push that interesting tidbit of information even more, but I’d suddenly turned into a twelve-year-old boy and could feel my cock swellin
g. Thanks to her dirty thoughts, Little Miss Oklahoma with the great ass got a reprieve after all.
“That’s not the fucking problem. The problem is your inability to cook a decent meal without burning it.”
Hearing that type of statement yelled wasn’t new to these walls. Only this time, it wasn’t coming from one of my clients.
I’d just returned to the office after a late lunch with Henry Archer, and the sound of an angry man echoed through the hall. Emerie’s office door was slightly open, and I debated checking in with her, making sure everything was okay. Listening, I heard her ask the guy to settle down and then another woman began to speak. So I went back to my office to mind my own business.
Fifteen minutes later, there it was again. I was on the phone when that same guy’s voice carried down the hall and straight into my office.
“I was on the fence about marrying you in the first place. Should have called it off after you couldn’t even carry our kid.”
The hair on the back of my neck rose. What he’d said was horrible. But I’d heard spouses spit vile things back and forth at each other during a divorce. Not much shocked me anymore. Yet this guy—it wasn’t what he said but how he said it. His voice was laced with anger and intimidation, threatening while insulting. I hadn’t even seen his face, but my gut told me he was more than just a verbal abuser. Unfortunately, I’d seen physical abusers over the years, too. There was just something about the way the scumbags yelled that set them apart from your run-of-the-mill, I-hate-you-and-want-to-injure-your-soul spouse.
I rushed the client I’d been speaking to off the phone and went to check on Emerie. Before I could reach her office, a loud crashing sound sent me running.
When I got to the door, the guy was sitting in his seat while his wife knelt on her hands and knees to clean something up. Emerie was standing.
“What’s going on in here? Everything okay?”
Emerie hesitated and caught my eye when she spoke. She was trying to diffuse the situation. I saw it in her eyes, heard it in her voice.
“Mr. Dawson was a little excited and knocked over a glass award I had sitting on my desk.”
The heavy paperweight she’d lugged on the subway in her box was shattered all over the floor.