by Olivia Dade
Right outside the room’s door, her stride slowed. Grant sat inside that room, waiting for her. She knew it without even being able to see him. Her heartbeat echoed in her ears, and her hands began to tremble with mingled joy and terror. Her nerve endings all seemed to fire at once, urging her to flee. Or scream. Or cry. Or throw Grant to the floor and fuck him. The conflicting instincts overwhelmed and unsettled her.
You need to get a handle on this, Angie, she told herself. Now. Because it’s time for this meeting to start. Remember: brave face.
She took a deep breath and made herself keep moving. The door to the meeting space stood cracked, and she pushed it all the way open. When she entered the large, bright room, she could see a dozen round tables positioned at a discreet distance from one another, each with two chairs placed side by side. For the trust-building pairs, she presumed. Stapled handouts lay on the tables in front of each seat.
Various Downtown managers filled most of those seats, and they waved as Angie scanned the room. Angie absently waved back, searching for a familiar dark head. Finally, in the far corner of the room, she spied Grant sitting at a table and flipping through a handout. Tina was standing by his side, talking with him.
Angie’s fingers curled into her palms, but she refused to show more of a reaction. If the sight of him felt like a kick in the gut, she was the only one who needed to know it.
With an automatic, forced smile, she made her way across the room and took the empty seat at the table. “Good morning, Tina. Grant.” She gestured to the stapled papers before her. “Our schedule for the next two days?”
“Yes,” Tina said. “Winona came up with a list of activities, some of them about getting to know each other—”
Grant and Angie glanced at each other, and then back down at the schedule. She knew they were both thinking the same thing: Only two nights ago, they’d come up with their own getting-to-know-you activities. Ones that hadn’t required handouts. Hands, yes. Also hand jobs. But no handouts.
“—and others about learning to trust each other. This room will suffice for most of them. For the physical activities, you’re using the storytime room. I went there this morning and made sure all of you have the supplies you’ll need. This handout contains both your schedule and your instructions. At the end of the two days, both of you need to write blog posts about your experiences and upload them to the intranet. About a page each.”
Tina looked at both of them. “These activities are self-directed. You can start now and take an hour for lunch whenever you get hungry. Any questions?”
How can I get out of this? What if I pretend to have the bubonic plague? Even better, what if I find some sort of cloak of invisibility and disappear? Or say I’m Angie’s evil twin? Or claim that I have amnesia and no longer remember the last seven years of my employment? Or utilize some other plot device I’ve cribbed from a soap opera, possibly one involving possessed dolls or reanimated corpses?
“No,” said Angie. “No questions. Thanks, Tina.”
“Grant?” Tina looked inquiringly at him.
“Seems straightforward enough to me,” he said. “If we have any questions, we’ll come by Admin and ask you.”
He looked tired. Still handsome, of course, but exhausted nevertheless. Lines she hadn’t noticed the other night fanned out from the corners of his eyes, and his curls seemed haphazardly combed. Even his button-down shirt defied his usual fastidiousness. One side of his collar sagged, as if he’d donned the top in a hurry and hadn’t tucked it in evenly. Even after knowing the man for only two days, the lack of symmetry shouted to her: This man is experiencing a great deal of stress.
Because of his parents, she figured. Not her.
Tina glanced toward the other tables. “Once I’ve gotten everyone started, I need to get back to my office. You can come there or call me on my cell if you have any questions or concerns.”
With a final, assessing look at Angie and Grant, she headed across the room, where the head of the Children’s Department had just taken a seat.
Angie flipped through the handout, glancing at the ten activities listed. When she looked up, she saw Grant studying her intently.
“Glasses again?” he asked.
“Tired eyes. I stayed up too late reading.”
“I like the frames.” For some reason, his eyes seemed to focus on her forehead. “I just don’t like seeing you so . . . tense. Stifled.”
Her brave face shattered. She slapped down the papers and glared at him. “I thought you and the Administration wanted a more buttoned-up version of me.” She jabbed a forefinger at her chest. “Here she is, Grant. You want her, you have her.”
The pair at a nearby table sent her a startled glance, and she realized she’d been speaking too loudly. But who could blame her? She was trying her damnedest to keep a safe physical and emotional distance from the man. For his sake, as well as her own. All the while maintaining her normal cheeriness. Why the hell was he pushing her? What more could he reasonably expect?
“This isn’t about what I want,” he said, his voice low. “It’s about work.”
“Right.” She looked at the meeting room door with longing. “Then let’s get to work, shall we?”
“Really? Pizza is your favorite food? You hate broccoli? What are you, five?” Angie asked.
“It’s not as if there’s a daily recommended allowance of cream cheese icing, either,” Grant pointed out.
“Dairy.”
He rolled his eyes and counterattacked. “What sort of person doesn’t like American cheese? What are you, a communist?”
“The texture is weird. Sure, it melts nicely, but it looks like plastic and tastes like . . . I don’t know. Something unpleasant. It’s an abomination in the world of cheese,” she said. “Don’t distract me from my initial point, though. You have the eating habits of a preschooler. Do you also cut the crusts off your sandwiches and cry when different foods touch each other on your plate?” She suppressed a smile as he suddenly lost the ability to meet her eyes.
“Well, if the crust is too hard . . .” He faltered.
She couldn’t help herself. She laughed so hard her stomach hurt. After a minute, Grant joined in, though his face remained a tiny bit pink.
No one in the meeting room seemed to notice. The pair closest to them had moved away long ago, after one last dirty look in her direction. Everyone else was too far away or too engrossed in their own exercises to pay Angie and Grant any attention.
The two of them had been trust-building for almost two hours, but it felt like minutes. They’d debated which actors would play them in a movie, what historical figures they’d like to meet, where they’d like to go on vacation, what times of day they enjoyed most, and countless other bits of personal trivia. Winona had listed dozens of topics for discussion, and they’d chatted and laughed their way through each subject.
On the one hand, this meeting—which she’d dreaded with her whole heart, along with pretty much every other organ—had proven much more enjoyable than she’d feared. Despite herself, she couldn’t help but relax when faced with a concentrated dose of Grant’s unique charm. So many seemingly disparate features comprised the man in front of her: shyness, wit, candor, caution, discipline, and a gentle warmth she could feel down to the marrow of her bones. He fascinated her. Entertained her. Enticed her.
On the other hand, she didn’t need another reminder of what she was missing. The laughter only outweighed the pain in her chest for the moment. She knew as soon as they parted at the end of the day, she’d regret this time together and the way it had added to her longing for him.
She also didn’t need any extra guilt about lying to him. With every sincere, revealing response he gave, her deceit bothered her more.
I chose the best option available to me, she reminded herself. Unless I plan to collect unemployment, I can’t tell Grant about the Valentine’s Day sex-scene contest. End of story. Forget about it and move on.
“That’s the end o
f the questionnaire,” she said. “On to the next activity. During which, I hope, you won’t humiliate yourself quite so thoroughly.”
He turned to the next page of their handout. “ ‘Two Truths and a Lie,’” he read aloud. “‘Write down two true things about yourself and one lie. See if your partner can guess which is which.’ ”
“I can lie a lot better than you can,” she reminded him. “Get ready to lose.”
She tapped her ballpoint pen against her chin for a moment before jotting down her three statements. Flipping over her paper, she glanced up to see Grant eyeing her thoughtfully. His handwriting marched neatly across the top page of his notepad, which came as no surprise. Her own script could charitably be called free-form or—in her more grandiose moments—doctoresque.
“You go first,” she said.
Grant cleared his throat. “I was a math major in college. I create spreadsheets for almost everything. And I was held back a grade in elementary school.”
“That’s easy,” she said. “You specialize in data analysis and statistics, so the math major and the spreadsheets only make sense. Given how intelligent you are, I don’t see you being held back in school. The third statement is the obvious lie.”
She smiled at him confidently, ready to receive kudos for her accurate guess.
“Wrong,” he said.
Her smile changed into a surprised glare. “What do you mean, wrong?”
“I had to repeat fifth grade. I got pneumonia in the middle of the year, and it took me a couple of months to recover. By that time, I was so far behind my parents decided to let me start over.”
“Pneumonia?” Angie asked. “You poor thing.”
“I got sick a lot as a child,” he said with a shrug. “I was low on a type of white blood cell, so I had infections that landed me in the hospital. I had to be careful about what I ate, how much I slept, and what kids I saw.”
“What kids you saw?” she asked curiously.
“I had to avoid anyone who might be sick so they wouldn’t pass it to me. They might get over their illness in a week, but it’d take me a month.”
“That sounds . . . limiting.” It sounded terrible, actually. But it also explained quite a bit about the man in front of her. His caution, his shyness, his lack of ego . . . it all made much more sense to her now.
He shrugged again. “I wasn’t ever alone. Mom left her job at the community college to take care of me. Dad turned down promotions that required travel so he could stay close to home. Unless he was sick, my brother played with me after school and on weekends. And I kept myself occupied. Even in the hospital, I had my books. I could build models at home. Honestly, my parents’ lives were probably more disrupted than mine.”
“Do you still get sick easily?”
She shouldn’t care so much. But she did. The thought of this man lying in a hospital bed, wracked by fever and infection, made her gut clench.
“Nope. I grew out of it by my mid-teens.”
“Good.” She let out a slow breath of relief at his answer.
“Everyone was glad.” His smile appeared halfhearted. “Of course, by then, a lot of opportunities had passed my parents by. Ones that would have made their lives more comfortable, both then and now. They could have used the extra money. Still could, especially given my dad’s illness. But they never complain.”
The obvious guilt in his voice tugged at her heart. She wanted to tell him that loving parents like his wouldn’t resent that kind of sacrifice. They’d simply rejoice that their time and effort had resulted in his eventual good health. But he already knew that, of course. And as his employee, rather than his lover, she had no right to say anything so personal.
She dragged her thoughts back to the task at hand. “Since you were held back a grade, which of the other statements was the lie?”
“I majored in Latin, not math.”
“Nerd,” she said with a groan.
At that, he grinned. “You know it. Your turn.”
“Okay,” she said, adjusting her glasses. “I got my college degree in accounting. My sister named her child after me. And I’ve held six jobs in my adult life.” She smirked. No way he’d answer correctly. She’d deliberately chosen one unexpected truth and a plausible falsehood.
“I think the last one is the lie.”
Her mouth dropped open. “How the hell did you know that? No one outside my own family should have been able to get that right.”
“I’ve played this game before. Almost without fail, people say the lie last. They find the truthful statements easier to come up with, so the lie falls at the end.”
“Cheater.”
“I probably could have figured it out anyway, though,” he said. “You’re a warm, generous person. Of course your sister named her child after you.”
“Thanks,” she muttered. She knew her face had pinked with embarrassed pleasure, but she couldn’t do much about it.
“As far as your previous employment . . .” He slanted a sharp look in her direction. “Do you think I see you as a job-hopper?”
“Don’t you?” she challenged.
“No. I see you as a woman who loves and takes pride in her work. My guess is that you’d stay at a job you enjoyed for quite a few years before moving on.”
Explain to me again why we can’t have a secret affair, her brain pleaded. Because this man understands you, even after only one night.
Two things: food and shelter, she reminded her brain. Without a job, you’ll have neither. So suck it up and put a sock in it.
“I’ve only ever worked at two places,” she admitted to Grant. “A bookstore throughout most of high school, college, and grad school, and then the library. I finally left the first job after I earned my master’s in library science and started working full-time here.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. The accounting degree does, though. Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I can see your accounting background in how you run your branch. I took a look at your financial records yesterday. You’re meticulous, Angie. I’m sure you graduated at the top of your class. But I have a harder time picturing you being happy doing it than you being good doing it.”
“I wasn’t,” she said shortly. “Happy, that is.” Yet another story she might have told a lover, but didn’t intend to tell her supervisor.
“Then why did you do it?” He set his elbows on the table and leaned toward her. “You don’t strike me as someone who’d do something she didn’t enjoy.”
“I didn’t follow my own instincts,” she told him, “and I paid for it.”
A furrow appeared between his brows. “What does that mean?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.” She glanced at her watch. “We have time for one more activity before I want to grab lunch. What’s next?”
His eyes quickly scanned the paper. “Really?” he muttered. His head dropped toward his chest, and he exhaled slowly.
An odd reaction. But when she glanced at her handout, she immediately understood his response. “Shit. We have to do it for sixty seconds?”
“So it seems,” he said. “And you have to take off your glasses for the exercise.”
She slipped the frames off of her face and laid them on the table. The act seemed to give Grant unexpected confidence, as if he found himself back on familiar ground. His head raised, and his shoulders straightened.
“Now look into my eyes for a minute,” he instructed. “And then tell me how you feel.” He looked at her directly, the intensity of his gaze making her head spin.
Oh, shit, Angie thought. I can already tell you how I feel. Like I want to dive across this table, grab your shirt in my fist, and drag you down to the floor. After a solid minute of eye contact, there’s no telling what will happen. All I know for sure: It’ll be illegal to do it in public, it’ll get us both fired, and it’ll feel amazing.
“Let’s take our lunch break,” she blurted.
And then, like an abject coward, she snatched up her glasses and fled
before Grant could say another word.
13
When Angie returned after lunch, she seemed normal. Loath to meet Grant’s eyes and careful to avoid physical contact, but energetic and cheerful.
He didn’t fully understand what had made her run from the room earlier, or why she seemed perfectly fine now. He only knew how he felt when she walked back into the meeting space and sat by his side: exhilarated, despite the ache of longing that coursed through him at the mere sight of her. From his seat at the table, he gazed at her and marveled at how familiar her features had become in such a short time. The pale waves of her hair over her strong shoulders, the wide mouth, the slim nose, the bright green eyes . . . he knew all of them by heart. He could see her face with his eyes closed.
Not hyperbole. Fact. He’d spent most of the previous night doing just that. Along with picturing other parts significantly below her face.
Let it go. Remember, Grant. You: supervisor. Angie: employee. No monkey business.
“Shall we get started?” he asked with what he considered admirable calm.
The next several hours passed quickly, in a flurry of activities, banter, and lots of disagreement. Especially when they discussed their decision-making principles.
“Logic. Data. That’s how to make a good decision,” he argued. “Our instincts can and do steer us wrong.”
She gave him an oddly melancholy smile. “I’m on Team Instinct. I make all major decisions with my heart and my gut, not logic.” She tapped her finger against her chin. “There should really be a word combining the two.”
“Huh?” he asked.
“A word combining heart and gut. Hut? No, that won’t work. Too associated with blob-like aliens and pizza. Gurt?”
“Sounds like a yogurt brand marketing itself to skateboarders,” he said.
She conceded the point with a desultory wave of her hand. They then moved to the next exercise on their itinerary: choosing fifteen items to bring to a desert island. Among his contributions to the list: basic tools, solar panels, medical supplies, and equipment to make and purify water. When she added books and music to the inventory, he stared at her in disbelief.