Page 53 of A Break in Communications

“Right…” I adjusted my bag strap on my shoulder, leaning back against the wall. “You know, Masters, you win. I’ll send you the documents.”

She looked up, blinking fast, whatever she was pretending to be busy with on her phone immediately forgotten. “Preston? Are you feeling okay?”

I looked away. “Don’t get used to me saying this, but you’re right. If I’m aiming for the executive communications director position, I need to learn how to include everybody in the communications, regardless of who it is. I’ll stop playing dirty and send them your way. It’s still going to be my name on the closed case. And my name on the office door.”

She stared at me a minute longer—I wasn’t even looking, but I could feel her eyes on me, boring a hole through me—before she said, “You’re going to send me a mountain of false information.”

“They’re all still the undoctored originals from Dobbs and the outreach coordinators. You can see the digital signatures and tell it’s the real files. I’m good at what I do, but I’m not a forgery artist. You’ll be fine.” The elevator arrived with a ping, and I turned to go inside, pausing in the doorway. “Uh… Masters,” I started, an awkward feeling in my throat.

“Preston?”

“Sorry for… er… being oblivious.” I stepped into the elevator, turning to face her through the elevator doorway. “I’m not interested in you like that. And we shouldn’t push things by getting overly… familiar. We’re coworkers. Let’s leave it at that.”

The doors started to shut. Lucy drew her face in a tight line, watching for a second, enough that I thought the doors would shut before she said anything, but at the last second, she put her foot in the elevator door, and it stopped, opening again long enough for her to say, “So that’s your final answer?”

I swallowed, but I wasn’t cowering. I looked her in the eye, and I nodded. “I don’t—regret any of it, for the record. And thank you for being… pleasant with my family. You made the situation much more bearable than otherwise. Let’s leave this here and be cordial as best we know how. A clean break. We both deserve that.”

She gave me the saddest smile I’d ever seen, despite how hard she was trying to hide it, to smile through it like everything was normal. “Cordial hasn’t been our strong suit.”

“We’re both capable women. I think we can pull it off.”

She shrugged, pretend-casual. “Guess we’ll figure it out one way or another. Just one thing, Preston.”

“Mm?”

She smiled wider. “It’s going to be my name on the office. If you’ve officially rejected me now, I have no reason to go easy on you.”

“Hm.” I looked away. “Maybe you’ll finally start to measure up, then. See you tomorrow, Masters.”

“See you tomorrow, Preston,” she said, as the door slid shut again, and this time, she let it close all the way, shutting me off, a symbolic closing of a door as the elevator started down.

I’d been told when one door closed, another one opened. Maybe an elevator wasn’t a good choice. When one door closed here, I was trapped in a tight space and sank slowly into darkness I couldn’t see the bottom of. Not the best symbolism.

∞∞∞

Sent Masters the documents as soon as I got home, bundled up in an email attachment without any subject header or body text. Tried for a while to figure out what I was supposed to write, and part of me wanted to write something weirdly… emotional, but—this was a company communication anyway. So in the end, I backspaced everything, and I left it blank, sending them along, and I made a cappuccino with the Ethiopian beans and got to work burning the midnight oil.

I’d gotten out just in time. Not a moment too soon, judging by the fact that I missed the Guatemalan beans that Lucy always made for me.

I’d been so intent for a second on this idea that I needed a relationship, and ostensibly, now should have been the time to revisit that thought, but suddenly it felt as appealing as learning water polo. Sure that somebody out there was excited at the prospect, but I couldn’t see one reason to care about it.

Guess I’d just needed to get laid. Honestly, nothing wrong with that. We had our periods of life, and I’d gone through a long one where sex was a low priority, and maybe now it was a priority for me again. I was satisfied for now, but maybe it was something to think about once this job was settled.

Masters didn’t respond to the email. Guess I’d been hoping for her to. I had developed some weird little feelings over the weekend, and I had to give them space to mellow out, settle down. If I approached them calmly and nonjudgmentally—nothing wrong with developing feelings for someone attractive I had great sex with, I just didn’t want to be in a relationship with her and so I’d ride them out—it would go just fine.

And all was well with it until the next morning, when I headed into the office earlier this time and saw Lucy there ahead of me, having a cordial conversation with Sean, and it dropped a pit in my stomach.

Should have been about the fact that she really wasn’t pulling any punches now—clearly trying to maneuver her way into the position at any cost, looking to find a way to cut me out of the promotion lineup like she had all the others.

Instead, I was a dumbass, because I was upset she wasn’t more shaken up. Like I wanted her to be sad clinging to me, so desperately in love with me, begging me to give her a chance. Seriously? Maybe I was judging my feelings after all. There wascatching feelings for the hot girl who topped youand then there was this, and one of those was understandable.

I walked a little slower past them, for some reason, and Masters glanced over and gave me a quick, “Morning, Preston,” before she turned back to Sean, and I tried to tell myself this was better—that this was what I’d wanted in the first place, trying to get Masters off my back.

“Good morning, Masters. Nothing’s broken today?”

“Another day in paradise. Good luck with work.”

This wasnotLucy. Where the hell had she gone?

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