Page 61 of Think Outside the Boss

All of her is trembling. She pauses in the middle of her tiny studio and covers her face with her hands. There’s not a sound, but her shoulders shake.

I shut the door behind me and wrap my arms around her. “You’re okay now,” I tell her. “You’re home.”

“This is so silly,” she says in between racketing sobs. “I’m sorry, Tristan, I don’t know…”

“It’s not silly. That was a stressful situation, and now it’s over. Of course you’re reacting to it.” I look around the room for a couch, but there is none, only a bed tucked into a corner of the room. It’s neatly decorated with a gray spread and colorful pillows.

I pull us toward it, and we sink down together, her still in my arms.

“You’re not,” she accuses.

“I’m not reacting?” I smooth my hand over her hair, looking up at the ceiling in the tiny studio. The bed smells like her, of floral perfume and shampoo and the woman clinging to me. I’m most definitely reacting. “I wouldn’t say that. That wasn’t a pleasant experience.”

She shudders in my arms. “I’m only taking the stairs from now on.”

“You live on the fourteenth floor.”

“Then I suppose I’ll get in great shape.”

I chuckle, curving my fingers around her waist and holding her as she calms down. Her crying abates as quickly as it had come on, a consequence now of released tension and not fear. It’s gone entirely when she props her head in her hand and looks at me.

I smooth my thumb over her cheek, over the lightly smudged mascara. “You’re okay,” I murmur.

Her smile is small but true. Traces of amusement play in her eyes. “This is really not how I wanted you to think of me.”

“I can think of you anyway I want,” I say. “Not for you to decide.”

Her faint laughter is breathless. “Right.”

“And your fear of heights hasn’t made me think less of you, if that’s what you’re worried about.” My fingers shift to her ear, tracing the smooth edge of her jaw. Her skin is like silk beneath my fingers. No, this has only made her more human to me, real and fallible and sweet and nuanced, with frailty to counter the ambitious fire.

And it just makes me want her more.

Freddie leans into my hand and closes her eyes. “How did you know what to do?”

“What to do?”

“To calm me down,” she says. “Have you talked people away from a panic attack before?”

My hand slips from her cheek. “My sister used to have them.”

“Oh, I see.” Giving me an apologetic smile, Freddie gets up from the bed and gets a tissue to wipe her eyes and nose. She kicks off her shoes and shrugs out of her beige coat. A turtleneck and dark jeans cling to her body, to the shapely thighs and hips, the dip of her waist.

I close my eyes, but it’s no use, because she settles against me on the bed. Her hand on my chest, her leg over mine, as if we lie like this all the time.

“Used to?” she asks. “How did she get them to stop?”

I look up at the ceiling. “She died a few years ago.”

“Oh. Tristan, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring it up.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

“Still. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” I say. My coat is unbuttoned and there’s nothing but the fabric of my shirt between her fingers and my skin. I close my eyes. “I’ve never kissed anyone to stop them from having a panic attack, though.”

“I can’t believe that worked,” she says. The warmth of her exhale against my neck makes my body tighten. Awareness of her is everywhere, from the pads of my fingers to the tingling in my lips. My fingers brush over a strip of bare skin where her sweater has ridden up. “It worked pretty well, I’d say.”

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