Page 112 of A Ticking Time Boss

By afternoon the newsroom is half-empty, and I’m at my wit’s end. I grab a bunch of files at random and head toward the stairs. No one uses them, and luck of all luck, I don’t meet anyone.

Tim is sitting at his desk outside the executive offices. I pray Carter’s in. “Dropping off some more papers from the newsroom,” I say. “As requested.”

He doesn’t even bat an eye. We must have sold it well the last time I snuck up here, for Carter’s birthday.

“Head on in,” Tim says.

Carter is not expecting me, that much is clear from his gaze, widening with surprise before it settles into a golden wariness. He doesn’t know what I’m here to say.

That makes two of us.

“Hey,” he says, and steps past me to close the door to his office. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Yes, I mean. How have you been?”

“This past week?” He leans against his desk, crossing strong arms over his chest. The need to touch him aches in my fingertips. “Not great, kid.”

“Me neither,” I say. My throat is thick and words come out shaky. “What are we really doing here, you know?”

His eyes are those of a hawk. “What do you mean?”

“It’ll only be a matter of time before people at work find out. And if we can’t trust one another… if I can’t trust you…” I shake my head, eyes blurring. “Maybe it’s better if we stop this now. We’ll never figure things out with the work situation, will we?”

He’s so still he might as well be a statue. Frozen to ice before me, Carter’s grin is nowhere to be seen. His eyes are so cold they burn. “Okay,” he says slowly. “If that’s what you want.”

No, I think. That’s not what I want at all. My heart feels like it’s frosting over, something fracturing deep within. But I don’t know if I can trust him… and I need this pain to go away.

“I don’t know why you didn’t tell me,” I whisper.

He closes his eyes. “You’re giving up on us. You haven’t sent me a single text this week, kid. Not one.”

“I needed time to think.”

“And this is what you’ve settled on.” His eyes open, and there’s nothing detached about them now. They blaze. “If you think it’s easier to just end this, then fine. Let’s end it.”

A tear spills over and races down my cheek. Carter walks around his desk and sits down. Like I’m not here, like I’m not hurting. Like he’s not hurting.

I love you, I think again. Don’t you care at all?

Where is the man I’ve come to care for? Who held me on a fire escape, who asked me for permission to ask me out, who is funny and intelligent and never backs down from an argument?

“Okay,” I say. “All right. I… well. Here are some papers from the copy machine downstairs.” I set them down on the edge of his desk, feeling worthless. “It was just an excuse to come up here, but I can’t leave…”

Without dropping them off. But the words are caught in my throat, stuck in the ball of tears.

“Got it. Just leave them here.”

Right. I retreat to the door, my hand shaking at my side. Why is he like this? “Can I call you in a week or two?” I manage. “After we’ve both had time to think?”

Because this can’t be the last time we talk about this.

“Sure,” he says. His gaze flows from me to his screen, like I’m nothing. “Sounds good.”

I leave his office without looking at Tim, and in the stairwell, my tears turn into muffled sobs.

TWENTY-FIVE

Another week passes without a text or call from Audrey. Another week, in other words, with time to mull over her fucking words. She’d used we might as well and how about we like it was some sort of mutual decision. Like she hadn’t already made it and was now forcing me to live with the consequences.

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