“Yeah,” I reply, smiling. “He is.”
“Totally. And then it’s like, this isn’t the person I thought I wanted to date?”
My smile drops. “Wait, what?”
But then Hostess Erica shouts, “Flip cup!” and I don’t get my answer as I’m pulled into a drinking game that should honestly be illegal when Baileys Irish Cream and peppermint schnapps are involved. I bow out after only one round, then turn to look for Alex, finding him leaning against the back of a couch talking with someone. He spots me immediately, like maybe he’d been keeping an eye out, and beckons me over. When I reach him, his arm fixes right back around my waist. Tighter this time.
Once we’re alone, I say, “Sorry I left you.”
“It’s okay.” Alex squeezes my hip. “I just know you, and I wanted you to feel good about tonight.”
A cascade of affection pours from my heart straight to my core, and all I want is to return the favor, give Alex whatever he needs to feel good right now. Suddenly I can feel all the places we’re touching, the way his fingertips have worked under my sweater to play with the skin at my waist. I can feel every hour since the last time we made love, and they are tallying up my desire all at once.
I move between his legs. “I am having fun.”
“Good. That’s good.” His hand skates up my arm, followed by goose bumps. “I suppose that means you’re not ready to leave?” He’s staring at my lips.
“Ready when you are.” I lean forward, brushing up against him, letting our bodies remember.
“Ready,” he practically groans.
He kisses me the minute we’re out the door—on my peppermint-stained lips, then my cheeks and jaw and ears. He laughs lowly and picks me up, throwing me over his shoulder fireman-style, and carries me to the elevator down the hall. By the time we’re inside it, the elevator operator has retired for the evening—which is for the best, because Alex is hard. He nudges me against the wall, hikes one of my legs up around him.
“This is what I imagine every time we’re in that goddamn office elevator,” he rumbles. “Even the first time, beautiful.”
His fingers push against my core, slipping past my underwear, feeling for himself how ready I am. He sighs softly and presses his body closer to mine.
“I don’t want to wait until we get home,” I pant.
“No?” Alex teases.
“No.”
In my mind, I imagined this would lead to the leasing office bathroom or a storage closet, but in Alex’s, it leads to his dad’s town house three blocks over. We walk there frantic, kissing on every corner, and then Alex is fumbling with a single key in his wallet, tucked inside a worn white envelope. When the door opens, I clock the wrought iron staircase, the chandelier, white tile floors, a tall orchid on the entryway table—and a stack of papers. One with an embossed gray insignia in the corner that looks … vaguely familiar. But before I can place it, line the insignia up with an accompanying memory, Alex leads me into a sunroom and draws me down onto the softly carpeted floor with him.
“You been here before?” I mumble between kisses.
“Nope,” he grinds out, working his hips against mine in an imitation of what we both want. “Wasn’t even sure the key would work.”
“Nice place. You think they shop at Pottery Barn, too?”
Alex rumbles out a laugh on top of me. “Hush, jagi. I’m trying to focus.”
I have no idea what Alex just called me, but it feels kind of monumental, so I do what he says and hush, let him kiss me the way he wants.
Touch me the way he wants.
Touch him the way he wants.
Until we’re boneless, high on each other’s pleasure, a mess of sweaty limbs and peppermint schnapps breath. He kisses each of my fingertips, naked on the floor of a home he’s never been inside. But he isn’t peeking around, doesn’t seem to care in the slightest about where we are. He’s looking only at me. His eyes are hot, magnetic, enthralling.
And I still can’t muster up a single word.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I look up jagi the next day: Korean term of endearment for one’s significant other. In English, jagi is like calling someone honey, darling, or baby.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
To: Casey Maitland （Financial Analyst）
From: Molly West （Human Resources Representative）
Meeting Subject: Quick Touchbase!
Time: Thursday, December 21, 10:00–10:15 A.M.
* * *
The meeting invite comes through on my desktop monitor while I’m hours deep into an analysis for Don. It’s 9:45 A.M. Molly wants to meet in fifteen minutes.
“Fuck.”
I stare at the screen for a full minute, frozen in disbelief, before I realize Fari got up at the sound of my profanity and is leaning over my shoulder. “Fuck,” she repeats. “That’s ominous.”
I quickly scan through all the reasons this meeting could be happening. Layoffs wouldn’t be starting yet; we still don’t even know the results of the board’s deliberation. And as much as I want to warn my friends, I’ve kept my mouth shut about the acquisition, so it can’t be a scolding on that, either. Which just leaves …
“Little Cooper knows about us,” I whisper.
“About you and Alex Harrison?”
I nod, thinking back to that girl at the Christmas party who snapped our photo.
Fari pats my shoulder. “At least Molly didn’t leave you time to stew on it.”
Small victories.
I pull out my phone and fire off a panic text to Alex: Did you get a touchbase from HR?? After five minutes of no response, I check his calendar; he’s in meetings until noon.
“Fuck,” I whisper again.
We filmed our second video for YouTube yesterday. It was the Day in the Life working vlog. Andre, who was assigned to me, met me at 7:00 A.M. at my Brooklyn subway station with a portable camera. Eric met Alex at a coffee shop in the West Village （I’m expecting artsy shots of a cappuccino and a pastry while Alex luxuriates in his work clothes, looking gently amused at life）。 Saanvi’s vision was for Andre and Eric to each film us commuting to work. Alex rode a Citi Bike—which is apparently a thing he actually does? Even in the winter? Like, not just for the camera?—and I took the subway. Because I’m not deranged.
Once we got to the lobby, Sara-who-does-sound suited us up with professional-grade mics. We did office tours, a lunch haul to the Whole Foods hot bar and back, and a Q&A session about the magazine industry, plus the highlights of our specific workday routines. Fari, Benny, and Brijesh even got to make cameos.
It was fun, but I’m glad we got the second video out of the way. I don’t think my heart would have been in it if we’d already heard back from the board with bad news.
I glance at my phone. Still no response from Alex, and it’s 9:58.
I take a deep breath and stand. Fari gives me a closed-mouth salute.
In college, I was in a sorority for only one year before I dropped out of it. Between my aversion to strangers and a growing distrust of the Greek system, I called it quits before dues came around the second year and I had to suffer through recruitment again. But in the short window that I was Greek, I got familiarized with disciplinary standards after a drunken date function where Lance slammed an expensive statue to smithereens. And since my date was “a reflection of me,” I was punished accordingly: no social functions for the rest of the semester. Philanthropy events only.