The Billionaire’s Wake-up-call Girl (Billionaires of Manhattan, #2)

by Annika Martin

But where is amazing Mr. Drummond? Why would his receptionist act like he’s here when the office is empty? A door off to the side is plastered with colorful safety signs, including one that says “Lab Coat and Eye Protection Required.” A lab, then. Did he go in there? I wander past the worktable. “Looks like Mr. Amazing is being amazing elsewhere,” I mutter. “What’s that?” Sasha says. “Looks like he’s elsewhere,” I say more loudly. I move closer to the desk. Close enough that I suddenly make out a pair of icy gray eyes staring sternly at me from behind black-framed glasses. Dazzling eyes. Gorgeous eyes. Mr. Drummond. Fear whooshes through me. Did he hear what I said? Please, no! Mr. Drummond stands and pulls off his glasses, still staring at me.

We go to where Mr. Drummond is clearing a space. He looks up when he’s done, and for one hot heartbeat, I have this strange sense he’s aware of my secret opinions about him, as if there’s some strange conduit between us. Or who knows, maybe he’s telepathic in addition to being the world’s most amazing chemist and most horrible CEO.

“How about achieving our goals without a lot of fluff?” Mr. Drummond says, totally cutting me off. There’s this weird silence where I think I could actually come to hate him. I’ve been working on letting go of my hatred of Mason with the help of a book entitled Forgive and Be Free, but I might hate Mr. Drummond. I might even cherish hating him. Miraculously, I manage a smile.

Mia, my roommate and best friend in the world, pulls a shapeless gray dress off the rack at the Salvation Army on West Forty-sixth. “No way,” I say. “I’m trying to appease her, not mock her.” “Come on. She’ll see you’re trying,” she says. “This is what she wants. She wants for you to become invisible.” I groan and take the dress. Mia gives me a really serious look. “This is a code red alarm. We need serious ugly firepower to hide your hotness.” I snort. Did I say she was my best friend in the world? Then she holds out Crocs and a fanny pack. “I’m going for invisible, not, ‘Look at me! I’m having a psychotic break!’” “Do you want to keep the job or not? Go try it on.” I grab the stuff and head into the dressing room. I catch one last glimpse of her before I close the door. She has her phone out. “I better not see this on Instagram,” I say. “Are you kidding? This is why they invented Instagram.” I take off my short sweater dress and my leggings and boots and pull the sack dress over my head. It’s linen with delicate white lace around the collar and sleeve cuffs. I can see how somebody thought it was nice, in an Amish sort of way. I think if you were standing on the prairie with the wind blowing, it might look okay.

I eat my scentless roast beef and Swiss cheese sandwich at my desk and think about how it’s just seven sleeps until I’m free.

scentless.... roast beef? WUT???

He’s there. Mr. Drummond. I only see the back of his dark hair over the cubicle tops, and sure, there are other guys here that are Mr. Drummond’s height with dark hair, but the air around Mr. Drummond seems charged somehow. As if he operates at a higher frequency than mere mortals. I get this flash of annoyance, but at the same time, excitement. A couple of guys from design are there, too, and Bertie the design intern. Sasha is standing, leaning fetchingly on the cubicle wall. But it’s Mr. Drummond I see. He’s wearing a regular suit. No lab coat. I stroll up to stand on the other side of Bertie, farthest from Mr. Drummond. Then I take a breath and imagine gummy bears. I plaster on a vague smile. I stare at his nose. He looks right at me. His look is direct. Honest. Blunt, even. His gaze sears. It sets my heart pounding. Still I stare at his nose. You can’t see me, I think. Stop looking, because you can’t see me. Except my evil, evil brain likes having his attention on me. Because he’s beautiful. And glorious. Up close I can see there’s a small scar on his bottom lip, and that’s what creates the pillowy-and-hot-in-a-dangerous-way effect that his lips have. Like he got in a really horrible fistfight with a guy who landed a vicious punch perfectly placed for male beauty. Uh. I turn to Sasha. Still I can feel his eyes on me. His gaze has weight, pressing on my skin, melting something in me. I catch his scent, the same as before. Melon and pepper. I want to glare at him, but I’...

One of the books I got about forgiveness told me to write letters to people I was angry at. I start composing one to Mr. Drummond in my head. Dear asshole, please stop looking at me. You and your sizzling eyes and hot lips. Please never come down again. Uhhhh.

“Wake up, motherfucker,” I say. “It’s time to rise and shine, okay?” Mia raises her hand like she wants the phone back, but it’s my turn. I spin around. “It’s another day, full of promise and possibility, another opportunity for you to step over whatever people you step over on your way to wherever the hell you go at this weirdly stupid hour.” Something soars in me. I continue—with gusto, “Time to start your day of being a complete and utter asshole, a man who thinks he’s all that and totally isn’t. And you need a wake-up call because you’re sooooo special. Because for whatever reason, you’re too much of an asshole to work an alarm clock like ninety-nine-point-nine-nine-nine percent of people are able to do.” I turn back around to find Mia looking stunned. Maybe she didn’t think I had it in me. She’s the thespian of the household. “Oh, wait.” I spin back around, continuing in a sweet voice now. “I’m sorry. You’re such an important person. I mean, oh my god! The whole world shivers in admiration.” Mia’s behind me, grabbing my arm, like she wants a turn. “The birds fall from the trees when you approach, stunned by your glory. Everybody can’t wait for you and your enchanting thoughts.” I pause, and then add, “Not.” A rumbly voice sounds out. “What?” I freeze and pull the phone away from my ear. I see that it’s a live call. I see that it’s been one minute and three seconds of me insulting Mr. Drummond nonstop. I turn around. Mia’s eyes are wide, her hand clapped over her mouth...

“Let me at least take you out for breakfast,” she says. “We’ll get hash browns with hollandaise sauce and eggs on top. And mimosas.” Our favorite naughty breakfast. I wrap my arms around myself, picturing the gun in that guy’s hand. “Why? Because I’ll be sleeping with the fishes soon?” “Seriously. Come on.” “No, I’m going in to work,” I say. “I’m not fired yet. Maybe if I explained.” She winces. She’s heard the Sasha stories.

“The wake-up-call service you arranged,” he says. “Yes?” she says. I wince. He thinks she arranged it. This is just getting worse. Betsy types away, oblivious to the carnage about to take place in her midst. I gather my courage. “So, you guys, a funny story⁠—” Sasha gives me a shocked look. “Excuse me? Mr. Drummond’s in the middle of speaking.” “I just think I should tell you—” I look over to find Mr. Drummond looking equally annoyed. My words die under the heat of his gaze. He turns back to Sasha. “Was there anything unusual about the way they advertised? The way they described their service?” I stare at the floor, pulse racing. Sasha tilts her head. “Why do you ask?” What else can she say? She has no idea what service I arranged. “It was…” He pauses, seems to search for the word. “…unorthodox. I was curious…” Unorthodox?! Sasha looks over at me. I shrug minutely and curl my lips. No idea! She turns back to Mr. Drummond. “Nothing out of the ordinary,” she says. “One wake-up service doesn’t tend to differ from another.” He scowls into the middle distance as my mind scrambles to make sense of all of this. Unorthodox?! “Is there a problem with it?” Sasha asks. “Should we get rid of it and find another?” “No!” he says quickly. “Leave it. This service will do for now.” Sasha has a totally pleased look on her face. She seems to be interpreting this as praise. Which…maybe it is? “Carry on.” He turns and leaves. I watch the door close after him. Stunned. Sasha turns to me. “Final...

Mia is cross-stitching when I get home. Cross-stitching funny sayings is one of her major new passions. On the coffee table in front of her is a brown paper bag; from the aroma, I can tell that it’s pad Thai from the place down the block. “What’s the occasion?” I ask, stripping off my coat. “I was planning it this morning as a consolation feast. But now it’s a what-the-fuck celebration. Because, what the fuck!” I grin. “Can you even?” “Not even!” I rush into my room to change out of my sad sack and into yoga pants and a long T-shirt. I’m excited about pad Thai. When I get back out there, she hands me the cross-stitch she’s working on, stretched across the round holder. “For you.” It has a beautifully stitched image of a unicorn, and it says, Because I’m a sparkly unicorn, motherfuckers! “Oh, Mia. I love it!” She takes it back. “It’s almost done. And then I’m going to frame it. And then you can have it. To always look at.” For when you move back to Fargo. But she doesn’t say that part. We pull out bowls and wine. I open my container and a puff of fragrant steam comes out. I dump it into my bowl and tell her about the scene at the reception desk.

“You can’t just say the mean wake-up service quit after one day,” Mia says. “Why not? I can’t help it if they’re flakey.” “Don’t rock the boat. He liked the mean wake-up call. You have to do it again.” “I can’t,” I say. “I just couldn’t.” “You said it felt amazing.” “But I didn’t know I was actually talking to him.” “Set your alarm for four and think about what a jerk he is. How controlling he is.” “He is that.” I squirt in a bunch of soy sauce. “His employees work so hard, and he doesn’t care. He won’t even let us have microwave popcorn.” She gives me an outraged look. Mia’s amazing at fiercely outraged looks; it’s something that seems to run in her large Italian family along with a passion for Italian cinema and things decorated with sloths. “Microwave popcorn is one of the main sources of office-worker pleasure,” she says. “I know, right? He wants us to be machines like him. He leads by fear. Dude, have you heard of twentieth-century leadership techniques? Seriously.” “See? That’s the spirit.” Mia digs into her pad Thai. “You just have to replay this whole conversation at four in the morning.” “I don’t know,” I say. But then I think about his stern face and rumbly voice, and something stirs in me. “You get to vent to your asshole boss. Do you know how many people would kill for that opportunity?” “It’s risky. What if he figures out I’m somebody from the office?” “Don’t talk about the office. You’re a husky-voiced stranger who’s tired of the patriarchy.” “It did feel goo...

I remind myself I have to call him and be mean. I sit up in bed. “Because you can’t or won’t learn how to work an alarm clock,” I whisper into the darkness. At twenty minutes to go-time, I review scenes of men being jerks to me over the years. There are surprisingly a lot of them. I review how Mason always acted as if my bakery was only successful because of the location. I review how jerky Mr. Drummond was about the tagline. I pull up my PDF copy of the Vossameer handbook and reread the stupidly restrictive rules, and then I put in my earbuds and listen to Queen Latifah’s “Wrath of My Madness.” Eventually I’m ready. Heart pounding, I grab my phone and hit redial. Even though it’s scary, it’s kind of exciting. I’m weirdly looking forward to it. The phone rings just two times. “Yeah?” he grumbles, sounding barely awake. The mellow vibration of his voice warms something deep inside me. But I have a job to do! “Wake up, you stupid motherfucker. People are waiting for whatever annoying bullshit you have in store for them today.” I’m trying not to smile. I kind of like that he’s listening. “Your hapless minions await whatever stupid bullshit flows from your meteoric mind.” A silence. “So that really is your technique. It wasn’t a fluke.” “You have a problem with it?” “Not a problem, other than I just wanted to know.” I frown as I register this. Is that why he wanted me to call back? “This is about curiosity?” “Are you honestly surprised by that? ‘Wake up, you stupid motherfucke...

“The wake-up-call service,” she says. I frown, as though that’s the last thing I’d expect her to bring up. “Is it still…working out?” “Apparently so. Mr. Drummond wants an extra call.” She hands me a card. “This is his office line, to be used only for the purposes of an extra call to be placed by the current operator he’s working with. The call is to be made at precisely 9:20 a.m.” “Huh,” I say with a totally straight face. “Really.” “Yeah, I don’t know, maybe he’s planning a nap up there or something. And you’re to specifically request that the operator working with the Vossameer account be assigned to this job, but it shouldn’t be obvious he’s the client. Have them PayPal invoice me. Understand?” “I understand,” I say, scrambling to think how I’d ever get away with placing a call from my cubicle. What will I do? “Unusual, I know. But there’s always a method to Mr. Drummond’s madness,” she assures me breathlessly. “Of course there is,” I say. “But this request is for a call in two hours.” “Are you saying you think you can’t handle it?” “I’ll put in the order,” I say. “I don’t know how they assign things over there, in terms of scheduling the operators. I suspect that they might schedule twenty-four hours in advance.” “Figure it out. Whatever it costs. This is something Mr. Drummond wants, so this is something Mr. Drummond gets.” She turns back to her work, my cue to scram. I take a look at the card, vaguely disappointed to find his office line written in Sasha’s loopy and...

Back at my desk, I press my phone to my cheek and pretend to put in the order for the benefit of my coworkers in the surrounding cubicles. “You’re sure there’s no way to arrange it…” I say. “We really would like this call to be made…no, I understand…yes, we are extremely disappointed.” I return immediately to Sasha’s desk, dutiful employee that I am, and tell her the bad news. “The operator he wants is all booked up. They can’t give her any more clients. Do you want me to try for a different one?” “It can’t be a different one. He said her or nobody.” I nod. “I tried everything. They’re just like, ‘No, Operator Seven is not available for another call.’” I don’t know where I pull Operator Seven from. It sounds official, though. “Not at 9:20, not at 10:20, not this morning, not this afternoon…” Not in a house, not with a mouse. “Did you offer them extra money?” “Of course,” I say. “I don’t think there’s anything that’ll sway these people. No dollar figure. Nothing. Looks like I got the last slot open for their very best wake-up-call girl.” She frowns. “I don’t understand. Operator Seven won’t take one more spot? How hard can it be to place one more call?” I shrug. “Again, I could ask about a different operator…” “No, Mr. Drummond was very specific.” I try to appear sheepish, but hopefully not in a way that looks like I think it’s funny. Which I do. Sasha gazes into the distance. “When Mr. Drummond finds something that works, he commits to it fully and completely.” “Yeah. I do...

I pull my phone out of the charger a few minutes early and give myself a pep talk. My pulse beats excitedly as the time turns over, from 4:29 a.m. to 4:30 a.m. I press the green phone symbol, because Operator Seven is always on time, bitches! He answers on the first ring. “Yeah.” I feel my face split into a huge smile. “Here he is, folks, answering on the first ring. Who’s the best wake-up-call girl in the city?” He says nothing, but I know he’s there. Then he says, “You hung up on me.” “You were awake, dude.” I put extra emphasis on the word, knowing somehow that it’ll bug him. It’s like I can feel the edges of his wonderfully prickly emotions. “Did I not tell you the weather? Isn’t that how proper wake-up-call girls end their calls? I heard it from a very reputable source.” “Did you? So you know who this is, then?” “‘Do you know who this is?’ Did you seriously just ask that?” “Do I need to ask it again?” he rumbles. I hold the phone with both hands. The volume is just up enough that I can hear. I kind of do want him to ask it again. Partly because his voice is really grumbly and sexy this morning and partly because I have no idea whether wake-up-call people know who they’re calling. Do they get little profiles of their clients? Special wake-up dossiers? “Well?” “You think I don’t know who I’m calling?” I say, making a snap decision. “This is a wake-up-call service. I know exactly who I’m calling—Theo Drummond, CEO of Vossameer. I know everything I need to know about you....

In the tight moments that follow, I flash on something I haven’t thought about for years—a strange cardboard book I had as a child. The pages were cut into thirds—heads, outfits, and shoes, so that you could turn the parts independently of each other and put a clown’s head with a ballerina’s body and firefighter boots, for example. Or a clown head could have a suit and tie over ballerina shoes. I always hated that book. I hated that you could rearrange the clothes to lie about the person. I preferred to arrange it so that the correct heads went with the correct outfits.

I write back to thank accounting. I sign it Katherine Mayhold, comptroller. I don’t know why I choose comptroller. But why not? I had phone sex with my boss at 4:30 in the morning and now I’m in a prairie dress impersonating a wake-up-call service. Just another day at Vossameer!

An email from Theo Drummond, CEO, Vossameer Inc. Subject line: Query. I slip my phone into my lap and click on the message, heart pounding. To whom it may concern: I’m interested in contracting with you to hire the operator I’m currently working with as a dedicated provider for me and my business. Money is no object. Please call me at your earliest convenience. Sincerely, Theo Drummond, CEO, Vossameer. 1-212-555-1561 He wants me all to himself. My pulse races as I reread it. I don’t know how to feel about it. It’s kind of pushy and entitled. At the same time, it’s flattering. Is he a little bit jealous? Wondering how I talk to my other clients? So he’s just going to buy up all my time. Make me talk to him. And I have no idea what to reply. Obviously the answer is no. Operator Seven is booked—we established that yesterday. But if money is no object, you’d think Hello Morning would find a way to accommodate him. I wring my hands. I tell myself I don’t have to write back right away. Maybe my company is busy calling people around the world. Maybe the CEO is in Bermuda. An hour later, Mr. Drummond sends another email. I’m following up on my previous query, copied below. I’m looking to expedite this process. Please respond at your earliest convenience. My pulse races. I feel like a fugitive. If I keep ignoring him, he’ll just send more emails. Or maybe he’ll try to investigate harder. No, I have to answer. I look around for Sasha, and then I pull out my phone and hit reply. Dear...

“Does he want more…rude conversation?” My teeth are keeping my lips from smiling, but the problem is that I need my lips for talking. I release and contort them into their normal shape as best I can before I raise my gaze to her. “I wouldn’t say that it stayed rude exactly.” Her voice is a harsh whisper. “Tell me what that means.” I look at her straight on. Sometimes, between friends, a look communicates everything. Her eyes literally double in circumference. “Excuuuuuuse me?” I return to biting back my smile. “No. Freaking. Way.” I whisper, “Yes way.” “To clarify—are we talking phone sex here?” “It didn’t go quite that far.” “Quite that far? Sexy phone calls with your asshole boss is pretty far.” She gestures, seeming at a loss for words. “Did you get to third base?” “I don’t even know what that means. We were on the phone. Are there bases on the phone?” She downs her wine and pours another glass. “You have to re-enact it. Play both parts. You call. You’re lying in bed.” “I’m not doing a one-woman show of my almost-phone-sex wake-up call with my boss for you.” “A true friend would.” I toss a peanut shell at her. “You have to,” she says. “At least help me understand how it segued from ‘you’re such an asshole’ to…” She looks at me hard. She wants at least a line or two.

I cross my arms and stare up at the cracked ceiling. “Come on!” she says. I’m not one to kiss and tell, but I can give her something tiny. “First of all,” I say, “he has this really rumbly voice. Like it wraps around you. Soft and gritty.” I’m suddenly imagining his whiskers sliding along my cheek, my chest. “Wet sandpaper.” “Yeah. Or else maybe extremely unforgiving velvet ribbon.” “Guh,” she says hoarsely. She gestures impatiently for more. “Dude, I had a hard day at work. I need this.” “One of the early highlights: I called him a jackalope.” She straightens up. “This is already delicious.” “Then he wants to know what I’m wearing.” “Ooh. A time-honored classic.” “I was like, seriously?” “I’m rolling with this completely. Did you tell him what you were wearing?” “He had guesses. And he was all stern and assholey, but in a good way. And suddenly…we’re all sexytimes. So there you go.” “Wait, that’s all I get? What are you wearing and then it’s all sexytimes and that’s that? No, no, no, no, no. I need details.” “Sorry, sister.” “Noooo!” She clutches my sleeve. “One fun highlight.” I sigh. “Please?” I fix her with a saucy stare. Mia appreciates a little drama. “‘You are such a pig!’ I say to him. And then he goes, ‘Oh, I am. An utter animal. Sex with me is a dirty, savage affair. Utterly uncivilized. It’s the opposite of civilized.’” She pantomimes falling off her chair, and then promptly begs for more. “That was your one and only snippet.” I fast-forward to the drama of the ...

“Tell me your name.” “Oh, I don’t think so,” I say. I kind of wish I could give it, though. I feel strangely close to him. Still more silence. He’s not used to being bossed around. “Just a name.” “You’re paying me to wake you up. Not for my name.” I slide more deeply under the covers. I feel warm and good and a little wild. “You don’t need my name for what we do.” “What harm could a first name do?” “I don’t know. What if it’s really unusual? Like Sassafras or something.” He lets out a grumbly breath. He’s hot when he’s frustrated. I smile, picturing his lips. And the way he sets his hands on surfaces like he owns them. Well, he does own them. His voice gets that velvety rumble. “Tell me,” he says. Something shoots through me. “I can’t,” I say. I was supposed to be hanging up by now. “Tell me over dinner tonight.” My heart nearly leaps out of my ribs. “What?” He wants to take me out? I imagine him in a candlelit restaurant. His icy gray eyes. That short, thick hair, just the beginnings of curls that he must contain at all costs. And that lab coat. “Let me take you out. Tonight.” “Are you serious?” “I’m always serious.” I smile, because he really is always serious. “You don’t even know what I look like.” “I don’t have to know what you look like,” he says. “Risky.” “I always know what I want. I enjoy you. What do I care what you look like? I’m a chemist. I care about chemistry.” If I didn’t know him to be such a power-mad jerk, I’d think that was halfway cool. Then again, may...

“How about if I pass along praise for a job well done?” “I guess there’s no harm in saying that you’re happy with Hello Morning’s amazing service.” “Especially since my wake-up-call girl has agreed to dinner. She knows I need more of her than her sexy, raspy voice.” That’s my best disguise, I realize. The pre-allergy-medicine voice.

“Why are you a wake-up-call girl? Surely this can’t be what you want with your life.” “You think being a wake-up-call girl is too lowly?” “I think you’re more ambitious than that.” “You don’t know me.” “Don’t I? I know you said something outrageous during our first call. You were coloring outside the lines. Experimenting. Or maybe it was an accident. I sometimes think that. I don’t know why you said it, but you did, and then you went with it. Followed where it led. That’s what a creative, ambitious person does. She tries different angles. Turns accidents into advantages. It makes me think you’re used to running your own show. Not doing a job a machine could do. You make things happen. You have a strong will. Yet you have integrity, too.” “Integrity. My goodness.” “If you didn’t have integrity, I think you would’ve taken me up on dinner. Or tried to squeeze me for money by now.” “Maybe I’m playing the long game. Maybe I’m just that good.” “You’re not working me. No, I’d know if you were working me. What’s more, you don’t take shit from me. You’re capable and you stick up for yourself. So what are you doing making wake-up calls? That’s what I keep asking myself.” I twist around to my elbows, stunned. It’s as if Mr. Drummond knows me better after a few calls than Mason ever did. Mason always acted like my bakery’s success was due to luck and location, and he sometimes had me buying it. As if building relationships and managing a crew and finding ways to help people create fun...

“Did somebody slip you a bad cookie?” she asks. “Did somebody have a traumatizing cookie experience?” She pauses, and then, “Never mind. I’m sorry.” Something in my chest deflates, because I know exactly what just happened here, exactly why she retreated. When you Google me, the top few results are magazine features that make much ado of my past. The boy whose parents died in a car crash when he was just fifteen. Sister adopted without him. In and out of foster care, all alone in the world, nobody can reach him. He invents the solution that would’ve saved his mother’s life, but he can never bring her back. Such bullshit. “Just don’t,” I say. “Don’t what?” “Don’t do what you just did. Assume that my dislike of cookies is because of a tragedy that happened half a lifetime ago. Apparently there can’t be an article written about me without some armchair psychologist weaving that narrative about my never quite recovering from that. As if it drives everything I do. It’s ignorant…” “Well, you did invent the one thing that might’ve saved her.” “Yes, maybe it would’ve saved her, who knows, but this bullshit story that I heroically dedicate my life to Vossameer to spare others the pain and so forth…it’s simply not accurate. I promise you. It’s not how it was, and it’s not how it is now.” “Okay.” “It’s fucking annoying,” I bite out. “Sorry.” I suck in a breath. I’ve come on too strong, and I can feel her withdrawing. I’d kill to be able to reach out to her, grab her, pull her to me, ...

The email will come back to both of our machines. She’s set something up where replying to the email I sent will give us information about the location of the sender. A little extra something hidden in the email that will get it to bounce off a specifically honed server. Or something. She’s the computer whiz, not me. She thinks we can get the IP address for starters, but depending on what kind of email setup the boss of Hello Morning is using, we could get much more. An intersection. An address. Maybe even a name.

spend the night baking cookies, plain vanilla round ones. Most of them I frost as frown emojis, but a few are sob ones. I watch Funny Face twice and sing along with my favorite songs. Cookies don’t typically go with beers, but they go with them tonight. Mia gets home around ten. Wordlessly I hand her the plate.

“So does this mean I have to take it down?” “What?” She points her bottle at the wall next to the conundrum window. A new cross-stitch in a wooden frame hangs here. I go over. There, between two beautiful and elaborately embroidered flowers, is a meticulously stitched saying: Sex with me is a dirty, savage affair. Utterly uncivilized. “Oh my god! You have finally gone insane.” She takes it off the nail. “It’s stupid.” “No!” I grab it out of her hand and hang it back up. “It’s funny. At least he gave us a laugh.”

The next thing I know, she’s whispering into my ear. “Wake up, motherfucker.”

“The Instagram strategy. All those reports. Tell me.” He looks serious. “It was yours, wasn’t it? Everything that Sasha took credit for?” “Not all of it. She did all those whitepapers. Like a demon.” He looks away, angry. I wouldn’t want to be Sasha. “Dude, people take credit for underlings’ work at Vossameer all the time. It’s a grim and competitive atmosphere. It’s not good.” “The people who are attracted to Vossameer are competitive. They’re the best of the best.” “I have a perspective from the bottom rung. I’m telling you. People are uptight and unhappy. They admire you in a kind of frightened way, and it keeps them from being relaxed and creative.” He seems surprised. “You think they’re unhappy?” Has nobody ever told him anything like that? “I know they are. You ban decorations, and even microwave popcorn. People love microwave popcorn!” “Microwave popcorn is a ridiculous food. It has zero nutritional value and barely even any taste. It’s like eating smell. And it distracts everyone else.” “Yeah, well people love it. Why not let them have it?” “I’m not running a circus.” “Isn’t a scientist supposed to be open to new evidence?” I ask. “You need to do something to help people feel more loose and easy. I don’t know, praise them more. Let them have treats. Find ways to encourage them to be creative. Show they’re appreciated, make them feel more secure so they don’t have to work so late. You could make it so much better to work there.” He seems to be thinking about it. “An...

So the next morning when I’m lying in bed awake at the stupid hour of 4:29, I grab my phone and the little card with his handwriting, and I dial his number. It’s just a phone call, right? “Wake up, motherfucker,” I say when he answers. “What was that?” he grumbles sternly. “I’m sorry for the abrupt way I left breakfast,” I say. “Fuck buddies don’t need apologies, haven’t you heard?” “I feel like this one does.” “I got into your business,” he says. “You hate that.” “I do,” I say. “Were you awake already?” “Yeah,” he says. “Were you waiting for my call?” “Yup.” “So what happens now? Do you have a home gym for your insanely punishing workout?” “First I’m planning on taking a walk and watching the birds fall from the trees, stunned by my glory. And then the workout. What makes you think it’s insanely punishing?” “You’re a bulletproof coffee-drinking workaholic with an unbelievably perfect body who sleeps four hours a night. Let’s call it an educated guess.” He makes a little noise, something like a chuckle-groan, followed by rustling, like maybe he rolled over. I wish so hard I was there. “Are you in your bedroom?” I ask. “Yup.” “What does it look like?” “You ruled out home visits yesterday. Are we sure about home descriptions?” “Pleeeeease.” I want to know. I want to picture him. “There are three arched windows in front of me that face west. I can see the moon right now. Building tops. Lights. Long gray curtains on either side.” “Gray walls?” “White walls,” he says. “Dark woo...

One time, he texts me a rental listing of a space that would be perfect for me. His message says, “Let’s figure this out. We can make this work.” I grit my teeth. Is this not what I asked him not to do? Like a masochist, I click through it, looking at each and every picture, wanting just to cry. I call him up. “Don’t do that. Don’t send me these.” “It’s the perfect space.” “The perfect space they’d never rent to me. And I couldn’t afford it even if they did say yes.” “You could afford it if I invested. Cosigned.” “You mean if I let you be my sugar daddy and rent it for me? And then you’d be able to take it away on a whim?” “I wouldn’t do that.” “Theo—” “It’s ridiculous to move away when you don’t have to.” “It’s not ridiculous to me,” I say. “Do you not understand why I need to do this on my own? However you dress it up, this plan would give you power over my existence. I know it seems unreasonable to you, but I want you to respect it’s a thing with me. Okay?”

She stands there a long time, gazing out over the park, and I have this sense that she belongs here, that she’s always been here in some impossible way. As if her being here stretches beyond time. I want to tell her that, but I don’t. One strong shift in the breeze and she’ll disappear like a wisp of fog.

“It’s sort of funny,” I continue, “I was telling him the story about how I fell into the theme cookie niche, and I kept trying to shorten the story, because Mason would get bored with stories like that, but Theo was all, ‘Wait, back up. I want every detail.’” “Dude, please,” Mia says. “He’s fascinated with you.” Goes both ways, I think. “And he never tells me what to do. He respects my instincts. In a weird way, I feel…admired.” “So weird!” Mia jokes.

“Do you not see the problem here? Do you not see how monumental the deceit is? I asked you to respect a thing that’s important to me and you tricked me.” “I didn’t want to lose us. I didn’t want to look back and think, if only I hadn’t…” The words die on my lips. The hurt in her eyes is breaking me. I want to go to her, touch her, hold her, but I caused the hurt. She looks away. “What is the one thing I asked of you?” I hesitate, desperate for some way to take away the pain. “What is the one simple thing?” “To respect your wishes. To not try to control you.” “And what did you do?” “I fell for you.” “You tried to control me.” “I know,” I say. “I messed up.” “No, missing a date because you’re absorbed in your work would be messing up.” “Please,” I say helplessly. “Give us another chance.” “I can’t,” she says. “You can’t just leave.” “It was always going to happen.” She looks around. “Thank you for…” “No.” I go to her, but she puts up her hand. “Don’t follow me, either. I’m asking you for that one thing.” “I don’t want to live without an us.” She regards me with that gaze that used to hold so much trust. It’s all gone now. “I’m sorry,” I say. I know. She mouths it. Maybe she whispers it. My pulse is whooshing too hard for me to tell. I know. And with that, the most precious thing in my life walks out the door. Everything in me yearns to follow her. I ball my fists, force myself to stay. Disrespecting her wishes, that’s how I got into this mess. The one thing I asked you. I st...

Later that night, I pull my new egg pan out of my cupboard, just to touch something she picked out for me. I turn it over and over, musing about the nature of space and time. How close yet distant that moment was. How happy I felt. It seems baffling that I can touch something she touched last, put my fingers exactly where hers rested, but the whole world is different. I order some groceries and teach myself to make an omelet off YouTube. As if that might bring her closer in some vague way. It only outlines her absence. Now I’m just a man who can make himself an omelet.

Mia and I put on fun outfits and hit happy hour at our favorite place for one last time, a fusion taco place that has crazy margaritas. She doesn’t have any auditions this weekend and my catering job is really slowing. After margarita number two, Mia talks me into going to the old restaurant where we used to work, which seems like a great idea at the time. But then everybody finds out I’m leaving in a week, the drinks are suddenly lining up in front of us. And we’re laughing and feeling wild, except for the time when we cry so hard about how we’ll miss each other that we get mascara spiders under our eyes, and then we laugh-cry.

Sometimes I secretly study Lizzie’s parents for clues of how to have a good marriage—out at dinner, sitting around the fire, when we drop by the pizzeria. Lizzie laughed when I told her that, but I never saw a successful marriage up close, and that’s what I want for us.