Page 45 of Ricardo

“You have said that often tonight.”

“You keep helping me.”

“I know.”

Her eyes lift to mine, and the office seems even quieter than before.

“I don’t know what to do with that,” she admits.

The honesty is simple, and it lands harder because of it.

I keep my voice low. “You do not have to do anything with it.”

She swallows.

For a second, I think she may say something else. Something that would keep me here with her longer than either of us should allow.

Instead, she nods.

I walk her to the elevator.

Neither of us speaks as we cross the darkened hall. The silence is not uncomfortable. It is careful. There is a difference, and I think she feels it too because she does not rush to fill it.

At the elevator bank, I press the button for her.

The doors open almost immediately.

She steps inside, then turns back to face me with her bag over one shoulder.

“Good night, Ricardo.”

“Good night, Julia.”

The doors begin to close.

Before they meet, she says, “Tomorrow, then.”

“The espresso machine,” I say.

“The espresso machine.”

Then the doors close, and she is gone.

I stand there for a moment, listening to the elevator descend.

When I return to Mario’s sitting area, the floor is clean, the broken glass is in the trash, and the machine sits innocently on the counter. I pick up our empty cups from the floor and rinse them in the sink. Hers still has a faint mark of lipstick on the rim.

I do not let myself look at it for long.

I dry the cups, set them back, and retrieve my jacket from the chair.

The Reeves documents are still waiting in my office. So is the financing proposal, my headache, and the rest of a workday I should have ended hours ago.

But for the first time tonight, I am not thinking about any of that.

I am thinking about Julia sitting on the floor in her designer suit, asking me for something small.

Teach me how to use the espresso machine.