Page 74 of Wells

The hostess seats us at a corner table where the light barely reaches, and Cera slides in across from me. She unfolds her napkin and lays it over her lap without looking up, the motion unhurried, the same hands that ran down her chest under my command on a screen I will never mention to her. I know that movement now. I know a hundred of them.

The server takes the order, white wine for her, bourbon for me. When he goes, the quiet comes down over the table, and it's not comfortable.

I lean my forearms on the cloth. "I was cold with you yesterday."

She tilts her head. "Is that an apology or meeting minutes?"

My mouth wants to lift and I let it. She never hands me an easy out and she isn't about to start. "Funny."

She waits. She's good at it. She doesn't fill the silence, she lets it work on me, and it does.

"I've had things pressing on me. Work, and other things." I move my hand over the table, a useless gesture, because the rest of it has no shape I can give her. "I handled it badly. You didn't earn that."

"Okay." Her voice gives me nothing.

I press my thumb to the edge of the table. "I don't do this often."

"Do what?"

"Apologize."

She blinks slowly and takes a deep inhale. "I gathered."

The server sets the wine down. She lifts the glass for a sip, and her throat works when she swallows. There it is again, Peoria, surfacing in the woman across the table, her bare mouth where the painted red usually sits. It's so obvious now I can't understand how I missed it through all of our calls. I leave my bourbon where it is. I have no business dulling anything tonight.

"I want this to be something." The words come out flat. "You and me."

She sets the glass down and raises her eyebrow. "You want this to be something? It's something, alright."

"I'd like to see you outside of work." I say it more plainly, because I mangled it the first time.

"You're my boss, Wells."

"I'm well aware of that."

She leans back. "Is that even allowed?"

For a second, the old wiring takes over, the part of me that has spent thirty years deciding the smart move is the closed door. Maybe I read this wrong. Maybe it was only ever heat for her, a thing to burn off between deadlines, and I turned it into more on my own.

"I hear you."

She studies me, and I make myself stay in it and let her look. "What exactly do you want with me, Wells?"

The want is right there, and the words are nowhere near it. "Forget it. Forget I said anything."

The retreat is automatic. It's what I do. Close the door before it closes on you. This is why I swore off of real relationships.

She doesn't let me drop it. She picks up her wine and holds it without drinking, watching me over the rim.

"No, I want you to use your words to tell me. I'm not going to try to decode what anything means anymore."

Something in my chest pulls loose. "I'm not good at this."

"I can tell."

She folds her hands on the table. "Then tell me what real means to you."

I don't have it ready. I've spent my whole life making sure no one ever asks me a question like that, and now she has, and the answer is so simple it scares me.