Should I have let him stay?

Despite it still feeling pretty warm out, I’d grabbed my ratty old terrycloth robe from its hook on the bathroom door and pulled it on.

My apartment looked out onto the street, and it afforded me a view of Neil getting into a taxi and driving away.

The thing was, it took no effort at all to imagine the two of still in bed together. My head resting on his chest. His arm around my shoulders, holding me close. The two of us just enjoying the afterglow of it all, then drifting off to sleep.

I’ll bet he would’ve wanted to get breakfast together, too. He wanted to stay.

And I’d wanted him to stay, too. And that was why I’d kicked him out. Why I’d turned our lovely date into nothing more than an extended booty call.

Telling myself everything was better this way didn’t help very much, either. The sentiment sounded hollow.

Maybe I can get him to come back. Somehow I knew, even at that moment, that if I texted or called him he’d turn right around. Be on my doorstep

Block him. Erase his number.

It was the only way I knew I wouldn’t make a mistake like trying to contact him again.

My phone was by the door, where I’d put it when we first came in.

My robe swished around my ankles while I walked.

There was my phone. It was one of those Samsung Galaxy things, a large rectangle of technology almost big enough to be called a tablet.

All the better for looking at cat pictures on Twitter while on break.

I started for it. Before I could reach it someone knocked on the door. Three quick, sharp raps. I jerked.

“Neil?” I said. In my mind, I pictured him making the cabbie turn the car around. Pictured him tapping his thumb against the elevator call button before giving up on that and pounding up the stairs. I smiled at that picture.

I opened the door.

It wasn’t Neil out in the hallway but Suzy. She had her Compare Foods bag slung under one arm. A bottle of her favorite Riesling poked out of that bag.

“Suze?” I said, my mind blanking. It was like if you picked up a drink expecting it to be soda but you got a mouthful of milk instead. Your brain just didn’t know how to process the unexpected taste right away.

“Hey, you left us all hanging,” Suzy said.

Then she took a step back and looked at me, really looked at me.

I could imagine the sort of picture I made. Ratty bath robe over hastily pulled on clothes. Hair in disarray. I could still feel that flush of heat in my skin.

“Oh. My. God,” Suzy said. Her mouth dropped open and she put a hand over it. I could see the laughter in her eyes.

The flush in my cheeks turned to one of embarrassment. “Stop.”

She dropped her hand, revealing the smile beneath. “Here I was, coming to your place with wine because I figured you’d need consoling. Instead, it turns out you had a way better night than I did!”

“Stop!” I said again, that heat in my cheeks turned to burning.

She stepped inside, grabbed me by the arm. “You have to tell me everything. Everything! Mama needs all the details.”

Suzy led me by the arm into my living room. I cast one last glance over my shoulder at my phone.

I’ll delete him from it after she goes.

I didn’t.

***

HE DIDN’T CALL OR TEXT on Sunday. When I got to work Monday morning, I checked my phone before I logged into the system.

No new notifications.

That’s a good thing, I told myself. Because this was what I wanted. And I guess it turned out that, after some reflection, he wanted the same thing. One night of, and I sneered a little at the idea, uninhibited passions.

One night to get ourselves out of each other’s system.

I ignored the low sensation of disappointment at the pit of my stomach. And I did my best to ignore the desire to pick up my phone and check it every few minutes. You know, just in case the notifications functions got turned off somehow.

I put my elbows on my desk and rubbed at my closed eyes. The pressure was nice.

Just breathe. This is what I wanted. This is a good thing. Get back to work and stay there.

I started typing my username and password in, then my office phone rang.

I frowned at it when it rang for a second time. No one called me on this phone. The management had been pushing for everyone to switch to email for all but the most urgent of communications since before I came on.

Some irrational part of me wondered if it was Neil on the other side of that line. That he’d gotten this number somehow.

A silly thing, I know. But a little thread of excitement made its way up the front of my stomach.

Third ring.

I picked up the handset. “Hello? I mean, Hi, this is Rachel.”

“Rachel, this is Mr. Diehl’s office. Please come straight away,” the secretary said.

“Oh, uh, yeah, of course. Is there something wrong?” I said. I thought immediately of those analytics reports I’d meant to finish on Saturday. I hadn’t finished them Sunday, either.

Did I tell him I’d have them by Monday?

I couldn’t remember. This is Neil’s fault, I thought, rather petulantly. Even though it took two to do what we did. And I was a very willing participant.

Still, if he hadn’t showed up those analyses would be on Mr. Diehl’s desk (well, in his email account) right at that very moment.

“He’ll speak to you when you see him,” the secretary said, rather cryptically. Then she hung up.

“Hello? Uh, hell—. Well then, bye to you, too.”

I tried not reading too much into that rather cold conversation. Just because Mr. Diehl’s secretary spoke like that didn’t mean that Mr. Diehl would.

I walked to his office, which was on the other side of our high-walled cubicle farm. I passed by as people tapped their keyboards or spoke softly into their phones. Somewhere a printer hummed.

It was a quiet workplace. They didn’t want, as Mr. Diehl put it, a “Millennial Party Office.” And I usually liked it that. But today, as I walked through that relative quiet, I found it unnerving.

It gave me too much space to imagine all the scenarios where something could be wrong.

Not only did he want those analytics reports, he wanted some other report I can’t even remember forgetting.

There was some important meeting that I didn’t attend because I forgot to check my email.

Maybe he wants to give me a promotion?

That final one seemed like the least likely scenario to me, even if it was the most welcome one.

I left the cubicle farm and found myself in the hall of office suites adjacent to it. The people inside these offices grew more important to the company the closer you got to the end of the hall.

Also the closer you came, the more of these offices had secretaries sitting at the our own desks, many of them typing with the glow of their computer monitors on their faces, or speaking into their phones about how Mr. So-and-So was a busy man and couldn’t take your call right now, please try again later.

Mr. Diehl’s office sat almost, but not quite, at the end of the corridor. There was one other office past his.

Then the true bigwigs began, one floor up. I’d never been to any of their offices.

I’d made plenty of reports to Mr. Diehl in the past, and his secretary recognized me.

“Go right in; he’s expecting you,” she said.

She was an older woman, maybe just a few years younger than my mom. She kept her graying hair in a tight ponytail. I suspected it was to keep the skin on her forehead pulled taut.

Why pay for Botox when you just needed a hair elastic and a can-do attitude?

She peered at me through a pair of cat’s-eye glasses.

I stopped by her desk, my heart kicking up a notch and wedging at the bottom of my throat.

“Do you know what this is regarding?” I said. I tried to sound like a confident, professional woman.

The question, to me at least, came out quavering. Like a little girl sent to the principal’s office for the first time, uncertain what to expect.

“I don’t. Go in, he’s expecting you,” she replied.

She cut off any further questioning by turning back to her computer. From the corner of my eye I glimpsed Microsoft Office and a myriad of unread emails.

“Julia? Is that the Smith girl?” That was Mr. Diehl, asking from within his office.

“Yes, Mr. Diehl, she’s on her way in now,” Secretary Julia said, looking up at me as though to ask why I was just standing there.

I smiled nervously, then went inside.

Mr. Diehl’s office was spacious, and its big window afforded a nice view of midtown. He sat with his back to this view.

His jacket hung on a hook by the door. His crisp white shirt was buttoned all the way up, the knot of the black tie he wore was tight. No room for slacking with him, not even any for himself.

His hair was silver and his face was lined, but his eyes, green eyes, were sharp and aware.

At that moment, they seemed acutely aware of me.

“Sit,” he said.

I sat, crossing my knees and folding my hands on my lap. Oh God, is this what I usually do with my hands?

I hated feeling nervous like this. Hated not knowing what this was about. I decided to nip it in the bud.

“If this is about those analytics I started on the weekend, I’ll have them to you by the end of the day. Something came up and pulled me away from work, but now it has my full...”

He held up one hand, palm out. Quiet, that hand said.

“This isn’t about that.”

“Oh,” I said.

The collar of my shirt felt tight around my throat, and I resisted the urge to reach up and loosen it.

Then what the hell is this about?