Jake

I wake up earlier than Jana usually does.

A lot earlier.

She makes a growling sound as I roll out of bed, and I kiss the top of her head. “Go back to sleep.”

“What are you doing up?” she mumbles.

“I’ll workout while I catch up on the markets out of Europe and Asia, then we can have breakfast before I head to the office.”

“’Kay.”

She’s back to dreamland before I’ve got my shorts on.

I’ve got a workout room at the other end of my apartment. I turn on the TV, then put my Bluetooth headset on and use the voice commands to pull up my email and messenger apps on the second screen.

Aston Corp systems and Starfish Instrumentation hardware. Toby and I make some pretty slick stuff these days. Well, us, a thousand engineers, and ten thousand skilled manufacturing workers.

It’s too early to see Toby on our private message chain, because he’s on the West Coast, but Ben comes online as I’m racing into my third mile.

He has two sisters, but he means Elana, who also lives in New York. She owns a cosmetics company, but also sits on the board of their family company, Gladiator Inc, where Ben is now the CEO.

Their baby sister, Cara, lives in Canada and does her best to ignore the family business.

No reason to hide that.

And how.

From down the hall, I hear Jana moving around.

She spends all day in meetings with her editorial and production team, then she has dinner with her agent, so I work late. When she texts me that she’s done, I meet her at the Starbucks next to the restaurant they were at. We walk back to my place, holding steaming lattes in our outside hands, the fingers of our near hands entwined.

“Did you have a good day?” I ask her.

“I did. I like going into the office. Most of the time my work is so solitary. And then getting to spend another night with you is a sweet treat, too, even if we don’t get much sleep.”

“You can sleep in tomorrow.”

“But not with you.”

“I could be convinced to come back to bed after I check the markets.” I give her an easy, broad grin as my doorman welcomes us to my building. “Thanks, Pierre.”

She waits until we’re on the elevator before responding. “I don’t want to drag you away from work.”

I crowd against her, unbuttoning her coat. “Please drag me. I can work after you leave again.”

We kiss, her pressing up on her toes and me curling down to meet her. I tangle my free hand in her hair as our lips brush, then press closer. Her tongue slides against mine, and suddenly we’re exchanging a lot more than passion. Her lips tremble against mine as I lick her skin and taste her fear, her regret.

“I’m starting to realize a long distance relationship comes with a lot of negotiation and compromise,” I whisper as the elevator stops on the top floor. I swipe my key access so the doors open, revealing my private foyer. “Come on.”

We set our lattes down and strip each other out of our winter clothes.

It’s an hour before we wander back to fetch our now-cold coffees. I drink mine, making a face, and Jana laughs. “We could go out and get another one. Or use that fancy machine in your kitchen.”

“I’ll do that, too.” I grab her hand and drag her into the kitchen. “Two nights in a row using this space. It’s a record.”

“I’ll have to visit more often.” She says it in a teasing way, but yes, I want that. I pull her close and rub my hand up and down her back. She’s wearing my shirt and nothing else, and I want her again.

But just as I’m about to suggest a counter orgasm, her phone chimes, and she regretfully spins away.

I make a coffee for myself and a hot chocolate for her, then meet her in the living room. She’s furiously typing an email, so I grab my tablet and get into some work myself.

After a while, she sets her phone down and starts pacing.

I glance up. “Everything okay?”

“Yes. Great.” Her face is tight, though.

“Really?”

She laughs, then goes back to frowning. “Yes. Super. I just got a green-light to present another line of cards—but I don’t have an idea. And they want to hear a pitch in the morning.”

“Can I help?”

She shakes her head. “I just need to do some thinking. What are you working on?”

I tilt the tablet so she can see the screen. “Reviewing mission letters for the new executive team at SwiftEx. We just poached a kid from Silicon Valley to be the new COO—that was the first successful hire. We’ll have more, though, and I want all the positions to have clear instructions from me for when they hit the ground running. So I drafted letters earlier today and they went through legal and HR. Now they’re back to me.”

“That sounds…complicated. And here I’m stressed because I can’t think of phrases that rhyme with booze.”

I set the tablet down on my chest. “You have my full attention.”

She rolls her eyes. “Go back to what you were doing.”

“No, seriously, this fascinates me.”

“Umm. Okay. So…everyone likes a margarita, right? Or a martini? That’s my hypothesis, anyway. The key to a good line of cards is that when someone is standing there buying one card, they like another, too, and then they buy both. Getting someone to buy just one card isn’t enough—they won’t remember you that way. But if you can sell them on a couple of cards, enough that they start to see the similarities in illustration or writing style, then you’ve got a fan.”

I lean forward and brace my arms on my knees. “So…how can you connect this new idea to what people have liked in the past? Like the everyday superhero pictures?”

Her eyes go wide and she snaps her fingers. “Yes. Everyday…everyday… Gah. That’s it, but it’s still hazy.” She purses her lips together and nods. “I’ll get it. Anyway, go back to your work.”

“Do you want me to give you some quiet thinking space? Because I like talking about this.”

“Space first. Then I’ll tell you where the thoughts land. Deal?”

My heart swells in my chest and I lean back. “Steal of a deal.”

When she returns to Baltimore, we start talking more on the phone. I find myself calling her when I might have reached out to Ben or Toby in the past, when I need an understanding sounding board who doesn’t have a vested interest in whatever I decide.

And I want to hear about her work, too. She finally figures out what rhymes with martini, and an everyday “congratulations, you’ve survived!” line of cards is borne.

January folds into February. We go skiing with her family, although Jana manages to avoid using my last name and other than a “rich guy from New York,” they don’t exactly know who I am.

I’m fine with that.

She meets Ben, and I meet Nina.

March brings a big storm to the East coast, and we end up snowed in together for two days. I make her hot chocolate and peppermint lattes and she draws pictures of me at work.

My invitation to the Met Gala arrives, and I make a sizeable donation to the charity.

“What are you doing the first week of May?” I ask her.

“Drawing pictures and trying to convince my cats not to go crazy at the windows just because spring is blooming, probably. I lead a very glamorous life,” she teases.

“Can you get a cat sitter? I’d like to take you to a thing in the city.”