Jill chuckled and kissed Robin’s jawline.
“How about you?” Robin moved her head slightly and kissed Jill’s forehead.
“Same boat as you.”
“Good. You can help me steer it.”
Jill snuggled closer, and her shift in position allowed Robin to move her arm and stroke Jill’s hair, valiantly ignoring the protestations of her nerves as they fired awake.
“I think we probably missed lunch,” Robin said after a while.
“Guess we’ll have to go with dinner. But I don’t really want to leave this bed yet, especially with you in it.”
“I say we eat in, then. There’s a really good pizza place a couple blocks away. Seriously. You will never have pizza that good in Seattle.”
Jill laughed. “Fine. I’m in.” She shifted again and was suddenly on top of Robin, staring down into her eyes and there was nothing else in the world in that moment beyond Jill. But from somewhere within, Robin’s newfound emotional responsibility kicked in.
“I suppose we should talk about this,” she said, not taking her eyes off Jill’s.
“About…”
“These new circumstances.”
A slow smile tugged at the corners of Jill’s mouth. “We should. But I think over pizza is a more appropriate time, don’t you?”
Robin smiled back. “Works for me.”
And this time their lovemaking heated quickly, and it tore the bedsheets off the mattress, and erupted several times between them, until they both collapsed, tangled in blankets and each other, breathing heavily. Robin held Jill close and remembered that the last time she’d spent this long in bed with a woman had been with Jill, a month after they’d slept together the first time.
This was different, though, for both of them, she sensed. Newer, somehow, and deeper. So much deeper, both of them bringing to the bed their wounds, scars, and extra years, their vulnerabilities and strengths, revealing them only to each other. Robin’s chest tightened. She’d never felt like this with anyone, not even Jill the first time they’d connected. Something had changed, triggering even more between them, and as much as it scared and confused her, it grounded her, too. She wanted more. But she wasn’t sure how to make that work, especially as she tried to get her own life back on track.
“Shower and pizza,” Jill said after another long delicious while. “Join me.”
Robin obliged, though the shower stall only served as another venue for continued exploration. Robin traced the lines of Jill’s dragon tattoo with her lips down her shoulder and back, and Jill traced more than that until the water cooled, and they hurried to finish, laughing and kissing.
Robin went to pick up the pizza—thank God for pizza joints open on New Year’s Day—while Jill stayed behind to make some phone calls. The first day of the new year, and the late afternoon sun reflected off building windows, creating patterns and shadows on neighboring structures. Robin took a few photos with her phone on the way, and thought about the North by Northwest Foundation and the possibility of moving to Seattle.
It occurred to her that even if she didn’t get that job, she’d go to Seattle anyway. That’s where she had to be, and not necessarily because of Jill or a job, but just because it was part of her journey and maybe, in a way, part of getting back on track. Robin knew that with a weird certainty, and she also knew that she and Jill would have to decide what this was between them and what they wanted to do with it. Christmas Future still made Robin nervous, but what had happened between her and Jill felt so mind-blowingly and utterly right that she decided that wasn’t the problem.
The problem, she knew, was her. And Jill’s solution was really that simple. Don’t hurt her. Did Robin have the wherewithal to overcome the bad coping strategies she’d used over the years? The ones that drove people away, elevated her to queen bitch, and ate a hole in her soul?
She had to. It was that simple. And that hard. Robin carried the pizza back to Jill’s, and she knew she had to tell her some things. Maybe not her experience with the Bureau, but some other things. Jill could make any decisions about what she wanted to do once they’d talked, and whatever her decision, Robin would respect it.
“Okay, you’re right. I have yet to find pizza this good in Seattle.” Jill finished her first piece. She’d never eaten the crust ends, and Robin smiled as Jill tossed one into the box.
“Told you.” They were sitting on the couch, the pizza box on the coffee table along with their bottles of water. Robin finished her piece, crust end and all, and picked up another.
Jill reached over and brushed a strand of Robin’s hair away from her face, an intimate and tender gesture, and Robin stopped chewing, caught in it.
“So talk,” Jill said. “You first.”
Robin finished chewing and swallowed. She took a drink of water and set the rest of her pizza on a napkin. “Okay.” She hesitated. She wasn’t sure where to start. Jill didn’t say anything, just waited. “All right,” Robin continued. “Remember Cynthia, who you met briefly when we were at the tree after our first lunch?”
“Yes. You said she was something you weren’t proud of.”
“Yeah.” Robin grimaced. “I’m not.” And she told Jill about how she’d seduced Cynthia, thinking it would be fun but also an in at Frost, and about how she’d broken it off only to get into Cynthia’s crosshairs. And then she told her about what Frost had said to her on Monday, about closing her position and sending her to China. She stopped, watching Jill’s face, looking for judgment or recrimination. It never came.
“Damn,” Jill said instead. “That’s a lot on your plate. I see now why you’ve been saying you’re going through a transitional period. How do you feel about the Cynthia situation?”
“Fucking stupid. I told you, I’ve done a lot of shitty things, and that’s up there at the top of the list. And not just because it probably helped cost me my job.” And maybe a lot of other jobs in corporate America. Robin didn’t voice that part. “I don’t know, exactly, why I did it, looking back on it. I can justify it by saying I wanted to try to get ahead with Frost through Cynthia’s husband. Or I was bored, and she was hot. I can make all kinds of excuses, but none of them justify it. That was the bad side of me, and I hate that I have one of those.”
“Well, it’s done. And now you have to work with what you’ve got.”
“I also hate that you know that story.”
Jill sat back, expression inscrutable. “Why?”
“Because it puts me in a really bad light.”
“So tell me a couple of good things to balance it out.”
“All right. And fortunately for both of us, I can. I did undo a couple of my layoffs.”
“What do you mean?”
“I laid a couple of people off before Christmas, saw the error of my ways, and brought them back into their positions.”
Jill smiled. “I’d say that’s a much better light.”
“And I did a presentation that was supposed to be a ticket to my next promotion, but I didn’t believe in the company anymore. Or maybe I was just seeing things differently about my life. I’m not sure yet. Anyway, my assistant put together a really great presentation that highlighted better business practices, and I did that one. Totally not the company line, and I’m sure it helped cement my boss’s decision to get rid of me. But the board liked it, and I gave credit to her.”
“There. That’s a good balance.” Jill squeezed Robin’s hand. “We all screw up, and we all do things that we can never be proud of. What you can be proud of is you’re owning it and learning from it. And doing things differently as a result.”
Robin shrugged and picked up her piece of pizza. “I hope so.”
“The woman that Drew caught me with wasn’t the first I’d slept with after we married.”
Robin stopped chewing and stared at her.
“The first was a
lso married to a man, who happened to be a friend of Drew’s. I’m not sure how it happened. It seems one afternoon we were just hanging out in her kitchen, and then we were in bed together.” Jill shook her head. “Bad scene, and you can imagine how weird it was to be around her. Neither of us ever mentioned it after it happened.”
Robin finished chewing and swallowed. She didn’t say anything.
“I was so unhappy,” Jill continued. “Not with Madison, of course. And not with Drew. I liked him then, and I like him still. But I was so unhappy being in a situation where I couldn’t be myself. I couldn’t express who I truly was with him, and I felt I had been pressured into the marriage by my family. I also had a tremendous amount of guilt because I could never be the woman Drew needed or wanted, and I only compounded it by cheating on him. So I can empathize with hating that you know something about me that I’m not proud of.” Jill reached for another piece of pizza. “Like I said, it’s done. And you have to work with what you’ve got. So in light of all this revelation between us, do you think you want to stay at Frost?”
Robin shook her head. “It’s weird, but even when Brady pulled that crap in the conference room, I was already thinking about leaving.”
“Oh? Why?”
“Long story.” And it involved secret agents who may or may not exist, time travel, and possible hallucinations. But that she wouldn’t talk about. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Jill gave her a look, as if she knew Robin wasn’t going to tell her everything. “And China’s out of the question?”
“Yeah. In this instance. No offense to China.” She gave Jill a sheepish smile. “I’ve been to that branch. It’s sort of the Siberia of Frost Enterprises.”
Jill finished her pizza and tossed the crust end into the box before she took Robin’s hand. “There are many parts of China that might be like Siberia, actually. My own family says things like that. So you don’t want to pursue this particular transfer.”
Robin shook her head. “No. Maybe a year ago I would have, but realistically, even then it wouldn’t get me any kind of advancement. I had some blinders on regarding Frost and the overall work culture there.”
“Okay, quick. What’s the first thing you think of when you think of Frost Enterprises?”
“Hell.”
Jill fought a laugh, but Robin could see it pulling at her mouth. “Can you be a little more specific?”
Robin thought for a moment. “Did you ever see the movie The Matrix?”
The laugh escaped. “You’re saying you took the red pill.”
Robin looked at her with appreciation. “Exactly. That movie is a good description for how I’ve been feeling lately. I was a cog in a wheel, only there was no chance for advancement no matter how hard I worked, and I could easily have stayed doing that. But then everything shifted, and I saw the error of my ways, I guess. That’s why I was already thinking about leaving before Cynthia—well, anyway.”
“The same thing happened to me at the bank where I’d been working,” Jill said. “Basically, I was a drone for about four years. I had epiphanies myself, for lack of a better word, and I realized that if I wanted to make my life better, and become the person I wanted to be, I had to do it. I had to just fucking do it. That was part of my red pill moment. I actually thought about that movie, too, when I was going through my self-evaluation. That’s when things started to change, and not all of it was easy.”
“No, clearly, changing is not easy.” Robin leaned back, acutely aware of Jill’s hand in hers, Jill’s thumb brushing over her knuckles. Curiously arousing but comforting, too.
“What’s next?”
“Not sure. I’ll be okay for a while. I’m pretty good at investing, turns out. I’ll be visiting Frank next month. I can stay longer, now. Not sure his wife will appreciate it.” She sighed. “I have a lot of repairs to do in that area, too.”
“I know how that feels.” Jill raised Robin’s hand to her lips and kissed it, letting her lips linger. “But people will respond to genuine effort and motivation. Just give it time.”
Robin looked at her. Lady Magnolia had said something similar last night. “Can I ask what happened that put you in the position to pick the red pill?”
Jill didn’t answer right away, as if she was considering her words. “Basically, a series of events forced me to think about some things I’d done, was doing, and would be doing. Sometimes, we don’t like what we see in the mirror or how the things we do affect others. Repercussions can last for years.”
“I can relate to that. Something similar happened to me. And I’m kind of sorry that you have to deal with me on the cusp of whatever the hell it is I’m trying to do.”
“I’m not.” Jill squeezed Robin’s hand.
Robin’s chest and throat tightened, as if she was going to cry. She swallowed. “Since we’re in true confessions mode, I’m thinking about Seattle,” she said, tentative.
“For what reasons?”
“I want to go home. I’m looking for a new beginning in a place that created me. The me I miss the most. And there’s this thing that’s telling me to go, that it’s what I’m supposed to do.”
“The directorship at North by Northwest is open.” Jill ran her fingers up Robin’s arm, exposed because she’d rolled the sleeves of last night’s shirt up, and delightful little chills accompanied her touch. “I might have hoped Danielle would have mentioned it.” She put extra innocence in her tone.
Robin grinned. “She did. But only because I’d already applied.”
“Well. Small world. Good luck.” Jill smiled and leaned in and kissed her.
After a few moments, Robin pulled away, as loath as she was to do it. Her sense of responsibility had kicked in again. “Let me say something.”
Jill sat back, waiting.
“I want to make sure that you understand that as great as it is that you’re based there, I don’t expect you to drop everything—or anything, for that matter—and invite me into your life. I know that you’ve got things going on, and that you don’t want to bring just anybody into Madison’s life. And it may take me a while to get there, by which time you might have something else entirely going on. Point being, go on doing what you’re doing and don’t feel obligated.”
Jill raised an eyebrow. “I appreciate that, but maybe you’re jumping a whole bunch of guns. So how about this—we stay in touch and see where things go and what the situation may be? Because I actually want to do that.”
Robin nodded and smiled. “Or that.” Jill always could distill things to the most logical point.
“You don’t need to make things any more complicated than they already are.” She stroked Robin’s face, and Robin leaned into her touch. “There’s something happening here. I’m not sure yet what it is, though it’s clearly something, and I’m enjoying it, but both of us have some sorting and thinking to do.”
“I agree.” And Robin did. It should have made her anxious and either clingy or standoffish, but it didn’t. After last night and today, she was entirely ready to let go and trust whatever this process was. And maybe she should have worried that Jill would bail again, but she didn’t feel that, either. Besides, they were older now, and better equipped, for the most part, to deal with things. Robin hoped that was the case, though she seemed to be the one who had some catching up to do in that department.
Jill kissed her again. “So live with me in this moment. Because I really don’t want it to end.”
Robin did, and when she finally left, it was nearly nine that night. When she got off the train at the stop near her apartment, she checked her phone. Jill had texted her. Have dinner with me tomorrow.
Tell me when and where. She entered her building.
By the time she got on the elevator, Jill had texted her again. It could go longer than just dinner.
Robin grinned, sparks shooting down her thighs. I’ll ke
ep that in mind. Once inside her apartment she pulled her boots off. What a New Year’s Eve. And Day. What was the old saying? That whatever you’re doing on the first of the year will determine how you spend the rest of the year? God, she hoped so. Her phone dinged with another message from Jill, with a time and a restaurant. Whatever Robin had going at work, if it conflicted, she’d cancel it. Tomorrow was Jill’s last night in town, at least for a while, and she liked that—delusion or not—much more than anything Frost could dole out.
Got it. See you then. Can’t wait, she texted back. And then she sighed, because she did have to engage with reality for a while and check her emails. She changed into sweats and settled herself on the couch with her laptop, blinds open, and thoughts of Jill in the back of her mind.
CHAPTER 15
“Good morning,” Robin said to Laura. “What’s on the agenda today?”
“Morning.” Laura checked her monitor. “The usual. Nothing new.”
“No word from Frost?”
“Not on my phone.” Her eyes narrowed. “Something’s different about you.”
“What?”
Laura regarded her. “I’m not sure. But it’s good. Did you have a good New Year’s?”
“Spectacular.” Robin grinned and went into her office, leaving Laura to wonder about that. She set the duffle bag she’d brought onto her couch along with her work satchel. The duffle bag contained a set of after-work clothes and another set of work clothes for tomorrow, since she was hoping she’d be spending Jill’s last night in town with her. And Robin didn’t want to wear corporate to dinner. She didn’t like how it felt on her. Come to think of it, she never really had.
Robin checked her desk phone because the message light was blinking. Ah. Frost. He wanted to see her as soon as she got in. “Here we go,” she muttered as she erased it.
“Going to Frost’s,” Robin said to Laura when she stepped out of her office a few moments later.
Based on her expression, Laura sympathized. “On the plus side, I just heard from Mr. Pruitt’s office.”
The Bureau of Holiday Affairs Page 22
