“I’m going to give you some advice. It’s not something we talk about a lot around here, because frankly most of us haven’t heard of the concept of work-life balance, but I don’t want to lose you like we lost Evan.”
“Evan?” Pretend like you haven’t seen his dick. Pretend like you haven’t seen his dick.
Nancy raised an eyebrow. “You wouldn’t have made it this far in politics if you didn’t have a good memory for names and faces. Especially when your boss introduces you and tells you they used to work down the hall.” She raised an eyebrow and leaned back against her cluttered desk. “Evan is brilliant and we miss him. But Evan also destroyed his mental and physical health here. I would never ask him to come back. He works at that restaurant because he can’t bear to stay entirely away, and everyone knows where to find him when they need an introduction or an opinion. I don’t want to find you catnapping at your desk between energy drinks until you’re shaking and passing out in the hallway choking on bile from lack of food and sleep.”
He’d told her he had a nervous breakdown and stomach issues. He hadn’t said how catastrophic it had been. “Did he really do that?”
Nancy eyed her carefully. “Yes, he did. I was the one to send him to the hospital that day. I don’t ever want to do that again.”
“So this is you putting the fear of god in me?”
“I’d deny it, but god, my deep disappointment, whatever kind of authority figure works for you.”
Tessa never wanted to see Nancy’s disappointed face. She owed her so much for taking a chance on her, for being thoughtful enough to buy her custom fucking planner stickers. That kind of authority figure would work for her.
“I promise to take some time off.” After the budget is off our plate and I’ve torn Senator Barnhardt a new one.
“Regularly, Tessa. I know you’re already making deals with yourself about what you’re going to do first. There will always be something you have to do before you can rest. It will never end, but you have to take care of yourself in order to be able to take care of others.”
“I know, I know. Oxygen masks or whatever.”
“Exactly. Go home early.” She shooed Tessa out of her office. “That’s not optional by the way.”
5
Tessa went back to her desk feeling like an even bigger asshole than she already had. Evan had given her the TLDR version of the story, but knowing that he had worked himself into literal collapse that had required hospitalization… Most people were exaggerating when they said nervous breakdown, but he hadn’t been kidding.
She owed him an apology. She wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t forgive her or didn’t want to speak to her again. It might be hard for him to be close to someone who lived and breathed government anyway. She wouldn’t want to be the person who sucked him back into the orbit of something that had nearly destroyed him.
She’d pushed because of her own history, her own baggage, and she’d hurt him in the process. She’d seen his face, the frustration, the anger, the sadness that she was just like everyone else who’d tried to woo him back by guilting him about his potential. Like he didn’t know about his own experience and education. He hadn’t walked away for no reason.
She knew as well as anyone how toxic this could be. Nancy was right that a large number of the people who stalked these hallways at all hours of the night and day scoffed at the concept of work-life balance. They ate, breathed, and slept politics. Why else would they continue to do it for lower pay than they could make in the private sector? And that was true everywhere. Staff advisors were never exactly rolling in cash and dividing her salary into an hourly wage was the most depressing kind of math.
Christ, Evan probably made better money bartending than he had in the state house with the added benefit of significantly less stress and an actual schedule.
She had no idea if he would be working that night, but it was the only way to find him. They hadn’t even had the chance to exchange numbers. She’d slept with him and she couldn’t even text him to say she was sorry for being a massive bitch. And doubly so, because she’d given him shit about his potential and she’d let Jacob’s weaselly little voice into her head, thinking Evan would be easy to hook up with and forget about because he was just a bartender, just a burnout. Her gut twisted with shame.
She worked until Nancy forced her out from behind her desk, threatening to have security escort her from the building. She also threatened to have IT change Tessa’s passwords if she caught her sending emails or marking up documents from home.
Ginsburg chirped enthusiastically when she got in, then looked past her like she was waiting for her new favorite person to join them. Fuzzy traitor. She flopped backward on her bed and plopped the cat on her chest, looking into her deep green eyes and scratching the softest spot behind her ears.
“You really liked him, huh?” Ginsburg purred and closed her eyes, leaning into Tessa’s fingernails. “Me too.”
The cat wriggled away when Tessa’s chest heaved in a sigh. She had hours to kill before she could go find Evan to say she was sorry, that she’d been wrong, and he deserved better than her judgmental ass.
She got up. This was her life now. She should unpack her stuff and live it.
* * *
Evan clocked in just after lunch died down. They’d have a couple of slow hours to reset and get ready for the evening. They’d go through pint glasses by the dozen during trivia, but most everything else would remain hanging in the racks above his head. Apparently they’d been swamped earlier by a Model UN field trip to the state house who hadn’t bothered to call ahead and make sure there would be seating for twenty-odd baby wonks and their frazzled chaperones.
Evan had been that kid once. Bright-eyed and naive, plotting all the ways his overly simplistic notions of policy were going to change the world. If only he knew then what he did now. Would it have changed the course of his life? Maybe he would have gone into direct social work, and maybe he would have been burned out on the relentless bureaucracy of state agencies instead of the policies that laid the red tape in the first place. He would have given himself stomach problems and insomnia fighting for the people who needed services and couldn’t get access to them.
Maybe he would have given up, become cynical about change, a fatalist who expected people and society to disappoint him at every turn, so he might as well get his first and fuck everyone else. But his hope was a stubborn thing, even now. He still believed that there was goodness and the possibility for progress. Which was probably why it still hurt so much when people like Tessa threw it back in his face and told him he wasn’t doing enough. That he’d wasted the potential of that bright-eyed, naive kid.
He shook his head and went back to wiping down glasses as they came out of the dishwasher racks and replacing them neatly in their slots. The repetitive task was soothing. He inventoried the bar supplies and fetched cases of wine from the store room, putting reserve bottles of whites into the small fridge at his feet, sniffing the open ones and getting rid of what had turned. The same thing every shift, and he was fine with that.
He filled the few orders that came in from late lunch stragglers between playing Tetris with the liquor bottles and straightening the displays of the top shelf stuff. He’d learned a lot about the subtle art of pushing brand-name liquor since he’d started working here. They shifted their specialty drink menu and the shelves with passing trends. Liquor trends were slow to catch on here, and they were largely still on whiskey. Good for the cold that bit the air at night, and good for the servers to upsell to people who didn’t know the difference between a quality bourbon and Old Crow.
Evan couldn’t drink more than a sip or two anymore before his stomach rebelled. Enough to sample when their sales reps came by and that was about it. It was strange to work behind a bar and not be able to drink in his off hours. He couldn’t party with the kitchen staff, and most of the servers bailed the minute their shifts were over and they’d traded out their singles for larg
er bills from the register. He hadn’t made many friends since he left civil service.
He’d been lonely enough to fool himself into thinking Tessa would be any different from the rest of them. A mistake he wouldn’t make again, even if it meant spending his nights at home by himself after closing.
Which meant the last person he expected to see rolling up to the bar with a nervous and chagrined look on her face was Tessa. She looked like she was about to puke on her own shoes, someone he’d refuse to serve because they were already green at the gills from too much. It was four in the afternoon.
Was it really that painful for her to come in and what? Ask him for advice and contacts after she’d turned her nose up at him this morning? Evan bristled and kept wiping water droplets off glassware.
She sighed behind him, and he would have been fine with her thinking better of whatever mission she was on and walking away. He was annoyed at himself for giving in to his loneliness, and it turned out he was still sore and pissed off at the way she’d talked to him that morning. He was good enough to take home for a night, but he was nothing but a loser burnout to her. Turned out, no matter how many times he’d heard it before, it still fucking stung.
“Evan?”
Her voice forced him to turn. With his luck management would get on his case for ignoring a customer, even though he knew she wasn’t here for a drink. “Whose number do you need, Tessa?”
She sat on a stool and propped her elbows on the gleaming surface of the bar, tracing patterns in the varnished wood grain with a fingertip. She finally looked up at him and lifted one corner of her mouth. “Yours, I hope?”
He left the rag on top of the dish rack. “I’m not here to be at your beck and call when you need something, Tessa. I don’t work for you or anyone else in the state house anymore.”
“Oh. Oh god. I’m— That came out wrong. Fuck.” She flexed and relaxed her fingers. “I’m sorry. I was a complete and total dick to you this morning. I barely know you and I have no right to make assumptions or demands about the way you live your life.”
She’d at least managed better than a faux I’m sorry if I made you feel that way apology, even if she appeared to be here under duress. She needed him to be on her side for some reason, and that meant trying to make amends for what she’d said. “What do you want me to do with that?”
“Nothing you don’t want to. I get it if you don’t want to speak to me and I will respect your boundaries. I just wanted to say it, because I am sorry and I was completely and thoroughly dead wrong. About everything. I made some shitty assumptions and I’m sorry.” She slipped off the stool. “And I’m sorry again for taking up your time at work. I didn’t know how else to find you.”
She shouldered her bag and turned for the door. For some idiotic reason, Evan wanted to believe her apology was sincere, that she didn’t want to use him for information, that she wanted to respect the choices he’d made in service of his health and wellbeing.
“Tessa, wait.” She paused with her back to him. “Thank you. I appreciate your apology and that you’re trying to understand.”
She spun slowly on the heel of her sensible flats. “So, can I still hang out here without it being weird? I won’t bother you for work stuff, I promise.”
Evan shook his head. “I could work anywhere in this town, but I work here, because it’s as close as I can allow myself to get to it without losing my mind. You can ask me things.”
“What if I’d rather, um, not ask you things because I don’t want to mix friends and politics?” Her whole face scrunched into an awkward sort of hopefulness. “The thing is, I had a really good time with you.” Her face fell again. “But I get it if you aren’t interested. I’m happy to be a patron of your bar that you occasionally talk state house bullshit with.”
It shouldn’t have been endearing to see her nervous about asking him if he wanted to be friends or more than friends when she’d demanded he watch her masturbate less than twenty-four hours ago. But it totally was. “Are we talking friends or special friends here, Tessa?”
Her face pinked. “Shut up. You’re making me feel like I just passed you a note in study hall. Do you like Tessa Montgomery, circle yes or no.”
* * *
Passing notes was much more humane than this. Filtering rejection through pen and paper, or through an extended game of telephone between friends was easier than waiting for Evan to tell her to fuck off and leave him alone. She hadn’t meant to come in here and tell him she wanted to see him again if he wasn’t still pissed at her. He had every right to never want to get closer to her than serving a drink. Or never wanting to see her again.
He’d said he appreciated her apology, but isn’t that what everyone said when you put them on the spot? It didn’t mean they were going to be friends. Or special friends.
Evan’s beard split into a grin, showing his neat white teeth as his head tipped back in laughter. “Should I pass a note back to you? Circle yes?”
“Would you?”
“I’m not going to say that you didn’t hurt me this morning. I should be used to it by now, but it’s worse when it comes from someone you like.”
“I really am sorry that I was so shitty and it sucks that people give you a hard time about it. There’s nothing wrong with being a bartender. And you can’t do much good if you’re dead.”
“Nancy gave you the work-life balance speech, huh?”
“She kicked me out of the office.” She threw up her hands indignantly and took her stool back.
“She does that. Always has. Her chief of staff will do it right back to her too.” He leaned on his elbows and tipped his head toward her. “Work-life balance is something we don’t talk about enough. It’s easy to get sucked in to feeling like you have to be on all the time in order to keep up, but it can destroy you.”
“I know. I’m sorry no one did that for you, even though it must have been obvious you were struggling.”
Evan shrugged. “It’s not your fault, it’s the culture, not just here, but everywhere. I would hate to see you get sucked into that vortex and not be able to get yourself out.”
“I know. I— Suffice to say I’ve been using work to not deal with some stuff.”
“I get that. I saw the unpacked boxes in your apartment.”
She’d dived straight into work as soon as she’d landed in town. She’d made her bed and gotten her coffeepot out; everything else seemed less important. “I’m sorry I took that out on you.”
“Thank you.”
“So can we hang out sometime? And not talk about work?”
“Yeah, we can hang out.”
“You should also know that my cat apparently wants us to see more of you. Not that I’m using my cat to guilt you into seeing me.”
He held a hand to his heart in mock astonishment. “I could never deny RBG.”
Joking was promising, but Tessa needed some sort of real confirmation. Were they friends? Acquaintances? Was she going to see him naked again sometime soon? “So, circle yes?”
He rolled his eyes at her. “I’ll circle yes.” He wrote his number on a cocktail napkin and slid it across the bar. “Follow me.”
She followed him around the corner, to the narrow hallway where she’d managed to run smack into him twice the night before. He leaned in and kissed her thoroughly, making his meaning crystal clear. Friends didn’t kiss like that. And friends definitely didn’t give her ass a squeeze as they pulled away.
“Call me tomorrow.”
Also By Sionna Fox
Bondage in Boston
Bound To
Tied Up
Shorts and Novellas
“Etudes”: A Short Story
“Fight Fire with Fire” also in Rogue Passion
Dark Rooms
Wolf Summer
Acknowledgments
Once again, to the Rogue folks for giving Tessa and Evan a space. I’m proud to have been a part of these projects. To my fellow Rogue Ever After authors, I am gra
teful to share space with your stories. Special thanks to KD Fisher and Hudson Lin for their generous beta reads.
To my friends and family for their endless support and encouragement.
To my spouse, who tempers our shared rage, frustration, and sadness with silly animal gifs and doesn’t question my need for stickers.
About Sionna Fox
Sionna Fox is an author of sweet/hot HEAs, die-hard romance fan, and lover of things nerdy and twee. She drinks too much coffee, has a minor problem with washi tape and planner stickers, and tagging them in anything involving foxes, llamas, or women in suits is a surefire way to their heart.
For more info on upcoming releases, appearances, and exclusives, you can sign up for her mailing list here.
You can find them procrastinating at:
Love You Like That
KK Hendin
Ten years since high school.
One café manager swamped with guilt over not being politically engaged enough.
One overworked, overwhelmed, and very broke Congressional aide who thinks he’s failed D.C. when D.C. failed him.
Two best friends who are too scared to admit how in love with each other they are.
Can the combination of existential crises, too many feelings, and far too much caffeine help Jasper and Raina admit their feelings, or will it end in heartbreak?
To everyone who wonders if they’re doing enough, and everyone who wishes they could just be a lative.
And to Grandma, who has taught me political activism by example. You deserve all the superlatives.
Rogue Ever After (The Rogue Series Book 7) Page 25
