by Jason Letts
“Keenan,” I said, almost gasping.
His face was expressionless, not a sign of surprise or joy anywhere on that glowing skin. He exhaled and a sternness took over him. He was growing angry, turning his head like he wanted to spit. I was instantly mortified.
“I’ll call a car to take you home,” he said, brushing by me and vanishing out of the stairwell and around the corner. I wanted to call after to save me from the anguish that was going to burn inside me about something that could’ve been so simple and wonderful, but he was gone and I was alone.
CHAPTER 5
I took out my frustrations in a blog post on the latest sex scandal, a fashion magazine editor who bore a strong resemblance to the Hunchback of Notre Dame and thought he could get away with terrorizing young models. He would round up a handful of them and tell them that he’d be in the next room naked and blindfolded. If one of them didn’t have sex with him he’d make sure none of them would ever work again. Then he’d leave and let them suffer through deciding who would be the one to suffer through it with him. This happened over a dozen times.
My situation wasn’t within lightyears of those models, but I was feeling aggrieved over the game Keenan had me stuck in. To sweep me away with a kiss I knew he enjoyed and then get into a rage and not even look at me again was unbearable. What had happened? I didn’t lack any confidence in my kissing. And if he hadn’t wanted it the kiss never would’ve happened.
I had to think there was something about me he didn’t like. Maybe it was that I was an employee or that I wasn’t on his level when it came to technology, business, or money. He was a smart guy, and on the way to work I began to wonder if he thought I would conclude that I’d been pressured or coerced into the kiss. If nothing else, I needed to let him know that wasn’t the case. I had liked it and as bad as I felt I couldn’t help wanting more.
Keenan, who had taken to being a visible presence out on the floor, seemed to have once again permanently retreated to his office. The door was shut and I never even saw him arrive at work.
Part of that was because I quickly discovered Martin’s new tack with me. If he couldn’t ruin my life with demeaning jobs, he’d grind my face as hard as he could against the ones I had. I suddenly found myself with a mountain of work, all laid out with strict deadlines, most of which were no more than an hour apart. By the time lunch hit I felt like I hadn’t even taken a breath since I showed up.
I decided going out for lunch was the only way to settle myself and recover from so many exhausting hours of stressful writing. I went to the noddle shop ready for a steaming bowl of kimchi ramen, but found that every table was packed. Chelsea sat at one, probably because she’d been able to breeze out for lunch a few minutes early.
“Do you want to sit down? Go ahead,” she said, after noticing I’d been looking around for a seat. I reluctantly accepted and slid into a chair after placing my order.
“How’s the artwork coming on the Laddie’s campaigns?” I asked, playing nice.
“I’m not on that one,” she said. “I’m still doing images for Connoisaurus.”
That one question exhausted all of the small talk I had for Chelsea, who got her bowl of noodles and began picking at it while fiddling with her hair. There were quite a few things I could’ve said to her but knew I shouldn’t. One was why she’d never tried to say anything nice or help me out with Martin when he was making me scrub the floor and windows. A little sister solidarity would’ve been so welcome.
“Did you come here when you were in college?”
I deeply appreciated her question to break the uncomfortable silence.
“No, I don’t think this was here then, and it would’ve been a hike from my buildings, but ever since I found it I come every chance I get. Whoever’s in the kitchen is a magician with this stuff,” I said.
Chelsea smiled and swallowed a bite.
“I actually have a friend who works doing set design for the show Unlawful, which films around here, and he said they were looking for a writer. I don’t know any others, so I told him I’d run it by you.”
I chuckled despite myself and looked down.
“Actually I did take a screenwriting class in college, but I was really pretty bad and preferred less dramatic forms of writing anyway.”
“I’m sure you weren’t that bad,” she said, scoffing. I nodded to say I really was, but that didn’t deter her. “I guess they really need someone quick because they’re in the middle of a season or whatever. From what he said, I think they’d give you a shot. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you it’d be a ton more money if it worked out.”
I pretended to think it over.
“Thanks for thinking of me. Yeah, you can forward the information to me or the contact or whatever and I’ll see what it’s about,” I said, sure that embarrassing myself on the set of a TV show wasn’t what I needed in my life.
The ramen was good and Chelsea and I found the conversation flowed more easily once we both had food to fill our faces with. We actually had to rush back in order to make it to work on time, and it was only a few minutes later that Chelsea had sent me a message about the job. Feeling some warmth from Chelsea encouraged me to look at it more closely, but I still couldn’t bring myself to do anything about it.
I resumed scaling the mountain of work I had but couldn’t help but keep an eye out for Keenan. I had a gut feeling that if we only had a chance to talk about the kiss we could iron out whatever the problem was. But I didn’t get a glimpse of him at all that day. The next day I happened to see his office door open once when it was late but found that he must’ve already left.
I’d see the back of his head once or twice, but I began to conclude he was avoiding me. He should’ve known that would make me want to talk to him more, and I was ready to apologize and take all the blame for subjecting him to my toxic lips. If he wanted me to leave and take a job writing plots for detective shows I would do that. I couldn’t stand this kind of unjust exile.
It was tempting to try to write him an email, but fear of it being ignored restrained me. I wondered what else I could do to get in front of him that wouldn’t be completely crazy. My plan nudged up against that line as close as I could get.
During a bathroom break I had to beg Martin for, I took the elevator down to the carpark and hunted down the red Tesla. By spinning my computer around to the other side of the table, I was able to get a better view of the door to Keenan’s office. I worked like a machine to get ahead of my deadlines enough to be able to get up when he slipped out of his office, and I clattered down the stairs as he took the elevator down.
I knew I was going to be out of breath again and probably liable for inciting his wrath at being away from my desk early, but I raced to get in front of his car as the headlights flicked on. I jerked my head as the car moved forward an inch. He lowered his window and stuck his head out as I continued to stand there.
“Oh, Keenan,” I said, my act of surprise fooling no one. “I sometimes have to do some walking to think of a really good line.”
“Can you move, Sarah?” His voice had a fair amount of animosity to it, and it took a lot of effort not to blurt out something about how apparently he did know I existed. A little humility and some appeal to his humanity seemed a better tactic if this was going to accomplish anything good.
“How about we talk for a second instead?” I asked, my pleading hands down. “What was so bad about what happened that it made you so angry? Is it that I didn’t sign something about it? I’ll sign whatever you want. Is it something wrong with me?”
It hurt to give him a window to speaking at my worst fears, but I felt so drained that I didn’t care as long as I got the truth. If I just wasn’t good enough for him because I was a copy-writing girl from a drab apartment building or because of the way I looked then so be it. At least I’d hear it and could move on with my sorry self rather than beating myself up over my rich, handsome boss.
He gave me a hard look like he was bitin
g on a lemon. Knowing my luck he could’ve been thinking about hitting the gas pedal and mowing me over. But he closed his eyes and then popped open the car door to get out. A moment later he was standing there next to me with that same stern expression on his face that I saw after we kissed. It didn’t belong there. That little grin suited his beautiful face so much better.
The air in the basement parking lot was cold. I could hardly breathe, let alone say anything first.
“I didn’t mean to kiss you,” he said, and I could sympathize. Kissing him wasn’t something I’d planned, something I’d been told to avoid for my best interests, but now that it happened I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t something I wanted.
“I know. It just happened,” I said.
“No, I mean I shouldn’t have kissed you. It wasn’t good.”
My mouth cracked open but my throat seemed to close. The last thing I wanted to do was cry, but comments like that were going to make getting through this dry-eyed next to impossible.
“I’m sorry it wasn’t good. I wasn’t exactly ready for it. I’m usually not bad,” I said.
He winced and shook his head.
“That’s not what I meant. I can’t complain about the kiss. It’s just not something I should’ve done. Now I’m liable for it,” he said, and for the first time I could see something in his dark green eyes, and not just the little flecks that made me think of a forest. There was fear in there behind all of the anger, fear of me.
“Keenan, liable for what? What do you think’s going to happen, that I’m going to try to hurt you over an accidental kiss that I initiated as much as you did? That would be crazy,” I said.
But as I was saying it, I realized it wasn’t such an outrageous thing to worry about. As much as I believed every victim should be heard and given a fair chance at justice, and that wrongfully brought suits were almost non-existent, I couldn’t help but remember the show Felicity and how the main character’s best friend hooked up with the dorky guy with the frizzy hair, felt bad about it afterward, and got him thrown out of school. He didn’t think I was like that, did he?
“Look, it would be naive to think that we know each other or what we’re capable of doing. Five years, ten years down the road, you don’t know how someone’s going to feel about something and what they’re going to say,” he said, each word feeling like a hot coal pressed against my skin. If he thought spurious accusations were the norm, he was gravely mistaken.
Without thinking, I extended my arm the tiniest bit toward him, but it stopped as if an invisible wall existed between us.
“If not knowing me enough is the problem then we can fix that pretty easily. I think you’ll see that I’m a harmless, well-intentioned person who isn’t trying to make anyone’s life harder,” I said.
If only he could see in my eyes how much I meant every word, it would put him at ease. But instead I got an unabashed scoff right to my face.
“I’m not so sure. I’ve seen your blog.”
“My blog…”
I ran out of words. The ground had vanished underneath me and I was falling. How had he found out about that? At least I hadn’t posted anything about work yet, but still. The blog was supposed to be mostly a private thing, but now it looked like it had scared him away completely.
“You have to understand that that blog is mostly therapeutic for me. It’s just talking about the stuff in the news or things that happened to me. What did you read?” I asked.
Keenan looked like he was dipping a toe into a bucket full of fire ants.
“I just saw what it was about,” he muttered. I looked around at the dark parking lot around us. The lawyer letters made a lot more sense now that I knew what he thought of me.
“You have to understand that I’ve had some things happen to me that have been very hard to deal with and I needed a place to express myself. It’s not bad that I want women to be treated fairly. That shouldn’t threaten you. Only my thoughts on those topics go there, whereas I have opinions on all kinds of things. And I don’t think a spontaneous kiss in our circumstance was any kind of exertion of power or exercise of control. If I could just get a chance to talk about it with you somewhere that wasn’t a cold, lifeless parking lot…”
I groaned, wondering if I was wasting my breath. Keenan watched me warily like I was capable of leaping forward and biting him. On some level I couldn’t blame him for his reaction. Most men didn’t really know what women went through and couldn’t even imagine it, much less understand why we reacted the way we did or coped the way we had to.
“Then why don’t you tell me about it over dinner?”
I jerked my head back, sure I hadn’t heard him correctly. But he was looking at me with something warmer in his eyes and on his face now. It wasn’t anger and it wasn’t blame. Maybe he’d seen that I’d been open with him and he was letting down his guard.
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“Tonight?” I gasped. It was already almost five o’clock. That left me zero time to get ready. “What about…”
“I have a flight out to a conference in Vegas at nine, and I’ll be there until next week,” he said.
He wasn’t suggesting anything more than that it would be a long wait for dinner if it had to happen after he came back, but I read more in between the lines. His face plus a week in Vegas equaled he’d have another girlfriend by the time he got back and maybe even some other hook ups in the process. I was going to have to live with being unprepared again.
“Tonight would be great. I won’t be able to change, though,” I admitted sheepishly.
“I don’t mind,” he said.
“I do have to get my bag from upstairs.”
“I’ll wait around the front,” he said.
I nodded and turned around to return up the stairs. It had all happened so fast, and I still felt like having dinner, no matter how well it went, wasn’t going to be enough to keep him from getting involved with any of the sexy Vegas conference attendees, but at least I hoped to have a chance to have his undivided attention.
I snuck back into the office using the side entrance, but that wasn’t enough to escape a withering look from Martin, who was just sitting in the half-empty office at the end of the day staring at my bag because he knew I’d need to come back for it. He wasn’t going to get me down though. Excitement bloomed in my chest as I began to anticipate everything that could happen.
If I had Keenan alone to myself for just a couple of hours, what would I do? It seemed like one of those rare occasions when I could temporarily drop all of my baggage and enjoy myself.
I left the office without another look back and let the elevator doors close in front of me. My reflection was right there but I did my best to ignore it. As much as I probably never could’ve benefited from looking my best as much as right now, I knew that what I really needed was to be my best self, and that meant not bringing up my past, even though he’d kind of asked for it. My experiences told me loud and clear how there was no way to bring that up early without it crippling any chance at a relationship.
Now Keenan Roche was standing beside his red car with the bright headlights cutting through the darkness. Light snow drifted around his strong frame and onto his sinfully attractive untidy brown hair. This time it would be me he was escorting around town, and I had a mind to revel in it. He gallantly helped me off the curb, and I went around to hop into the passenger seat of his car.
As I slid down below the roof of the car, I happened to look over and see Chelsea watching me get in from down the hall.
I shut the door tight and promised myself not to spare another thought about her and her dire warnings about Keenan’s dark side.
Keenan settled onto the seat and began punching something into his navigation system. He gave me one of those smirks and put the car in drive.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” he said.
“Cold pizza with Wesley and his mom? Yes!”
Keenan laughed, his chest rising and falling with each outburst, and I felt like I was ahead of the game already.
“It’s just a little place I know. I usually like to eat light before getting on a plane. Nobody wants to fly cross-country on the airplane toilet.”
“What?” I asked, mocking outrage. “I get Bathroom Class stamped right on my ticket. That’s the best seat on the plane. You get the entire room to yourself and don’t have to look at anyone else the entire way.”
“I bet the flight attendants are good about delivering meals in there,” Keenan added.
“It helps when my pants are up.”
He drove on toward the north end of town. To be honest I was having such a good time talking in the car, just saying anything that came to mind, that I wouldn’t have cared if we never got there and never even got anything to eat. But he pulled into a cute neighborhood and of course there was an open parking space just begging for him to take it.
“How do you do that?” I asked.
“Do what?” Together we got out of the car.
“Look at this parking space. Forget digital marketing. All you have to do is share your parking magic and you’ll be the richest person alive,” I said.
“I prefer to call it parking voodoo,” he said, brushing up against my side as we took to the sidewalk.
“Oh, really? Are there creepy dolls and human sacrifices? Now I know what that guillotine in your office is really for.”
He gave me a sly look and then pointed up ahead to a sign near a set of stairs leading to a basement entryway. The sign said “Kasumi’s” and had an image of chopsticks and a fish on it.
“Sushi?”
“You don’t mind, do you?” The way he said it made me realize I must’ve sounded more surprised than I meant to. For some reason I’d been imagining the two of us sharing meaningful looks over steaming bowls of pasta with big glasses of wine at the ready.
