by Hannah Ford
He tips his head back and laughs. Me, making him smile. That makes me smile.
He puts on an oven mitt and pulls a tray from the oven. Two white ramekins are filled with spinach and bacon, some kind of white cheese and, on top of each, an egg.
Jackson gently pokes each of the eggs with his finger. “Ha. Only overcooked them a little,” he says proudly.
I finally put on the clothes as well as socks and big jacket and we carry our breakfast up a set of twisting back stairs that lead to the rooftop terrace. Because of course he has a rooftop terrace. With a view of the Charles River.
“Whoa,” I say as we set everything down. The early fall air is cool and crisp, and it’s going to be a sunny day. We can see early-morning rowers out on the river, the water sparkling in the morning light. “This is stunning.”
He looks around the terrace as if he’s inspecting it. “Yeah, I guess.”
“You guess? This alone is as big as my apartment.”
“Why do you live in a one-room apartment?” he asks.
“Please don’t tell me you’re that out of touch with reality, Jackson,” I say. “I’m a grad student. Working even part time is kicking my butt so it’s all I can afford.”
“Well,” he says. “I have plenty of rooms in this place. You should just move into one of them. Won’t even charge you rent.”
He’s joking, but he doesn’t realize it’s a bit of a cruel joke. But whatever, I just give it back to him.
“Great, I’ll start moving in tomorrow,” I say. Sure, I think. I can see myself living here. “But I’ll expect a breakfast like this every morning.”
We finish up our food—the egg-in-a-dish thing was outstanding. Jackson was right, the eggs were only slightly cooked through but I’m not sure the dish would have been that much better if they’d been running, like he intended. We make it through most of the pancakes and a little of the fruit. Basically, we’re stuffed, feeling full and mellow as the sun warms the day.
He reaches out for me. “Come over here.” I gladly do as he requests, and he pulls me onto his lap and wraps his arms around me. We sit and stare at the view, not speaking, not needing to.
“Excuse me, Mr. Croft,” a woman’s voice says from the terrace door, startling me. Not Jackson. He turns to the woman and says, “Good morning, Eliza.”
She’s wearing a boxy blue dress with buttons down the front. I think it might be a housekeeper’s uniform.
“I’m sorry to disturb you. I guess they tried your cell phone but it’s the office. They’ve called the house phone. Sandra needs you urgently at the office.”
“Oh, Christ,” he mutters. “Okay. Thank you, Eliza. Could you call Sandra back and tell her I’ll be there in twenty minutes?”
“Of course,” she says before heading back down.
I didn’t expect to stay here all day—I wanted to, but didn’t expect to. But Jackson having to leave so suddenly—and still so early—is a bummer to say the least. I begin to get up from his lap but he pulls me back.
“I don’t want to leave you,” he says.
“I don’t want you to go,” I say. “But work calls.” I wonder if work will always call, and if he’ll always go running.
He kisses me softly. Our lips linger, neither of us wanting to break. He caresses my cheek.
“I better get in the shower,” he says. “Sandra can fend those corporate wolves off for a while but I don’t want to leave her hanging.”
“Of course,” I say, getting up from his lap. I begin picking the breakfast dishes but Jackson says, “Leave all that. Eliza will get it.”
I suppose I hoped I could hang around while he got dressed. I pictured myself watching him shower through a steamy glass door, but he has Eliza arrange for a car to take me back to Allston before he heads upstairs to get dressed. I don’t want to admit that it feels a bit like a dismissal but…maybe a little.
He holds my face and kisses me again before he goes. “I’ll call you. Okay?”
I nod okay. Yes, call me, I think. Please call me.
When I get home to my terrace-sized studio apartment, I certainly see my surroundings in a whole new light. As I stand in Jackson’s oversized clothes, my heels and dress in one hand, I wonder if I’m out of my mind. The worlds that we come from and live in could not be more different. I never thought of my studio as such a hobble but now he’s got me thinking I’m living the slum life. He doesn’t seem to get that living alone in something like an eight-thousand square foot house is ludicrous, a complete waste of space. Even if we did live together—and I know we never would, but I’m just thinking—that if we did we’d probably never see each other. I’d be too busy getting lost in that big house while he would be too busy with work, making more deals and putting out more fires.
I wonder what interests him besides work? Food, I learned that. But he has no one to cook for. My mind can’t help but wonder if he’s made breakfast for other women like he did for me. I hate the thought. I hate that it enters my mind.
As I shower and get ready for the day, I hope that Jackson doesn’t disappear like he did last time. Last night was far different from the restaurant, deeper and more intense. He can’t blow me off again. Despite being polar opposites, I really want to see him again.
The words had formed on my lips after our pre-breakfast tryst but I swallowed them down. What I wanted to say was, I love you. Or at the very least, I’m falling in love with you. Because against better judgment, that is what’s happening to me.
So, yeah. I really hope he calls.
Jackson
“Jackson, does that work for you?”
I turn and look at the conference room full of people staring back at me. I’d been staring out at the rain falling over the harbor, thinking about Emily. Maybe when clear skies come back I could take her out on the boat for a couple of days. Being alone in the sea with Emily where no one can reach sounds perfect. Except first I have to get through these meetings. Five, back to back, all day.
“Should Deon contact Melissa and arrange the meeting? Or did you want to reach out to her directly?”
“Deon, you can contact her,” I say to Deon, as if I’ve been paying close attention this whole time. The looks I’m getting from around the room say they know better. “Let Sandra know when it’s set up. We’ll do a lunch meeting, keep it casual. Anything else?”
When the meeting ends, the first thing I do when I get back to my office is send a text to Emily. It’s been a few days since I last saw her. I had to spend the weekend working out the crisis that came up, but this time I made sure to call her after our incredible night. It was late on Friday night, but I figured she wouldn’t mind.
“Did I wake up?” I asked when she answered, her voice soft and quiet. The thought of her in bed instantly made me crazy.
“No,” she’d said. “I was just studying.”
“Liar.”
She laughed softly. “Okay, I was sleeping. At eleven on a Friday night. How lame am I?”
“I’m at the office on Friday night,” I’d said. “I think I’m worse.”
“You are for sure,” she’d said. She let out a big yawn, and I could just imagine her stretching her body out like a cat. I thought, If I get in my car now, I could be there in fifteen minutes. But I still had work to do.
“I don’t want to keep you up,” I said. “I just wanted to say hello and…last night was incredible.”
She laughed again and I wished I could watch her lips curl as she did. Next time I should really call her on video. “Yeah, last night was probably…I don’t know…”
“What?” I’d said. She was getting shy again. I loved it when she got shy. “Tell me what you were going to say.”
“Just that I agree. Last night was incredible.”
“That’s not what you were going to say.”
She sighed. “Fine. I was going to say that last night was probably the most incredible night I’ve ever spent in my life. Happy?”
“Yes, act
ually. I am happy.” Very happy. Perhaps the happiest I’d ever been. I didn’t want to tell her that, not yet anyway. I still needed to keep my wits about me but I couldn’t deny that she made me feel like nothing mattered but us. When I’m with Emily, Emily is all that matters. “I want to see you again.”
“Okay,” she’d said. “When?”
I looked at the work on my desk—still so much to do. “Let me get through this crisis and then I’ll take a look at my schedule. I’ll call you.”
Once we’d hung up it took me a few minutes to get my head back into the work before me. Hearing her soft bed voice and picturing her laid out in sheets wearing whatever my imagination stirred up made me want to stick my hand down my pants and take care of my urges. But I didn’t. I moved around the office, turned on some music and effectively got back to work. But it wasn’t easy.
Now I’m back in my office with two hundred new emails that need my immediate attention, plus another meeting in five minutes. But instead of dealing with any of that I look at the new text from Emily, which picks up on the random conversation we’ve been having.
The fact that you’ve never been to a water park says you were surely neglected as a child.
I smile. I got plenty of attention as a kid. At boarding school.
I wait for her text to come back. When I see the little bubble on my phone that says she’s writing me right now, I just sit and stare at it, waiting.
She’s got me pretty bad.
That’s so sad! her text reads. She includes an emoji smiley face. Only Emily can get away with that. If it were anyone else, I’d end things right there. Sent off to school and no water park. Too bad you weren’t sent off to water park school. That would’ve been cool.
We started this conversation when Emily texted that although she loves fall in Boston she was sad she’d let summer come and go without so much as touching the water—no beach, no pool, and no water park. I didn’t even know what a water park was, for which she teased me mercilessly.
Instead I wasted my time at business school. What was I thinking?
Hey, I’m not far from you, she writes. Want to meet for coffee?
Yes, yes, I want to write. Screw everything else, I want to run to see her. But instead I write, Wish but I can’t. Another meeting soon.
Ditch!
I’m running the meeting. I think they’d notice if I was missing.
What’s the point of being the boss if you can’t do what you want?
If she only knew that being the boss meant I have so much more responsibility and have to work harder than everyone else. I may not have always agreed with my father but the lessons he taught me about work and leadership have really paid off. My staff respects me, even if they don’t always like me.
I hate thinking of you sitting alone in a café drinking your coffee, I write.
Meh, I think I’ll just go home and study. If your meeting gets out early you know where I live…
“Mr. Jackson? Are you ready?”
“Yes, Sandra,” I say, smiling as I close the screen on my phone. God, there’s nothing I’d rather do right now than go see Emily. Burrowing down in bed with her as the rain falls outside sounds like perfection. But it’s true—being the boss means I have be at all these meetings, making the decisions that will ensure the company’s growth.
As Sandra and I walk down the hall for the next meeting, I have an idea.
“Sandra, could you do me a favor?” I give her the details and she assures me that she’ll take care of everything.
Another one of the perks of being the boss: lots of people around me who can make great things happen.
I stepped away from things with Genevieve, not that there was really anything to step away from. One dinner and a few texts was all. After Emily spent the night I cancelled our plans to attend the ballet and told her things were too intense at work for much outside enjoyment. Genevieve understood what I meant. She’s probably already on to the next blue blood, looking for a husband and sperm donor to fill up the family home in Louisburg Square.
I make my way through the day’s meetings, filled with PowerPoint presentations, graphs, video call-ins, projections and baselines, one debate over a commodity report that almost turned ugly, and more coffee than I can count.
It’s almost seven when I go back to my office. Sandra is still there at her desk.
“What are you still doing here?” I ask her.
“I wanted to let you know it’s all set. Just let them know what evening and they’ll arrange for it.”
Having money certainly has its perks. Emily isn’t going to believe what I have planned for us.
“Damn…” is all I can say Saturday night when Emily steps out of the car I sent to pick her up at her place. I’d planned to get her myself, but yet another work emergency popped up and I spent my day ripping incompetent staff who are too lazy to do a job right the first time.
But Emily…Emily looks stunning. I walk toward her, my body already eager to be up against her in a slim-fitting dress with spaghetti-type straps and heels that could pierce my heart. She wears a black pashmina to keep her warm.
“It’s okay?” she asks, smoothing her dress with her hand.
“More than okay.” I wrap my arm around her and bring her in for a kiss, a light but sweet scent about her. “You look stunning.”
She smiles. “Well, I had to go shopping because I don’t exactly have the clothes for this stuff.” She nods up toward the top of the building we’re entering. “I looked at it online and it’s like, super fancy.”
“It’s not super fancy,” I say. I take her hand and lead her inside to the elevators. “But it is elegant.”
“I hope I know which fork to use,” she says.
I push the button for the fifty-second floor. We’re alone, and Emily looks more beautiful than ever, so of course I can’t help but make use of the ride. I press her up against the wall and our mouths come together. The taste of her is better than anything that could possibly be on the restaurant’s menu, I am sure of it. I slide my hands over her hips as she pulls my body closer to hers. God, how will I make it through dinner?
The elevator slows and we both pull back. Emily quickly straightens her dress and wipes around her mouth.
“Now I have to go to the ladies room to fix myself back up,” she says.
“You don’t need it,” I say, kissing her cheek as we arrive at the host stand.
“Good evening, Mr. Jackson,” the woman says. “If you’re ready we can seat you now.”
“Come on,” I tell Emily, taking her hand. “You look perfect.”
Her eyes are darting around the space, taking it all in. “I guess it’s dark enough that you can’t see if my face is all red now.”
I didn’t think Emily was the type to really worry about this stuff, but as we walk across the restaurant at the top of the Prudential Center and overlooking all of Boston, she looks a bit self-conscious.
“This view is amazing,” Emily says once we’re seated at a round table in a quiet corner near the window. I love watching her see and do things for the first time. It’s not just the wonder in her eyes, but the appreciation of what she’s seeing. It’s something I have lost over the years. I’m so used to certain things, like the view from the top of one of the tallest buildings in Boston. I’ve been in this restaurant more times than I can count, for business luncheons and a date or two over the years.
Emily turns to me, her face bright with childish excitement. “Look! You’re not looking!”
“I’m looking.”
She rolls her eyes. Pointing dramatically at the window she demands, “There.”
“Give me your hand first,” I say. Her face softened as she rests her hand on the table and I take it in mine. We look out at the view, the night darkening into rich blues and yellow, the lights of the city beginning to sparkle.
As the courses begin rolling in and we’re finishing our first bottle of champagne, Emily says, “This is all to
o much. You didn’t have to do this.”
“Do what?” I ask.
She motions around the room. “It’s so fancy! You could have taken me to a pizza joint and I would have been happy.”
“Would you rather have gone to a pizza place?” Earlier in the evening she’d kept looking around the room, and not at the beauty of the décor but I think at the other women and how they were dressed. She kept fussing with the straps on her dress, or tugging down the hem. When the salad was served she waited for me to pick up the proper fork before picking up her own.
“No,” she says. “I mean, I know this amazing place in the South End but good pizza really can’t compare to these scallops. They melt in my mouth like butter.”
“One thing you can be sure of,” I say, “is that when you’re with me, you’ll always eat well.”
“So what if we want a late-night snack?” she asks. “Are we going to come back up here?”
“They have a late-night menu in the lounge,” I say.
She laughs and shakes her head. “You do not live in the real world.”
“Sure I do. It’s just an alternate version.”
“Exactly,” she says. She takes a sip of her champagne, watching me closely. “Give me some of that lobster.”
“Whatever you want,” I say, feeding it to her, watching her wrap her lips around the fork just she did at Prime & Tender. “Admit it. You like this world.”
She savors the lobster for a moment—it’s truly the best I’ve ever had, so tender and fresh.
“This is nice, don’t get me wrong,” she says. “But this all the time? It’s unnecessary.”
“I’m starting to rethink my plans for the second half of the evening.”
“There’s more?” I nod yes.
“Emily, this is only dinner. The real surprise is afterward.”
“What, your place?” Her foot reaches over to my leg under the table, touching me lightly, letting me know what she’s thinking.
“Well, I wouldn’t be opposed to that afterward,” I say. “But there’s something right after dinner that I have planned.”
“You’re spoiling me,” she says. The grin that plays on her lips says she likes it.
