Power Play (5 page)

She smiled but it evaporated in an instant. “I don’t want your guys thinking there’s something going on.”

“There
was
something going on.” I cleared my throat. “There still is, far as I know.”

Her eyes darted to mine with a blend of emotions: sadness, surprise, that fear again. My own heart went still. I felt like a twelve year old back in boarding school, thinking of exits even as I asked out a girl.

Words came bubbling to my mouth. Words to plug the chasm before it could form.

“This doesn’t feel like a one-time thing to you, right?”

“I guess not.” She glanced down as if embarrassed by the admission..

“So why make it one? Come on, let me give you a ride to the airport. We can chat until I gotta go.”

“I actually need to get some stuff done before I head back.”

I rolled my eyes. “There’s time on the plane.”

“It’s tough to work on a plane.”

They weren’t bad reasons, but she had a tremor to her eyes that made me disbelieve them. I would have had Jesse send in the damn jet for her to work on, if I didn’t think it would make her skitter.

“So I can see you when you get back, then. North Dakota has its charms, but I spent most of my days in Houston.”

Her shoulders were still drawn tight. My breath caught, but then she nodded. “Yeah, yeah, sure. Let’s do that..”

“Great. Give me your digits.”

Kerry read off her number and I punched it in. When she finished, I dialed and put it to my ear. She raised an eyebrow.

“You don’t think I’ve gotten the whole fake number before?” I grinned. “I haven’t actually. Figured you’d want my number to call me though.”

“I just might.” She said it smiling, back to her breezy self again.

But I wanted more than a tentative ending.

I swooped an arm around her neck and pressed down with a kiss. She tasted like cherry. I ran my other hand across her face like I was blind, trying to commit every inch to memory.

She stood in a daze when I broke away. I gave her shoulder a squeeze, and winked.

“We’ll talk again soon,” I said. “Count on it.”

I turned and walked off towards my workers, wondering just how I was going to get her back in my grip.

CHAPTER FIVE

Kerry

The consulting office smelled vaguely like bleach when I got in after lunch. Unlike the sun-lit glass lobby that clients got to see, the cubes on our floor were lit by humming fluorescent lights.

I’d made an anonymous suggestion that maybe, just maybe LEDs would make the place a tad less suicidal. Heck, it would even save the company money. Wasn't that our job? No dice. They just wanted to motivate people to be out on assignment.

When I’d first waked in, this place smelled like promise. Just two years before that, I was on track to be a math teacher. Then came Mira, and my life changed. I changed my college, my major. And despite all that, I'd still somehow landed a position in the big four! I could be anything here, go anywhere.

Well, not completely. But it did open a lot of doors. The more I went through, the more options I had. One day, I’d rise high enough to handpick my assignments. I didn't want to be the boss, just the master of myself.

I dropped my bags off in my cube, grabbed a yellow notepad, then headed to Phil’s office. It was honestly still kinda hard to walk. My thighs felt sore. I’d rolled my eyes at Mira before, the few times she came home on Saturday mornings saying she was gonna be bowlegged for the week.

Guess the joke was on me. There was your regular virginity, but also a good sex virginity and I hadn’t lost the last one till yesterday. My high school hadn't exactly been big on sex, but I doubted any school taught that.

Deacon’s tan, self-assured face loomed so clear in my thoughts. I didn’t even have to close my eyes to picture his tall, muscular body, pacing next to me with sensual intent. He was right. He’d wanted me and he’d got me. I had barely felt him pull the strings.

No wonder he knew exactly all the right buttons to push once my clothes were off – all the combinations to get us to the end over and over.

I shivered at the memory of his heat unloading in me. I'd stopped at a pharmacy to get the pill on the way back, but it had been foolish. And somehow even now it nearly had me walking into a cubicle wall instead of scolding myself.

Once was ok. Next time, we’d definitely be more careful.

Oh god, next time? What was I getting into?

I knocked on Phil’s door. He was bent over a desk, his bald head glimmering from the Houston sun even through the fogged glass wall.

“Enter,” his muffled voice rang out.

I slipped in, and shut the door behind. Phil had straightened behind his desk. Now he was finishing adjusting the collar of his checkered shirt and clearing the mess of paperwork on his desk. I beamed warmly. He always tried to look a bit better for me. I liked to think I inspired him with my work.

“Kerry,” he said. “How are you? Glad to be back to oil land?”

“It's always good to be home.” I sat in the rolling seat across from him. “Wish I could have gotten in yesterday though.”

“You're under no obligation to be here today, you know? I really didn't expect to see you here after you sent in the SkyPower report this morning.” He spread his arms. “Honestly, we can debrief tomorrow. You must be exhausted.”

“Oh no, that wasn't what I meant.” I paused, steadying my voice. “I got plenty of time in bed last night.”

“Really? I noticed you didn't get a hotel last night after all. Maybe I missed it. ”

My face started to heat up as he clicked through something on screen.

“Actually, the airline put us up,” I said.

He looked at me warily. “Really? They don't usually do that for bad weather.”

“Yeah...so, it was really nice of them. The other airlines didn't step up.”

“Alright, well, good for you, but we should really get someone from the consumer division over there to take a look at that policy.”

“Good idea.” I calmed and scanned his desk. “Is that my report?” I asked.

“It is.” He bent in. “You really sure you want to go over it now?”

“I'm sure. That is, if you have the time.”

He chuckled and pulled over the stapled sheets. “Honestly, I never need much time for you Kerry. I barely catch even a misplaced comma, and never in anything important like the numbers.”

Oof, those words got me tingling in a whole different way. All those hours hunched over in the airport lounge were worth it. Praise was so much like a drug. But it was ok to bask as long as I got it for the right reasons.

“I appreciate that, Phil,” I said. “But come on, the good grammar's cause of Microsoft Word. I made some mistakes early on in this case.”

“Not in the client's eyes. They gave you a glowing rating for the regulatory bonus you found for them. That's really what counts.”

“It was good working with them, too. I think they're a really promising company.”

“I'm glad. You have a real knack for this industry.”

Clean energy had never even been in my vocab growing up. Heck, even accounting hadn't been on my radar. Switching to it as a major had been hard enough, but the classes had been brutal. The math was beyond anything I'd ever faced before. In some twisted way, it was my past that taught me how to lock myself away and study until I could ace my classes.

Compared to that, learning about this company or that was cake. It all came down to money. Still, I liked working with wind and solar. They might be underdogs but they had the right idea, and one day, maybe I could help them sprout like I had.

“Now,” Phil said. “There's room for a little improvement. Nothing you should have called me about, but just some things to consider for your next assignment.”

I moved to the edge of the chair. “I'm all ears.”

We spent the next half hour going into the details. Phil was smart and I took in every word. Even Deacon's face receded to a shadow – though it didn't completely disappear.

“So,” Phil said, swiveling in his seat. “Just small things here and there, but any little thing can be make or break for firms this size.”

“Got it.” I rolled back the notes to the front page. “So, which company needs a visit from Aunt Kerry next?”

Phil's brows knotted. “What?”

I straightened. “I mean do you have my next assignment?”

“No, I understood you. But are you serious?”

“Yeah, why not?”

He blinked a few times and shook his head. “You know, sometimes, I forget that you’re gunning to be the first person to make partner in just five years.”

“No...that would be insane.” The lowest I'd heard was seven and that was for some off-the-charts genius from MIT. Five, five was too low, right? “Wait, has there been anyone who made partner in six years even?”

Phil chuckled. “No, Kerry, not yet. But, we shall see.” He clicked through his screen. “Yeah, we have a request from an oil supermajor. Just a small project.”

Not as fun as wind or solar, but I was still learning.

“Sure. Guess it's in Houston right?”

“It is indeed.”

I spend most of my days in Houston
, Deacon's voice echoed in my head. Maybe it'd be good to be home for a bit.

“I'll take it,” I said.

Phil squinted at his screen. “Actually, the schedule for this one is a bit accelerated. You just came off a heavy assignment-”

“I said I'd take it, Phil. I'm a girl of my word.”

“Right.” He shook his head. “Of course you are.”

I spent the rest of the afternoon researching background on the project. I really didn't get as far as I'd hoped. Thinking about oil just had me imagining Deacon shirtless, sweating out in some desert flat, swinging a hammer. That was how oil guys worked right? Even if they were directors posing as rig hands.

Around seven, my phone rang. I nearly flicked to receive before I read the name on screen: Viola Martin.

It was my mom. I snapped out of my waking dream in an instant. What a way to ruin my evening.

Why on earth would she be calling now? Or at all? I'd made myself pretty clear the last time I answered a year ago. No, I didn’t want to talk to her. And no, I definitely wasn’t visiting home.

Sometimes, a panic overtook me that they might find out where I lived. Heck, it wasn’t more than fifteen miles away – which barely covered a third of Houston city limits.

But so what if they did? It's not like they could cast their spell again. They'd only gotten that to work by making me believe they were right. They couldn’t fool me again.

I flicked off the call, deleted the voicemail that followed and tried to work, but my mood was too prickly. Even summoning Deacon into my head didn't soothe me. It just brought me back to how uneasy I'd felt before succumbing to him. Maybe it wasn't so great to give him such free rein in my thoughts.

It was time to head home anyway.

The ride was against traffic, and it chilled me out. Our apartment was in a nice little corner of Rice Village. You could kinda see the hubbub of the college bars and food plazas a couple blocks down, but the only sound was the swish of the leaves from the trees lining the block.

I opened the door, carefully. Snowflake had a way of sneaking out. I trusted the little guy to come back, but the apartment complex was pretty tired of the battlefields left from his merciless campaign against the local bird population.

He'd been a stray I found at my first apartment after switching schools, and slowly I got his trust. I named him Snowflake cause he was hard to catch but melted in my hands once I finally did.

But when I walked into the living room, the little traitor was purring on Mira's lap, offering her his furry white belly, and covering more than her short shorts did. Mira stroked my cat absently, eyes planted on the TV screen. Two women were screaming at each other.

“Did you just wake up?” I asked.

Snowflake leaped out of her lap. Mira startled to me, her long dark hair flinging around her narrow features.

“Did you just get back?” she asked.

I smiled and dropped my bags. “I guess we're both just asking stupid questions now.”

I set my keys in the bowl on the kitchen table, and plopped down next to Mira. Snowflake came winding around my legs, purring:
Baby, you know she means nothing. You're my number one, girl.

I gathered him onto my lap, shut my eyes and stroked his little grey head. The rumble of his chest even soothed my legs. Ah, this guy demanded a lot, but he was so much easier to love.

“Good trip?” Mira asked, rubbing my near shoulder.

“Very good trip.”

“Did you uncover some secret supervillain club of tax evaders or something?”

“I'm in the corporate finance division, not taxes.”

“As an artist, I am not obligated to understand any of those words.”

“You never plan on selling anything you make?”