Chapter 5: First Night

Sloane

Moving in was supposed to be simple.

I had told myself that approximately forty times between signing the contract on Tuesday and arriving at the penthouse on Saturday with one bag and my document case and the specific composure of someone who had made a decision and was executing it without making anything of it.

One bag.

I had packed one bag.

Not because I was minimalist. Because packing more felt like admitting this was a real thing I was doing rather than a professional arrangement I was executing with appropriate efficiency.

The elevator opened directly into the penthouse.

Which I had not expected.

I had expected a hallway. A door. Some transitional space between the ordinary world and whatever this was.

Instead the elevator opened and there was the penthouse. All of it. Immediately. Like the building had decided that transition was unnecessary and you should simply arrive.

I stood in the elevator for approximately two seconds longer than necessary.

Then I stepped out.

He was at the window.

Of course he was.

I was beginning to understand that standing at windows was just something he did. A default state. The specific posture of someone who processed things by looking at the city from a height and who had been doing it long enough that it had become automatic.

He turned when he heard the elevator.

Looked at me.

Looked at my bag.

"One bag," he said.

"One bag," I said.

"Most people bring more," he said.

"I am not most people," I said.

Something moved at the corner of his mouth.

That thing.

I was getting better at not reacting to that thing.

I was not yet fully succeeding.

He showed me the apartment.

The kitchen that was larger than my entire current apartment and had a window that faced the city in a way that made cooking feel like an event rather than a chore. The office he had cleared for my use which had good light and a desk that was better than the one I had at work and a view that I was going to spend a lot of time pretending not to be distracted by.

The bedroom wing.

Two bedrooms. His on the right. Mine on the left. A shared living space between them that was technically neutral territory and practically the most charged space in the apartment because neutral territory between two people who were performing a relationship they were not having was never actually neutral.

"The doors lock," he said.

"I was not worried about that," I said.

"I know," he said. "I am telling you anyway."

I looked at him.

"Why," I said.

"Because you should know," he said. "Not because I think you need to. Because you should have the information."

I filed that away.

The man who told you things not because he thought you needed them but because he thought you should have them.

That was a specific kind of person.

I had not met many of them.

Dinner was at the kitchen island.

His suggestion. Not the dining table which was at the other end of the open plan space and would have required sitting across from each other with the specific formality of an occasion neither of us was ready for on a first night.

The island was better.

Closer. More casual. The kind of seating arrangement that said we are two people sharing a space rather than two people performing a relationship.

He had ordered food. Good food. Not from somewhere that was trying to impress. From somewhere that was just actually good which was a distinction that told you something about a person.

We ate.

It was quiet but not uncomfortable.

I was surprised by that.

I had expected the quiet to be the awkward kind. The kind that required filling. Instead it was just quiet. Two people who did not feel the need to perform conversation for each other eating good food in a kitchen that had a window facing the city.

"The Calloway dinner is in ten days," he said eventually.

"I know," I said. "I researched Richard Calloway."

He looked at me.

"When," he said.

"Wednesday," I said. "After I signed."

"What did you find," he said.

"Seventy one. Old money. Board member. Strong opinions about how things should look." I picked up my water. "He made a comment at a dinner eight months ago that set this whole arrangement in motion."

He was very still.

"How do you know about the comment," he said.

"I inferred it," I said. "The arrangement exists because someone with influence over your company has concerns about your personal stability. The most likely person given your board composition is Calloway. The comment was the most likely trigger." I looked at him. "Was I wrong."

He held my gaze.

"No," he said. "You were not wrong."

"Tell me what he said," I said.

He told me.

About the dinner. About the comment. About his father's response the next morning and everything that had followed.

I listened without interrupting.

When he finished I was quiet for a moment.

"He questioned whether you had roots," I said.

"Yes."

"Whether you had something to come home to," I said.

"Yes."

I looked at the kitchen island.

At the good food from somewhere that was just actually good.

At the window facing the city.

At the man across from me who had built something significant entirely alone and was now sitting in his own kitchen explaining that someone had questioned whether that was enough.

"That must have been irritating," I said.

Something moved across his face.

Not the corner of the mouth thing.

Something different.

Something that was almost but not quite a real expression breaking through the controlled one.

"Yes," he said. "It was."

I almost smiled.

Almost.

"I will handle Calloway," I said.

He looked at me.

"You have not met him yet," he said.

"I know," I said. "I will still handle him."

He held my gaze for a moment.

"I believe you," he said.

Which was not nothing.

From someone like him that was not nothing at all.

I woke up at two in the morning.

Not because anything was wrong. Because two AM was apparently when my brain had decided the thinking needed to happen and new environment or not that schedule was non negotiable.

I lay in the bedroom that was technically mine and looked at the ceiling and thought about contracts and kitchens and a man who told you things not because he thought you needed them but because he thought you should have them.

Then I got up.

Went to the kitchen.

Because kitchens at two in the morning were where the actual thinking happened and this kitchen was better than any kitchen I had previously done my two AM thinking in.

He was already there.

Standing at the window with a glass of water.

He turned when he heard me.

We looked at each other in the dark kitchen.

"You cannot sleep either," I said.

"I rarely sleep past two," he said. "You."

"Same," I said.

I got a glass of water.

Came and stood at the counter.

We stood there in the dark kitchen with the city outside the window and the quiet of a penthouse at two in the morning and the specific strangeness of two people who barely knew each other sharing a space as though they did.

"Can I ask you something," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"The auction," I said. "You said you could not book the Maine house directly. Why."

He was quiet for a moment.

Looking at the city.

"Because the last time I was there was with my brother," he said. "And going back felt like something that required a reason. A proper reason." He paused. "Winning an auction felt like a proper reason."

I held my water glass.

Looked at the city alongside him.

"Past tense," I said carefully. "Your brother."

"Yes," he said. Quietly. Just that.

I did not push.

Some things you did not push at two in the morning with someone you had known for less than a week.

Some things you just stood beside.

"I am sorry," I said.

"Thank you," he said.

We stood in the kitchen for a while after that.

Not talking.

Just standing in the same space in the dark with the city going on outside and the quiet going on inside and the specific strange ordinary comfort of two people who could not sleep standing in a kitchen at two in the morning not making anything of it.

Eventually I put my glass in the sink.

"Goodnight," I said.

"Goodnight Ms. Mercer," he said.

I went back to my room.

Lay in the dark.

And thought about a man who needed a proper reason to go back somewhere that mattered and had found one in a charity auction and had looked at me across the room the whole time like I was part of the reason without yet knowing what that meant.

I was starting to think I might be part of the reason.

I was starting to think that was the most complicated thing that had happened to me in a very long time.

And that I was not nearly as bothered by it as I should have been.