All Chapters of My Love, My Boss: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

51 Chapters

At 7

Jordan's sentencing hearing took place on a Thursday in late June. The courtroom was more crowded than it had been during the trial. Journalists. Former colleagues. A few board members whose presence felt more like morbid curiosity than support. Rebecca sat in the third row, perfectly composed, watching with the detached interest of someone observing the consequences of a system she'd once participated in. Jordan sat at the defense table in the same gray suit. Their lawyer beside them. Their hands folded. Waiting. The judge was a woman in her sixties with silver hair and the expression of someone who had presided over enough sentencing hearings to have stopped being moved by them. She reviewed the pre-sentencing report. Asked if Jordan wanted to make a statement. Jordan stood. "I did it because I loved him." Their voice was steady. Clear. "I moved the money because I thought the company was going to be destroyed. Because I thought he was going to lose everything he'd built. And I

What next

The apartment was smaller than the last one. One bedroom. A kitchen that was barely separated from the living space. Windows that looked out over a street with trees and brownstones and the particular Brooklyn energy of a neighborhood that was still gentrifying but hadn't fully turned over yet. It felt more like him than the last place had. More lived-in. More honest. Books on shelves that looked read. A couch that looked comfortable. A kitchen that had been used. "It's not much," he said as I walked in. "It's better." I set my bag down. "The other place felt like a showroom. This feels like someone actually lives here." "Someone does. Barely. But it's home." He moved to the kitchen. "I have wine. And pasta. And the ability to cook a meal that's moderately edible. Can I make you dinner?" "Yes." He cooked. I sat at the small counter and watched him move through the space with the particular efficiency of someone who had learned to take care of themselves when there was no o

letters

They allowed him thirty days before surrender. Thirty days to get his affairs in order. To say goodbye. To prepare for the fact that he was about to spend the next three and a half years in a federal prison in Pennsylvania, which was where the Bureau of Prisons had designated him. I saw him three times during those thirty days. Once for dinner at his apartment. Pasta again. Wine. Conversation that danced around what was coming without fully naming it. Once for a walk through Prospect Park on a Sunday afternoon. Quiet. Hand-holding. The particular intimacy of two people who knew time was running out and didn't want to waste it on words. Once on the night before he surrendered. August 30th. His last night of freedom. We didn't have sex. Didn't try to make it dramatic or meaningful or anything other than what it was — two people lying next to each other in the dark, holding hands, trying to memorize what this felt like before distance made it something else. "I'm going to write yo

The years

Year one. I visited him for the first time in October. Three months after he'd surrendered. The prison allowed visits every two weeks, but the three-hour drive each way meant I could realistically only go twice a month. The facility was exactly what I'd expected. Concrete and wire fencing and the particular institutional bleakness of a place designed for punishment rather than rehabilitation. I signed in at the main building. Showed ID. Had my bag searched. Went through a metal detector. Was given a visitor badge and directed to a waiting room that smelled like industrial cleaner and other people's anxiety. When they called my name, I walked through a series of locked doors into a large room filled with tables and chairs where inmates and their visitors sat across from each other under the watchful eyes of guards stationed around the perimeter. He was already there when I entered. Wearing prison-issue khakis and a white t-shirt. Hair shorter than it had been. Face thinner. But his

Fresh out

June 14th. Thursday. Eight thirty in the morning. I stood outside the Federal Correctional Institution in Pennsylvania with the early summer sun making the concrete bright and my hands slightly unsteady even though I'd been preparing for this day for three years. He was being released at nine. I'd driven the three hours from Brooklyn in the dark, arriving at seven because I couldn't risk being late. Couldn't risk him walking out those gates and not seeing me immediately. Couldn't risk the first moment of his freedom being uncertainty about whether I'd actually come. I'd come. Other people were waiting too. Families. Partners. A few lawyers. We stood in a loose cluster near the visitor parking lot, all of us watching the main entrance, all of us carrying the same tension of people waiting for something they've been promised but don't fully trust will arrive. At eight fifty-seven, the door opened. He walked out alone. Wearing jeans and a gray t-shirt and carrying a clear plastic

Baby Steps

The first week was adjustment. Learning to share space. Learning to communicate needs. Learning to exist together after three years of managing everything through letters. He had nightmares. Woke up several times convinced he was back in his cell. I'd hold him until he remembered where he was. Until the panic settled. Until he could breathe normally again. He had trouble making decisions. Simple things — what to eat, what to wear, whether to go out or stay in — required more processing than they should have. Three years of structure had made autonomy feel dangerous instead of freeing. But he was trying. Going to therapy twice a week with a counselor who specialized in post-incarceration adjustment. Taking walks. Reading books. Slowly rebuilding the capacity to exist as a free person. By the end of the first week, he kissed me. We were in the kitchen. I was making coffee. He came up behind me and turned me around and kissed me with the slow deliberation of someone who'd bee

New Beginnings

We were sitting in Dr. Martinez's office on a Tuesday in late November when he said it. "I think I need my own space. Not permanently. Not as an ending. But as — a pause. A chance to learn to live alone before I learn to live with you." I felt something tighten in my chest. "You're leaving." "I'm not leaving. I'm creating distance so we don't destroy each other. I love you. But I'm realizing that I went from prison directly into your apartment and I never learned to exist on my own. I never learned to manage my own space or my own time or my own anxiety without defaulting to either structure or you. And that's not fair to either of us." Dr. Martinez looked at me. "How do you feel about this?" "Terrified. Like he's going to leave and realize he's better without me. Like three years of waiting was for nothing." "And is that what you think is happening?" she asked Cazien. "No. I think I need to prove to both of us that I can be a functional adult before I ask her to build a life w

Lost Love

Cole & Wolfe had been open for three months when Jordan walked in. It was a Thursday in November. Mid-afternoon lull. The morning rush was over. The after-work crowd hadn't arrived yet. I was behind the counter doing inventory. Cazien was in the back prepping for the next day's pastries. The door chimed. I looked up. Jordan stood in the doorway. Thinner than I remembered. Hair longer. Wearing clothes that looked new but not expensive. They'd been released six months ago after serving fifteen months of their eighteen-month sentence. I'd seen the news coverage. Had wondered if they'd reach out. Had decided they probably wouldn't. But here they were. We looked at each other for a moment. "Hi," they said. "Hi." "I wasn't sure if I should come. But I was in the neighborhood. And I wanted to see what you'd built." They moved to the counter. "It's nice. Really nice." "Thank you." "Is he here?" "In the back. Want me to get him?" "Please." I went to the kitchen. Found

My Love, My Boss

Two years after his release. August. Cole & Wolfe had been open for twenty-four months and we were profitable. Not dramatically. Not the kind of profitable that bought luxury or security in the way Cazien had once known it. But profitable enough to pay ourselves actual salaries. Profitable enough to hire our first employee — a woman named Keisha who'd served eighteen months for check fraud and couldn't get hired anywhere else despite having a business degree. Profitable enough to start thinking about expansion. The café had become something more than a business. It had become a gathering place. A spot where the neighborhood came for good coffee and better pastries and the particular atmosphere of a space that felt like someone cared whether you had a good day. We knew our regulars by name and order. We remembered birthdays. We created the kind of small, deliberate community that only exists when people decide that mattering to each other is worth the effort. Cazien baked at fo

Flowers, Food and Whatever

Five years after his release. June. I woke up at four thirty a.m. to the sound of Cazien moving quietly through our bedroom, trying not to wake me and failing because after seven years together I could tell the difference between him getting up for work and him getting up for any other reason. "Go back to sleep," he whispered. "Early prep day." "I'm coming with you." "You don't have to." "I know. But it's Wednesday. Wednesday is both locations. You can't do both locations alone." He smiled. Kissed my forehead. "Five more minutes then." I gave him three. We'd opened the second Cole & Wolfe location two years ago. Park Slope. Bigger than the original. Sixty seats. Same menu. Same philosophy. Just more of it. The expansion had been terrifying and necessary in equal measure. The Brooklyn location had been turning people away for months. We'd had a waiting list for Sunday brunch that extended to three weeks. Something had to give. Mira's investment had been the seed money. We'd g

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