Page 16 of Another Life
“I heard he likes to fuck students,” she conspires, a brow lifting at my lack of reaction.
Inside, my heart jumps at just how close to the truth her words are. Outside? I’m stone.
“You managed to hear that in a few hours?” I chuckle, shaking my head. “What do you even do in class?”
“Don’t worry about me. Worry about the cobwebs in your puss?—”
I open up the water bottle and splash some on her, laughing at the way she yelps and tries to duck out of the way.
We settle back in our chairs and I look back out at the skyline, wishing I could stay here forever, knowing it’d be impossible.
“I forgot to tell you,” Miley yelps, interrupting my inner thoughts. “That guy from NYU showed up last night.”
In spite of the weight in my chest and the question of my future, I turn my head to look at her with a grin.
“Bitch, tell me everything.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
SOME GUY I USED TO FUCK IN COLLEGE
PRESENT
Ilike to think that with episodes of crazy, come moments of complete clarity.
Every time I lost my mind, it was followed by moments of stillness that brought a sense of calm. A sense of self.
I am currently in my calm. My schedule is on track, I’m wearing a bra, dinner is in the slow cooker at home, and it isn’t my day to pick up Penny and Jilly.
So, when my assistant calls me as I’m getting ready to head home for the day, I debate letting it go to voicemail. Not the most responsible thing to do. Not something a boss should do…
Before I can think better of it, I answer his call, standing up to gather my things.
“This better not be bad news, Wilmer,” I start as I tuck my MacBook into my tote.
His stilted chuckle doesn’t soothe me, and I still, waiting for him to speak.
“Only if you decide to fire me over a scheduling mishap,” he starts, and I sit back in my chair with a huff.
“Just answer this: am I heading home right now?” I glance down at my pumps, loving the sleek look of the patent leather, but wishing I could kick them off and sink into a bubble bath with my favorite podcast playing. That was going to be the plan with the bit of time I had free while Peter took the girls to an after school shopping trip.
“I’m afraid not. I forgot that I scheduled a meeting for you earlier this morning. It starts in a few minutes,” he tells me and I stare at the ceiling, wishing it would cave in so I could leave, even if on a stretcher.
I never used to be this way. I lived for work, for the sense of enrichment completing a project gave me, for the controlled outcome of my inevitable success.
Until I lost my mind this last time, I guess.
“Mistakes happen,” I tell him before he can say anything else. “Just please refrain from forming the habit.”
It isn’t his fault he hasn’t caught up with this version of you. The old you would’ve loved the idea of bagging another client.
“His name is—” My office door opens just as Wilmer says the name we do not utter. “Abraham Pugliesi.”
Time hasn’t changed him much. The lines around his eyes are deeper, his hair carries more gray strands than it once did. But his build is the same, the sparkle in his eyes as he stares at me without flinching…it’s all the same.
He’s afraid of no one and I am terrified of him.
He fills up the frame of the door and I’m transported back to a time where I was the one at his office door, watching another student make a move on him. A student he’d already fucked. Probably many times.