Chapter 11: Off Duty, Still Yours

I tried to give the phone back so quickly that Adrian had to catch it with both hands.

“Delete it.”

He looked at the screen.

Then at me.

“Do you want me to?”

“Obviously.”

“All right.”

He removed the post.

The phone kept vibrating.

I stared.

“Why is it still doing that?”

“People have notifications.”

“How many people?”

He hesitated.

“That’s a bad question for your blood pressure.”

I stood.

Adrian remained on the sofa, holding the phone while messages arrived faster than he could dismiss them.

Somewhere out there, strangers were reading a paragraph in which I had apparently changed his entire life. They were probably examining it for clues.

They were definitely going to find my name.

I pressed both hands over my face.

“I’ve survived men trying to break my ribs. I’m going to be killed by a touchscreen.”

Adrian made a small sound.

I lowered my hands.

“If you laugh, I’m leaving.”

“I’m not laughing.”

His mouth was pressed firmly shut.

I pointed at the phone.

“Fix your face before you answer anybody.”

He looked down, shoulders shaking once.

I picked up a cushion.

He stopped immediately.

At least he still respected a credible threat.

Grace called first.

Adrian answered on speaker after checking with me.

“Before either of you explains,” she said, “please tell me the account wasn’t compromised.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Then was that intentional?”

I took the phone.

“No. It was my thumb.”

There was a pause.

“My condolences,” Grace said.

Adrian turned his head away.

I glared at him.

We explained what had happened. Grace asked whether we wanted to deny the relationship, leave the deleted post unaddressed, or publish a short clarification.

She didn’t tell us which answer was best.

That made it possible to think.

I looked at Adrian.

He’d stopped smiling.

“What do you want?” he asked.

It wasn’t a performance. I could tell by how still he sat.

If I said I wanted privacy, he would accept it.

If I said I wasn’t ready, he would tell Grace.

I sat beside him again.

“I don’t want people treating my job like it’s pretend.”

“They won’t hear that from me.”

“And I don’t want that paragraph reposted.”

“It won’t be.”

I looked toward the dark window.

The city beyond it remained remarkably uninterested in my crisis.

I had agreed to a second date. I had held his hand on the street. We’d been making progress before my thumb involved several million spectators.

I didn’t want to lie about that progress because I was embarrassed.

“Can we write something short?”

Adrian nodded.

“Together.”

The replacement took twenty minutes.

Most of that time was spent removing things Adrian thought were reasonable.

“No soulmate.”

“I didn’t suggest soulmate.”

“You were thinking it.”

He gave me an offended look.

I deleted another sentence.

“No details about Lucy.”

“Agreed.”

“And nobody needs to know where I sleep.”

His gaze moved to mine.

I held up the phone.

“Concentrate.”

We settled on three sentences.

The earlier post went up before we intended it to. Cole and I are dating, and we’re happy. Please respect his privacy and the work of the security team.

I read it again.

No grand claims. No description of me as something he’d acquired. Nothing that made my salary sound like a courtship allowance.

Adrian watched me.

“Ready?”

I handed him the phone.

“You press it. I’ve retired.”

He published.

Then he switched the phone to silent and placed it on the table.

That was unexpectedly attractive.

I leaned back against the sofa.

“You realize my mother’s going to see this.”

“She might already have.”

My phone rang.

We both looked at it.

MOM.

I answered with the weary confidence of a man approaching a disaster he couldn’t prevent.

She didn’t say hello.

“So the employer.”

“Yes.”

“The difficult one.”

“Yes.”

“Is he there?”

I looked at Adrian.

He sat up straighter.

“He is.”

“Tell him Sunday dinner is at six.”

I waited.

“That’s it?”

“What else should I say?”

“I had several possibilities in mind.”

“I’ll save them for Sunday. Bring dessert.”

She hung up.

Adrian looked at me.

“Am I invited?”

“You’re being inspected.”

“Should I be nervous?”

“She owns photographs of me with braces. Fear is appropriate.”

He reached for my hand.

I let him.

Lucy called an hour later, laughing so hard that I briefly considered blocking her.

Daniel shouted congratulations in the background.

My sister demanded to know whether Adrian had really written the first post before the wedding.

I looked at him.

He stared at the ceiling.

Traitor.

“I’m not answering that.”

“That means yes.”

“You’re very irritating for someone I protected for twelve years.”

“You raised me to notice suspicious behavior.”

She got quieter before we ended the call.

“Are you happy?”

I looked at our joined hands.

Adrian was pretending not to listen.

He was terrible at it.

“I’m getting there,” I said.

Lucy understood.

“Good. You’re allowed to take your time.”

After the call, Adrian drew my hand toward him and kissed my knuckles.

I sighed.

“You’ve become unbearable.”

“I’ve been holding back.”

“That’s alarming.”

He smiled.

I leaned over and kissed him anyway.

The next morning, I woke in his bed with my boots neatly placed beside the chair and my bag still unpacked.

Adrian slept on his side, one hand resting between us.

He’d asked before reaching for me the night before.

I’d told him he could stop looking as though a formal application was required every time.

He’d replied that he was learning the difference between confidence and assuming.

Then I’d kissed him to reward the educational achievement.

Now sunlight fell across his face.

I watched him for a moment.

Pretty, I thought.

Still pretty.

Knowing he could put me on the floor didn’t change that.

It did make me want to see whether he could do it when I was ready.

When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was me smiling.

His expression brightened.

“That looks promising.”

“It’s not for you.”

“Who’s it for?”

“The cat.”

He closed his eyes again.

“I may never recover from that.”

I touched his hair, pushing a loose strand off his forehead.

He caught my wrist gently and held it against his cheek.

There was no confusion left about what I wanted.

There were still things we needed to work on.

He could be patient.

So could I, when the situation deserved it.

At work, the revised contract took effect.

Grace became my point of contact for scheduling and payment. Another security employee handled the occasions when being both Adrian’s boyfriend and his closest guard would complicate the job.

I kept my own clients.

I kept the Saturday class.

I also kept correcting Adrian’s terrible ideas about airport routes.

He complained less when I explained that boyfriends did not receive exemptions from crowd safety.

Marcus found that very funny.

“So I never stood a chance?”

“You were trying to hire me,” I said.

He glanced toward Adrian.

“Was I?”

Adrian slipped an arm around my waist.

I removed it.

“Working.”

He dropped his hand immediately.

Marcus laughed harder.

For the rest of the afternoon, Adrian behaved perfectly.

When my shift ended, he appeared beside me with my jacket.

“Off duty?”

I checked the time.

“As of thirty seconds ago.”

“Good.”

He took my hand and kissed me before I could make an observation about the corridor.

It was brief.

It was also sufficient to make Marcus whistle from somewhere behind us.

I raised my middle finger without turning.

Adrian laughed against my mouth.

Six weeks later, the room for the nonexistent cat became my study.

I paid an agreed share of household expenses, kept my apartment until its lease ended, and brought over my things in stages.

Adrian cleared shelves.

I assembled them correctly.

He bought a chair.

I told him it cost too much.

He asked whether I liked it.

Unfortunately, I did.

The body pillow went into the spare bedroom, where his parents apparently no longer minded other people existing.

I discovered that at Sunday dinner when his mother casually asked which room we used for guests.

Adrian choked on his water.

My mother looked at me.

I looked at him.

He spent the drive home apologizing while I laughed hard enough to make my ribs ache.

Some lies were going to follow him forever.

He accepted that remarkably well.

One evening, rain began while we were leaving the gym.

I’d taught two classes. Adrian had spent the second one waiting in the office, reading a script and pretending he hadn’t watched through the glass.

He opened a black umbrella over us.

I looked up at it, then at him.

“This feels familiar.”

“I was more nervous the first time.”

“You hid it well.”

“I’ve had training.”

We walked toward the car.

Halfway there, he shifted the umbrella farther over my shoulder.

Rain caught his jacket.

I took the handle and centered it between us.

“You can stand closer,” I said. “That’s usually how umbrellas work.”

He did.

His shoulder pressed against mine.

At the car, I turned toward him.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said.

“You’re looking.”

“I like looking at you.”

I shook my head, but my hand had already found the front of his coat.

He lowered the umbrella just enough to shelter us as I pulled him in.

When I kissed him, he didn’t look surprised.

He looked happy.

I could live with that.

Back home, he left his shoes in the hallway, stole a bite of my dinner, and followed me into the room that had once been reserved for an imaginary animal.

I was putting away class notes when his arms settled around my waist.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

“I was hoping you’d come to bed.”

“There are two perfectly usable guest rooms.”

“I’m aware.”

“And a pillow.”

“It doesn’t argue with me.”

I turned in his arms.

“You should appreciate that.”

“I prefer you.”

I let him kiss me once.

Then I caught his hand and led him down the hall.

“Good,” I said. “Because I’m not giving the cat its room back.”

The End.