Strictly Professional

At eight the next morning, I placed Adrian’s schedule on his desk and addressed him as though we had met at a conference for people who disliked each other.

“Your nine o’clock has moved to nine thirty, Mr. Vale. The revised figures are attached.”

He looked up.

“Good morning, Julian.”

“Good morning. Is there anything else?”

“Several things.”

“Please email them.”

His pen stopped moving.

I had ironed my shirt, slept four hours, and developed a strategy. I would apologize once. I would stop looking at his mouth. Then I would become the least interesting person he had ever employed.

“About last night,” I said, before he could.

He set the pen down.

“It was inappropriate. It won’t happen again. You don’t need to worry about it affecting my work.”

He watched me for a moment.

“That wasn’t what I was worried about.”

“Excellent. Then we’re agreed.”

I left with his unsigned courier form.

Ten minutes later, he brought it to my desk himself.

“You forgot this.”

“Thank you.”

He remained beside the desk.

I opened a spreadsheet with the concentration of a man defusing a bomb.

“Did you sleep?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Enough?”

“That depends on whether you’re asking about productivity or survival.”

There it was. A dangerous hint of my actual personality. I clicked into another cell.

Adrian placed the form beside my keyboard.

“Development received your proposal this morning. Their director wants a site visit before the second interview.”

I looked up despite myself.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Thank you.”

“You asked me to send it.”

“I know. I’m pleased you listened.”

His eyes warmed. “I do occasionally.”

I looked back at the spreadsheet before occasionally became a problem.

By six, I had finished the day’s work and arranged dinner for his late meeting. One meal. One set of utensils.

Adrian emerged while I was putting on my coat.

“You’re not eating?”

“I am. Elsewhere.”

He looked at the single bag on the side table.

“You usually stay.”

“I usually order too much and convince myself it would be wasteful to leave.”

That was only partly a lie. I had been remarkably willing to prevent waste when it involved sitting across from him with my shoes off beneath the desk.

“Do you have plans?”

“Yes.”

His hand tightened slightly around the folder he carried.

“Enjoy your evening,” he said.

“You too.”

Leah was waiting downstairs. She glanced from my face to the elevator behind me.

“Did someone die?”

“My enthusiasm.”

“It had a good run.”

We ate sandwiches at Mrs. Ortega’s shoe repair shop, where half my warehouse research had begun. Leah had offered to help identify old project records. Mrs. Ortega offered us chairs and opinions.

“Your boss coming Saturday?” she asked.

“I haven’t invited him.”

“He owns part of the place.”

“A condition I’m trying to overlook.”

Leah hid a smile in her paper cup.

At nine, Adrian emailed about the scheduled visit. He had heard from the development director and wanted to attend as a property owner.

I read the message twice before answering.

Julian: Saturday at ten. Comfortable shoes. We’ll be walking.

Adrian: Understood.

Julian: That means shoes you can actually get dirty.

Adrian: I do own some.

I put down the phone. Picked it up again.

Julian: I look forward to meeting them.

His reply came immediately.

Adrian: I’ll introduce you.

So much for being uninteresting.

On Saturday, he stood outside the shoe shop in dark jeans and a charcoal sweater, carrying two coffees.

I stopped so abruptly that someone behind me had to walk around.

The sweater fitted across his shoulders. Without a tie, without a desk, he looked younger and far less like someone my nervous system knew how to survive.

He held out a cup.

“Black?”

“Yes.”

“I checked with Leah.”

“You could have asked me.”

“I’m beginning to notice there are things I should have asked you.”

I took the coffee. Our fingers touched, briefly enough that I could pretend it hadn’t happened if I was willing to lie for the rest of the day.

Mrs. Ortega came outside and looked him over.

“Margaret’s boy.”

His expression changed.

“You knew my mother?”

“She stood right there and told my husband he’d have room for his workbench in the new building.”

She pointed through the window at an enormous scarred bench.

“She measured it herself. With my sewing tape.”

Adrian looked at the bench for a long moment.

Inside, Mrs. Ortega brought out a biscuit tin containing old letters and photographs. Leah arrived with the development director’s site notes, and we spent the morning discussing delivery access, rents, and the terrible acoustics of a proposed training room.

Adrian mostly listened.

When he suggested an entrance on the eastern side, Mrs. Ortega told him that was where the bakery unloaded flour.

“Then I’ve designed a very expensive obstruction,” he said.

I laughed before I could stop myself.

He looked at me as though the laugh had been the most useful thing said all morning.

Near noon, Mrs. Ortega slid a photograph out of the tin.

Adrian’s mother stood outside the warehouse with rolled plans beneath one arm. Beside her, a man in work boots grinned at something beyond the frame.

My chest tightened.

“That’s my dad.”

Adrian turned toward me.

“Martin Mercer?” Mrs. Ortega asked. “Of course. I wondered about the name.”

I touched the photograph’s edge.

Dad had died seven years earlier. I could still remember the rough patch on his thumb and the way he drew on paper napkins whenever a story required a diagram.

“He never mentioned this place,” I said.

“He cared about it,” Mrs. Ortega replied. “They both did.”

Adrian stood beside me. For once, he asked no immediate question.

“May I have a copy?” I asked.

Mrs. Ortega gave me the original.

We walked outside after the others left. Adrian matched my pace without announcing that he was doing it.

“I’d like to hear about him,” he said.

“You might regret that. Most of his stories involved drainage.”

“My mother could turn a conversation about dinner into an argument about windows.”

I smiled down at the photograph.

At the corner, he stopped.

“Would you have dinner with me?”

The question felt different in daylight.

“To discuss the proposal?”

He glanced at the photograph in my hand, then back at me.

“If you’re willing, I’d like it to be something else.”