Page 48 of Written By a Woman

“Yup,” Signe whispered, “That works, ahem, pretty well.”

I released a low laugh again, and her eyes fluttered a little bit at the sound. My heart was beating, and I knew what I wanted. What I had wanted for way too long now. It took every fragment of my willpower to stand there, feeling her body heat radiating towards mine, and do nothing else. To not cross that line. To steer clear of that boundary between us. If my mask hadn’t been covering the entirety of my face, I was confident I would have already closed the distance between us and claimed her mouth. Invaded her lips with my hungry tongue, desperate to taste her and see if she would make the sounds I had only dreamed about until now. Every muscle in my body was pulled taut, desperate to feel her under my hands.

But I just stood there.

I could see emotion dance across her expression, how her surprise and obvious interest turned almost hungry. How she licked her lips and kept gazing at my chest and arms and face. How she was having an internal battle of her own to some degree.

I hated myself for it, but I knew I needed to pull us out of it before we did something we regretted. Before we did something the people who stood outside my office with the partially open door would see and report us for.

I gave myself one last moment, for purely selfish reasons, by leaning down near the side of her head. As if my masked face was whispering in her ear, “You’re not going to give me grief for my costume, Signe?”

I felt and heard her shiver a little bit before she spoke, “No, I—”

“Good girl,” I stood straight after I cut her off, and thank god the mask was covering my expression because I had the widest grin after I heard Signe release a quiet whimper from the sound of my praise, and then collect herself as if she had just realized where she was, who she was talking to, and what I had just said.

I turned on my heel and started walking towards my office door, keeping my mask on my face simply to hide the fact that I was wrecked for this woman. That this employee plagued every thought. I paused at the doorway and glanced at her over my shoulder, thrilled to see her standing where I left her with one hand on her chest, as if she was feeling her heartbeat, and another on her forehead, as if she was checking for a fever. Her eyes were wide as she stared at me, her mouth hung open before the corner of her lips pulled up in a surprised smile as she saw me turn around to check on her.

“Goddamn,” Signe laughed, “I guess I deserved that one.”

ChapterTen

SIGNE

“I haveto tell you both something,” I glanced through the aisles of secondhand clothing we were all rummaging through, after putting back a bright orange jumpsuit that I unfortunately didn’t have the complexion to pull off. We had finally, after months, been able to sync our weekend schedules and go shopping together on Saturday morning.

“Is it bad?” Jamie asked holding a pair of jeans up to herself.

“No,” I winced a little as I considered it some more, “Well, maybe?”

“Tell me everything,” Mary demanded, ignoring her own search and facing me.

“It’s not necessarily bad,” I inhaled a deep breath as I lowered my voice, in case anyone from work happened to be browsing this thrift store too, “It’s just a little…icky?”

“Icky?” Jamie repeated.

I inhaled through my nose, staring at these two ladies whom I have been lucky enough to call friends ever since I started working at Sun Steer. I didn’t want to talk to my mom about this, and Eloise was busy with what I liked to refer to as “grown-up stuff”. Eloise’s pregnancy was really taking a toll on her body, and even though Logan was recently retired and available to take care of her and their daughter, my own drama seemed very trivial in comparison to growing another person.

If I was going to talk to someone about this, Mary and Jamie were my best options.

Even if I was still deeply worried about what their reactions would be.

“I have been keeping a secret from you both,” I decided to start, hesitating for no other reason than because I wanted to, “And I need someone to talk to about it and I’m hoping you two can be those people for me.”

Jamie’s eyes widened while Mary’s narrowed with suspicion, but both women made gestures to encourage me to keep going.

“What is it?” Mary asked, stepping closer to us.

“I may or may not be at risk of getting fired?” by the way both of their expressions morphed into a mixture of horrified, I decided to just keep talking, “That is, if anyone important finds out about what I did.”

“What did you do?” Jamie asked in a low whisper.

“I…” I dropped my face in my hands, unable to look at them as I admitted my crime, “May have stolen Zaid’s identity?”

“What the hell?” Mary asked, “Why? How?”

“I wrote him into my book.”

Silence.

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