Page 38 of A World Without You
I press my lips into a small smile, trying not to laugh. Bennett notices.
“Good,” he says to Sascha. Then turns to me, “I’ll catch up with you later. I have a meeting, and then—”
“I’m fine, Bennett,” I say, reminding him with my gaze that I’m thirty and not eleven.
He nods. Almost embarrassed, with a smile buried in his lips. “Your face looks better,” he adds and my hand flies up to my cheek, the burn mostly healed.
“What does her face normally look like?” Sascha asks, seemingly disgusted—by either Bennett’s comments or the state of my face. It’s unclear.
“Gorgeous,” Bennett recovers and flashes a smile. “Always gorgeous.”
I roll my eyes at him and he leaves with Sascha chatting at his heels.
I crack my neck, slip in my earbuds, put on an audiobook, and start filing.
––––––––
HOURS LATER, AS THEwinter sky turns black, indicating the work day is close to over, his voice travels over the narrator in my earbuds.
“Liv, Liv, Liv! Shit! I have to tell you something, I have to tell you something.” Bennett is talking so fast it would seem all of his words are strung together. He shoves me farther into the file room, his brow furrows, and there’s panic in his eyes as he glances over his shoulder. He’s still in slacks and his button-up from this morning, but he’s lost his tie and jacket, and his sleeves are rolled up, revealing both his forearm tattoos.
“Are you okay?” I ask because his attire and demeanor are making me think there’s an emergency. “Did you get attacked by some Elf on the Shelf?”
“Shhh—listen. It’s important,” his tone is clipped, and his grip tightens as he moves closer to me.
“Jesus, Bennett. Relax. I know my ABCs!” I say because I seriously am tired of all these corporate yuppies acting like I’m illiterate.
“No, it’s—”
“Liv?”
I feel his voice more than I hear it. It rumbles over my skin like smooth, warm waves. It crackles just enough that it’s as if I’m sitting next to a fire in his arms drinking hot chocolate, and kissing every inch of his skin.
“Colin.” It’s no more than a whisper but more of a breath, a heartbeat that thrumsColin, Colin, Colin.
I watch his Adam’s apple glide down his throat as he swallows. The slight pulse in his jaw. The shock in his eyes. They’re gray today—like the cold, overcast sky outside.
“You work here now?” he asks after two seconds that feel like seventeen hours as he stands in the doorway to the file room.
“Uh...yeah, I do. I, well...I just started. Gotta make ends meet. You know milk money isn’t what it used to be with all us millennials being lactose intolerant now.” I force a laugh. It would appear Colin is trying to smile, but he really just squints and tilts his chin up slightly.
It’s shocking to see him in the flesh. His hair is a bit shorter than it was in my dream. It looks like he skipped shaving today, and I try not to think of how his stubble feels against my skin. I take note of everything about him. His height. His stature. His gray suit and crimson tie. The olive tone of his skin as it dips into his white-collared shirt.
There’s a scar on the left side of his neck, and I want to reach out and stroke it with my thumb. I want to kiss it and ask,what happened to you?
Instead, I stand there like an idiot, waiting for him to respond.
“Are you commuting from Roslyn?” he asks, his tone growing more and more uncomfortable. It isn’t unheard of for someone to commute from the mountains to the city, but I’ve always found the idea of the commute insane.Pick a life—the mountains or the city. You can’t have both!Graham used to say, and I laughed... Five years in I realized I picked the wrong life.
“No, I’m...back?” The last word falls off my tongue as a full-blown question.
Colin’s jaw tenses again, and he nods. He doesn’t ask about Graham, but I want to tell him. I want to explain. I want to apologize and tell him I remember exactly what it feels like to love him. I want to beg him to love me once more.
“You know how strapped offices get around the holidays, so we were able to hire her to do admin work. You know how meticulous she’s always been,” Bennett says, stuffing his hands in his slacks.
My eyes dart between them. These two know each other through me, yes. But they’ve also run in the same circles for work. Still, the expression they exchange I can’t interpret completely, but it looks like Bennett is telling him to go easy on me, while Colin is pissed to be breathing the same air entering my lungs.
“Nice,” he says. His gaze falls to my feet, then glides quickly back up to my face. I smile hopelessly. “Well, I guess I’ll see you around.”
