Chapter Eight

THE LIGHT AT the end of this tunnel was a pinpoint, but it still gave me a glimmer of hope. Slowly, so much more slowly than I would have liked, I was cleaning my audit up, but there was so much to do. I’d leave work exhausted regardless of overtime, and the only thing I could get myself to do afterward was take Franny for a walk.

This walk was later in the evening, as I had to eat something first. But emerging into a light breeze and imminent sunset was actually a refreshing change to the heat of earlier walking times.

As was usual now, Franny headed toward the park, and I followed.

There were a lot more people walking around than I had expected for almost seven o’clock, couples and parents with their kids and people jogging. Franny got excited at every dog and kid we passed, tugging at her leash until I gave her a firm “Heel,” which she obeyed.

“You’d be a better-behaved dog if I worked with you more, huh, girl?” I said as we continued on. The longer shadows of the trees stretched across the street and across the park’s grass where a junior soccer league practiced, their parents watching from fabric chairs on the sidelines. The play structure stood in full sun, a handful of kids still having a blast on it.

“Before you even think about running out onto the field, no you cannot play soccer with the kids.”

Franny whined, wagging her tail.

“Let’s head back the long way.”

About halfway around the soccer field, the small crowd of parents stood and cheered, catching my attention enough that I glanced over.

Which made me realize Rachael was less than fifty feet away, cheering and clapping, the breeze brushing her wavy hair back in an almost stereotypically perfect manner.

I stood transfixed long enough for Rachael to happen to notice me, and then wave.

“Oh god, Franny, here she comes!” I whispered excitedly.

Rachael practically skipped her way through the grass toward me. “Hey! What’s up!”

I shrugged and gestured at the field. “Didn’t know they did this here.”

“You usually come before dinnertime. We’re out here pretty often.”

“Never a dull moment,” I said, and she nodded, weariness shading her features. “Hopefully we can work out a second date soon though, yeah?” I tried to keep my tone playful and not sound too desperate, despite how much I ached to spend the rest of the day with her, now that we were together.

“God, yes, please.” She threw her head back, running her hands through her hair, and I melted where I stood at how gorgeous and borderline suggestive it was. Rachael met my eyes and immediately went scarlet, the blush blooming into her cheeks as she looked at her shoes.

“Wow. It’s been a long time since someone’s looked at me like that,” she said quietly, and I had to smile.

“I can’t help it,” I started, and she was about to banter back when a whistle sounded, and she jerked her head around.

Connor was being ushered off the field by a referee in a black-and-white vest. Rachael ran forward, and I was torn between taking my leave and my curiosity about what had happened. The referee talked to her, out of earshot thanks to the kids and adults conversing around me, and she nodded, her arms crossed tight. The ref returned to the field, and Rachael squatted to get to Connor’s height. His cheeks were red, and his expression full pout with lips stuck out as she talked. Never a dull moment indeed.

Finally, she patted him on the shoulder, and he ran back to the other kids. She strode back to me, covering her face with a hand and shaking her head slowly.

“He tried to kick a kid on the other team,” she said when she reached me, her voice strained. “I don’t know why he’s been having a hard time lately.”

“He’s still young,” I said, not sure if the sentiment was helpful. But Rachael nodded, looking out at the field.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to help him make good decisions.”

A useless shrug bobbed my shoulders. “I don’t know either.”

It was a different feeling than figuring out the audit, a lingering dread and a vague Thank god it’s not me that only made me feel guilty. If Rachael was ever going to be my girlfriend—something I really did want—at what point would I need to tackle the responsibility of parenting?

“Well. I’ll figure it out somehow. I’ll let you get back to your walk. So good to run into you.” The vulnerability in her voice and the way she held her arm across her chest ached through me.

“See you soon?” I offered.

“Sure.”

She jogged off, and Franny tugged her leash to follow, but when she realized I wasn’t going in that direction, she swung around to continue down the path.

“Yeah, girl, we’re moving on.”

I’d take these little stolen moments with Rachael when I could get them, but it would be nice if they were more often. That wasn’t a selfish thing to think, right?

I pulled out my phone and collected items before we were too far from the Ani-min spot. We continued our walk down the sidewalk striped with long shadows, the laughter and talk from the soccer field an appropriate backdrop.

Soon. I’d see her again soon.

 

I STARED AT one spreadsheet, and then another, and then back, the gears in my head churning too slowly for the unease in my gut to go away. Something wasn’t right.

I needed more coffee.

Pushing out from my desk and striding down the hall with mug in hand, I went over everything again. We had sales totals for each year for MagiCorp, which we did traditionally keep track of. But the individual transaction totals got lost in the mess of it all. Weeding out which transactions were for which projects and getting project totals per year or quarter was the meat of what I was doing. But values weren’t adding up across the system changes. Which was a problem.

I had to cross-reference transactions from projects spanning the gaps between systems and figure out which ones might have been categorized under the wrong project.

I stared at the carafe in the break room, all of this going through my head as I failed to fill my coffee cup. With my other projects nagging at me, it was hard to hold all the information at once. It would be so much easier if the audit was all I had to do. Solving this problem was intriguing and interesting in a way my projects hadn’t challenged me in years. And my god, I actually liked it.

“You okay, Ann?”

I glanced over my shoulder at David. “Uh, yeah! Sorry.” I filled my cup and stepped back. “Lost in thought about this MagiCorp stuff.”

“How’s it going?” He filled his own cup and dumped cream and sugar in.

I shrugged as we stepped away from the carafe so one of our colleagues could get some coffee too. “It’s been going pretty well so far, just a whole lot of data collection. But as I’ve put it all together, I’m seeing all the frayed edges.”

“I hope not too much of it was my fault.”

I winced. “No, no, most of the issues were from before you were the dedicated project manager. I’m looking at our old sales system and the one before that—that even I never used.”

“Oh, good. I was worried for a second.”

I almost rolled my eyes at him and started back toward the cubes. He followed behind, saying something about how difficult a customer they were, but I could see that plain as day by the complications and exceptions littered all over the account. Most customers who asked for a credit of fifteen dollars on a six-figure project tended to be problem customers.

“It’s such a big assignment to not move some of your other duties,” he finally said.

I leaned against the side of a cubicle and crossed my arms. “I guess so. Now that I know the full scope of it. But what are our options? I try to share the audit with someone else and need to coordinate with them? Or I give another project manager one of my other accounts?”

“Let me mention again that I’ll help if you’d like.”

I gave it some thought for a grand total of two seconds, but a mixture of pride and selfishness won out, with the ever-present promotion possibility in the back of my mind. Which, I realized with more than a little annoyance, was probably why he was offering. “I’ll let you know, okay?”

He nodded. “Sure.”

I sat at my desk in hopes that it would end the conversation, and he took the hint, wished me luck, and continued on to his cube.

It wasn’t selfish to want to get all the credit for this audit. Then why did I feel like it was? Glancing through emails brought no spark of interest as I sipped on my still-too-hot coffee. Back to the audit then, where I was actually enjoying figuring out a problem I’d never seen before.

Is that what it was? I liked this audit so much I didn’t want to share? Well. That would be a pleasant change of pace in this job. But…David was right—it was way too much for me to do alone, given how committed I was to my other projects, and considering the overtime it all caused. Maybe I needed to talk to George about it, but would that be seen as a sign of weakness and blow my chances of getting the promotion? I didn’t want to risk that.

But how long could I work like this before breaking?

 

IT WAS A warm, beautiful night, the sky clear and stars twinkling faintly beyond the city glow. Franny had been more than happy to join me outside, especially since our mommy’s-finally-home-from-work walk had been pointedly brief because I’d been hungry. So, out we’d gone, onto a street lit with weak streetlights and the occasional headlights, and, of course, the glow of my phone screen.

Because if I was going to be out walking, I was going to walk my critters in Ani-min. A five-mile critter was about to grow up! If it was my missing anglerfish, I’d be thrilled.

As Franny led us down to the park, I peered into the shadows under the trees. I didn’t see anyone there, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t, at least according to my paranoia. I got items at the park’s collection point and motioned for Franny to turn around.

She went to cut through the park, instead.

“No, honey, we’re going to turn back now.”

I looked across the vacant playground, down the sidewalk that traversed the park, and at the path that headed toward Rachael’s neighborhood.

“Would I be a total creep if I messaged her?” I asked, but Franny merely whined and gazed up at me. “Maybe I wouldn’t be. It’s not like I live far away.”

Standing on the sidewalk halfway down the length of the park, I tabbed over to my text screen.

Ann: In the area walking Franny and wondering if we could come hang for a few minutes?

“I’m so invasive; this is horrible. I should tell her it’s okay to say no.”

No advice from Franny.

But then her reply came. You’re in luck, if you don’t mind the mess. Connor just went to bed. See you in a few?

“Oh my god.” I motioned for Franny to move forward, and we headed straight over.

Rachael’s front door had a porch light with decorative cut glass, so the soft yellow glow shone in rays across the little alcove—such a cute detail that made me all the more in love with her house. I messaged her that I’d arrived, and immediately the latch unlocked and she opened the door.

Franny rushed in excitedly, stopped only by reaching the end of her leash.

“Want me to put her in the backyard?” I asked.

Rachael closed the door behind us. She was in her pajamas—a tank and shorts in a light sky-blue fabric that fluttered around her soft curves and revealed an obvious lack of bra. “Sure, as long as she won’t bark and wake up Connor.”

I took a few quick breaths and tried to keep my voice normal, though I was trembling with as much excitement at the state Rachael was in as Franny was at the possibility of seeing Connor. “I’ll tell her to be good.”

And when I took Franny outside, I told her just that, rubbing her behind the ears and cooing my affection. “You be a good girl, and I’ll be back for you in a little bit, okay?” Franny ran off into the backyard, tail wagging.

When I slipped back inside, Rachael was leaning on the kitchen counter, her arms crossed and breasts practically spilling out of the thin fabric stretched over them. Too late, I realized I was staring at the delicious curves, and the shadows of nipples above her crossed arms. I refocused upward, and she was smiling, wavy hair sweeping around her shoulders and eyebrows cocked in a way that said, yeah, I know you like what you see. Though I noticed she was flushed, and a mostly empty bottle of wine sat by the sink full of dishes.

“So, uh, wow. Hi.” Because I was an intellectual.

“Hey. Glad you were in the neighborhood.”

“Me too. Um, how are you?” I had no idea how to steer this toward mutual satisfaction of the physical variety, if that was indeed what she wanted.

“I’m…” She threw up her hands, scanning the house around me. “…hanging in there?”

I followed her gaze around the kitchen and living room, and she was being too hard on herself. The place looked lived in, with toys strewn pretty much everywhere, but it wasn’t dirty.

She groaned. “It’s horrible. I don’t know why I can’t keep my shit together.”

“Oh my god, Rachael, your house is fine. I don’t care if there’s toys on the floor.”

Rachael huffed out a breath and recrossed her arms. “I still feel bad.”

“You don’t have to.” Taking a step toward her, I willed her to let the mother role go long enough for us to relax. Rachael breathed in slowly, her chest swelling with the inhalation, and my body ached with wanting to feel her warmth.

“I…I guess I don’t.” Her voice softened as her expression changed, gaze steady on me, rosy cheeks and parted lips practically begging me to help her relax.

I closed the gap between us, my body vibrating with anticipation and senses on overdrive—the slip of her sock against tile, a clock ticking somewhere nearby, the soft thrum of someone’s air conditioner. When I was within arm’s reach, Rachael’s fingers danced around my shoulders, and I slipped my hands around her waist. She brought me close, pressing me up against those soft breasts and the warmth of her body, her inviting gaze not betraying any more hesitation.

I paused a few inches from her face, as I slipped a hand under her shorts to trace the curve of her ass, and she hiccupped in surprise, hips pushing into mine. And that was when I kissed her, those warm lips on mine, a moan vibrating my lips as our mouths gently parted. I relaxed into her, and her hands explored under my shirt and up my spine to unclasp my bra with one squeeze.

“And you said you’ve never been with a girl,” I teased, and she giggled, a light, loving sound that melted me from the inside.

“Do you want to go to the couch, or…”

“Sure.” I freed my hand from her ass and pushed away from the counter, and as she swayed her hips as she walked past me to the couch, I slipped my bra all the way off from underneath my tank top, a shiver running down me despite the warm air.

Rachael had dumped the toys and blankets from the couch onto the floor and now lay back on the couch lengthwise, her legs parted enough to compel me to settle there. I glanced down the dark hallway that led to the bedrooms, grimacing at the paranoia that ate at me.

“You sure he’s going to stay asleep?”

“I can be very quiet. Pretty sure a lot of parents get that skill early on.”

“Oh my god,” I whispered.

“Do you want to get on top of me?”

“Yes.”

I hadn’t expected this when meeting Rachael at a legendary raid hardly two months prior—that the beautiful woman who had kindly told me how to spin my nets would be inviting me to lay between her legs, her smooth skin brushing my sides as I braced myself on the couch arm behind her head and kissed her hard.

She stifled a moan, her stomach pressing against mine as I reacquainted my hand with her ass, the other greedily playing with her hair. She was warm and subtly sweet, both in the taste of some lip gloss applied hours ago and the smell of a flowery lotion on her skin.

Her hands cupped my breasts, and I gave a satisfied little hum. But when she squeezed my nipples I almost bit down on her tongue—it was so unexpected and intense.

“Oh god,” I mumbled.

“Sorry, I should have warned you, huh? Or asked.”

“It’s good. Do you like it too?” I asked, and she nodded, her back arching enough for me to take the hint. I freed one of her breasts from its fabric and licked the nipple to pucker it up before sucking. The immediate flurry of panting and nails scratching down my back made me shudder and laugh inwardly.

“Shit, holy shit,” she whispered, as I switched to the other side and she clung tightly to me.

“Is that good?”

“Yes, please, Ann, don’t stop.” The desperation in her voice edged me on, and still playing with her nipples, I ran my hand up her thighs to tease at the edge of her panties.

“May I?”

“Yes—” she breathed with a gasp, my eyes drifting shut at the marvelous feeling of slipping inside of her. It was effortless and so beautifully warm.

“You feel so good,” I said, letting my tingling lips rest. Rachael didn’t respond besides a squeeze of my breast and my shoulder, probably all she could easily reach with my position.

I pushed my fingers gently deeper, my thumb circling her clit as she spasmed against me. She bucked into my hand, her head tilted back, and it was everything I hadn’t fully let myself want for a long time: the exploration, the intimacy, the complete ease of my hands on her body and hers on mine.

When I continued mouthing her nipples, her panting grew in intensity, her hands grasping my shoulders. My body ached for more of her touch, but her enthusiasm was so addictive that I didn’t want to stop until she was spent.

“You are gorgeous,” I told her as I switched breasts, my hand moving with the soft thrusting of her hips against me.

“God,” she groaned in return. “I’m not gonna last long.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m loving every second of this.”

“Ann. Oh, Ann…” she moaned softly, and I picked up my pace still nestled in her arms, in the warmth and comfort of her body and her adoration and her trust. She kept me tight to her, her deep breathing pushing her breast against my lips and tongue.

I groaned with her when her body succumbed, her grip on me vice tight, her body trembling satisfyingly within and throughout.

“Oh my god,” she finally managed, pulling me up to kiss my clammy lips, still trembling against me. “Lean back while I still have the confidence.”

I smiled a smile that was too big and silly as I flopped back on the other arm of the couch. Rachael proceeded to unzip my shorts and pull them down my hips with shaky hands, her cheeks still rosy, her breasts—hanging out of her shirt—still blushed from my stimulation.

Freed from my clothes from the waist down, I spread my legs and watched her expression go from intimidated to elated before she leaned forward to kiss my stomach, kissing down, down, down until her hair spilled over my legs, her eyes shut, and her warm breath on my already-wet skin.

When her tongue touched me, I sucked in a breath, and she squeezed my hips with both hands.

“Okay, I can do this. I can do this,” she whispered.

“Keep going. You got this.”

She glanced up at me before her tongue worked its way gently down and back up, again and again, slowly enough that each time it brushed my clit I shuddered. She squeezed my thighs again.

“Gaging what you like,” she justified.

“You don’t have to explain, just keep going!”

She squeaked and dove back in. Soon, she had a pace figured out, and I ran a hand through her hair, encouraging her movement as well and as quietly as I could. I wanted to groan, I wanted to moan and yell her name and feel her squirm between my legs at my sheer audacity.

But that’d have to be another time.

Instead, my breathing grew deep and throaty, and her panting into my wet skin made me tremble with the blasts of cool, and finally one of her hands left my thigh and fingers explored within me softly, and it was my turn to push into her hand.

“Don’t stop, don’t stop,” I yelped, and she didn’t. She let the pleasure build, the intensity growing in increments that were slowly taking me over. She didn’t stop, even after I bucked my head back and shuddered, my heart hammering and the world spinning. It was better than I had imagined when we sexted the other night—the same bumbling sloppiness that I had anticipated but all the more fulfilling, with her pleasure complete and so pure, with her confidence unwavering and unquestioned. I rode it the whole way through, her squeezing every last bit of intensity out of me. She didn’t stop until I pushed at her head gently with my hand.

She smiled up at me. “Holy shit.”

I held open my arms, and she launched herself into them, pressing her wet lips against mine, her tongue, with its subtle taste of me, dancing with my own. Finally, she broke the kiss and buried her face in the crook of my neck. I wrapped my arms around her, a hand ending at the perfect location to tease a nipple. She gasped and twitched, and I smiled.

“That was incredible,” she said.

“You were incredible.”

“No, you!”

She nuzzled into my neck, kissing me softly, and everything was so overwhelming that I was at a loss for further words. Her passion and adoration, our desires lining up—it was all so much. What I wanted, hopefully what I needed, hopefully what she needed, and that we’d find each other and be able to give to each other?

If only all the other things in our lives could line up for this compatibility to turn into something solid.

“I don’t want to ever move,” she said, her fingertips tracing my breast, stomach, hip.

“I don’t want to either.” I sighed. “But Franny’s going to get very impatient very soon.”

Rachael nodded, lifting her head. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” I returned.

We shared grins as she sat up, fixing her tank back into place. “I don’t know what to do with myself now.”

“Go enjoy some sleep.” I found my discarded clothing and started pulling it on.

She sighed. “I wish. I think it’s back to the sink to do dishes until I drop.”

I frowned. That was either some major motivation or some major guilt, and knowing Rachael as well as I did so far, my bet was on guilt. “Then sleep after?”

She hesitated. “Yes.”

“You can relax for one evening, you know.”

She let out a breath, keeping her eyes on the floor. “No, I really can’t.”

I wasn’t going to press the matter. And a few minutes later, I was walking into the cooling night, a confused Franny leading the way back home, the pleasure of the evening still pulsing underneath my skin, though dampened by Rachael’s unending obligations. Either she needed more balance or I didn’t understand. I tried to shrug off my unease, to simply relish in what the evening had brought as we walked home, but my uncertainty stubbornly clung.