Deskbound

The elevator doors slid shut with a soft hiss, sealing me inside with the smell of his cologne and the low hum of the building's guts. Fifteen floors up, the rest of the office was dark, chairs pushed in, monitors black, the cleaning crew long gone. I should've been gone too. I had a train to catch, a pint of mint chocolate chip melting in my freezer, a cat who'd start yowling the second I turned my key.

Instead I was standing in an elevator with my boss, watching the numbers climb.

"You didn't have to stay," Marcus said. He wasn't looking at me. He was looking at the brushed steel doors like they held the answer to something.

"Someone had to make sure the Hendricks file was right." I shifted my weight. The strap of my tote bag dug into my shoulder. "You were going to be here until midnight otherwise."

"I'm always here until midnight."

"Yeah. I noticed."

That got his attention. He turned his head, just enough that I caught the edge of his profile, the sharp line of his jaw, the shadow of stubble he never quite managed to shave clean. Marcus Cole. Forty-three years old. Managing partner of Cole & Reyes, the kind of law firm that made junior associates cry in the bathroom and senior partners retire early with ulcers. He had a reputation for being ruthless in the courtroom and barely civil in the office. He'd fired three paralegals in the two years I'd worked there. He'd never once said good morning to me.

But he remembered my coffee order. And he'd noticed when I switched from almond milk to oat.

The elevator stopped. Not our floor. The doors opened onto a dark hallway, the emergency lights casting everything in a dull red glow. Nobody got on. Nobody got off. The doors slid shut again and we kept climbing.

"Your file was perfect," he said. "As always."

"I know."

He almost smiled. Almost. The corner of his mouth twitched, and I felt it somewhere low in my stomach, a flicker I'd been ignoring for months. Twelve months, to be exact. Ever since my first week, when he'd handed me a stack of depositions and said, "Don't fuck this up," and I'd spent the entire weekend making sure I didn't.

The elevator dinged. Fifteenth floor. My floor. The doors opened onto the familiar hallway, the one with the bad fluorescent light that flickered every third step, the one I walked every morning with a coffee in one hand and my phone in the other. I stepped out. He didn't.

"Goodnight, Marcus."

"Ms. Chen."

I turned. He was still in the elevator, one hand holding the door, the other shoved in his pocket. His tie was loosened, top button undone, and I could see the hollow of his throat, the small triangle of skin that made him look less like a lawyer and more like a man who'd been working too long and sleeping too little.

"Get home safe," he said.

"I always do."

The door closed. I stood there for a second, listening to the elevator hum as it continued its climb to the top floor, where his office waited with its leather chairs and its view of the river and its bottle of bourbon he kept in the bottom drawer of his desk. I'd seen it once, that drawer, when I was looking for a file he'd asked me to retrieve. I hadn't mentioned it. He hadn't either.

I walked to my desk. My cubicle, really, but I'd made it mine over the past year. A framed photo of my sister's wedding. A succulent that refused to die no matter how much I neglected it. A mug that said "World's Okayest Lawyer" that my best friend had given me when I passed the bar.

The Hendricks file sat on my keyboard where I'd left it. I'd spent three hours on it. Cross-referencing depositions, flagging inconsistencies, building a timeline that would make the opposing counsel weep. Marcus hadn't asked me to stay. He'd just looked at me across the conference room table at 7 p.m., his sleeves rolled up, his hair a mess, and said, "I need this by morning."

I could've said no. I had plans. I had a life. But I also had a mortgage and a student loan payment and a desperate, clawing need to prove that I belonged in that office, that I wasn't just another diversity hire, that I could outwork every white man in a suit who'd ever looked at me like I was there to fill a quota.

So I stayed.

And now I was standing in the dark, holding a file I'd already finished, wondering why I hadn't just emailed it and gone home.

Because he asked you to stay, a voice whispered. Because he looked at you like you mattered.

I shoved the file in my bag. I grabbed my coat. I was halfway to the elevator when I heard it.

A crash. From upstairs. From his office.

I froze. The building was empty. The security guard was downstairs, probably asleep at his desk. The cleaning crew had left an hour ago. It was just me and Marcus and fifteen floors of silence.

Another crash. Louder this time. Glass breaking.

I should've called security. I should've walked away. I should've done any of the hundred sensible things that a sensible person would do. Instead I hit the elevator button and waited, my heart hammering, my palms sweating, my mind racing through every worst-case scenario I could imagine.

The doors opened. I stepped in. I pressed the button for the top floor.

The ride took forever. Or maybe it took thirty seconds. Time did something strange when your adrenaline spiked, when your body knew something your brain hadn't caught up to yet. The elevator hummed. The numbers climbed. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen.

The doors opened onto the executive floor. The lights were off, but I could see the glow of his office at the end of the hall, the door slightly ajar, a sliver of warm light spilling onto the carpet.

I walked toward it. My heels clicked on the floor, too loud in the silence. I should've announced myself. I should've knocked. Instead I pushed the door open and stepped inside.

Marcus was standing behind his desk. His shirt was untucked, sleeves rolled up, and there was blood on his hand. A glass paperweight lay shattered on the floor, and he was staring at it like it had personally offended him.

"Ms. Chen," he said. His voice was calm. Too calm. "You're still here."

"I heard a noise."

"I dropped something."

"You're bleeding."

He looked down at his hand. A cut, shallow but long, running across his palm. He flexed his fingers, watching the blood well up, and something in his expression shifted, something I couldn't read.

"It's nothing," he said.

"Let me help."

"I don't need help."

"Too bad."

I walked past him, into the small bathroom attached to his office, and grabbed the first aid kit from under the sink. I'd stocked it myself three months ago, after he'd sliced his finger on a letter opener and bled all over a contract. He'd been annoyed. I'd been prepared.

When I came back, he was still standing there, still staring at his hand. I took it without asking. His skin was warm, his fingers calloused, his grip firm even now, even bleeding. I cleaned the cut with an alcohol wipe. He didn't flinch.

"You should get stitches," I said.

"It'll heal."

"It'll scar."

"Everything scars."

I looked up at him. He was close. Closer than I'd realized. Close enough that I could see the flecks of gray in his eyes, the lines around his mouth, the way his jaw tightened when he looked at me.

"Why are you really here?" he asked.

"I told you. I heard a noise."

"That's not what I meant."

I knew what he meant. I'd known the second I stepped into the elevator. I'd known for months, if I was honest with myself, which I rarely was. I'd known since the first time he'd corrected my grammar in a memo and I'd felt it like a slap and a caress all at once.

"I don't know," I said. "Why did you ask me to stay?"

He didn't answer. He just looked at me, his hand still in mine, the blood drying on his skin, and I felt the floor shift beneath my feet, the whole careful architecture of my life tilting on its axis.

The clock on his desk ticked. The city hummed below us. And somewhere in the dark, fifteen floors down, my phone buzzed with a text from my sister, asking if I was still at work, asking if I was okay.

I didn't answer. I couldn't. I was too busy falling.