Could You Be Mine?

So we tumbled along, our magnetic affinity for each other drove us to find ways to spend time together. Thankfully, our work provided us ample opportunity to do so: we had an endless list of to-dos as we prepped for the final phase of the project - it was as much her project as mine now; we'd worked so seamlessly together on it.

The night before the Management Committee meeting, RJ and I were in her office, going over the model's distribution of outcomes in what felt like the millionth Monte Carlo simulation we'd run. Mona had some eleventh-hour questions and changes which meant another go at everything we'd set up. I wasn't complaining, and neither was RJ. We ordered sushi for dinner, during which she playfully admonished me for my lack of chopstick skills. Now, the remnants of the dinner were set to one side and we were eyeballing a before-and-after of our sensitivities analyses, both of us muttering numbers under our breath as we shifted from one table of outputs to another.

"Maybe a hundred basis points. Not really significant." RJ frowned.

"It is if you're thinking about compensation - especially for the bigger earners around here."

RJ exhaled loudly, "Why are you saying that? Now we have to do more work!"

"I'm a sucker for punishment. Come on RJ, you'd feel like they caught you with your pants down if you went into the meeting tomorrow with a one percent gap. Let's just finish this up." I went over to her seat and sat down in front of her computer.

RJ leaned over my shoulder as I reset the model and parameters for the simulation.

I waved her off, "Stop breathing over my shoulder, I hate it when you backseat drive."

RJ chuckled, "What you're saying is, you're a control freak."

"That too. Now shut up and let me focus on this."

I'd fiddled with this model so many times I knew the prioritization of assumption variables off by heart. Now, I checked them off one by one in my head.

"Oh shit, RJ, we locked in inflation and never unlocked it. That must be why."

"When did we do that?" RJ had moved back over to the coffee table, where our mess of a dinner was sitting.

"Remember when Mona had a minor freak out about the thing this morning? We locked inflation for the worst case scenario."

"Oh my god. We're such idiots. Yep, that must be it."

As the simulation got cranking, I leaned back and watched the distribution chart change as the outputs were tabulated.

"Why did you say 'no' to Mona's offer to work here?" RJ suddenly asked. She started cleaning up our dinner.

I was wondering when this would come up.

I sighed, "It's just not the right thing right now."

"When will it be the right thing?" RJ picked up her nameplate from the pile of dinner debris and wiped it off with a napkin.

I pretended not to hear the question, "I can't believe you used that to cut the cookie." We'd decided to split an oatmeal raisin cookie as dessert, but we didn't have a knife (because we ordered sushi and the chopsticks weren't any help). Neither one of us wanted to go to the pantry so she used her nameplate instead.

"We got two pristine halves," RJ slid the nameplate back into the bracket, "Trust me, doing it by hand would have been messy - those cookies are deceptively gooey and hard to tear up."

"Instead, you decided to use your nameplate, which has been collecting dust for two months."

"Better than using the ruler... no-one's touched that nameplate."

"I have," I said, "I was the one that put it up there the day you started."

"Really?"

"Yup. Davina was chasing down IT for you, so she had me do it."

"Well, thank you very much... belatedly!"

"What does the 'J' stand for?"

"Oh, uh, Joyce. It stands for Joyce."

"Rowan Joyce Kan..." I let that echo in my head for a bit, "Wouldn't have pegged you for a Joyce."

"Joyce is my mother's last name," RJ explained.

"Oh, I get it. That's nice it's part of your name. Joyce - that's an Irish last name, right?"

"Right. But her family's been in the US for generations. She... uh... died when I was young..." her voice trailed off.

I sat up, "RJ, I'm so sorry."

She waved her hand, "No, no, it's okay. I added her last name as my middle name so it could be together with my dad's last name. They never got married because her family didn't approve of their relationship. They flipped out when she got pregnant with me. She was much younger than my dad. After I was born, her parents visited... and I don't really know what happened, but she left. Then she passed away. Dad doesn't like to talk about it."

"Your mom's family didn't approve of the age gap?"

RJ's face took on a hardened, angry look, "No, they didn't approve of him being Chinese."

I was stunned.

"Yeah, fuck 'em," RJ said with venom.

"How old were you?"

RJ scrunched up her face, "Uh, six months? Maybe? I don't remember her at all. Her family keeps sending us Christmas cards with these vague offers of getting together. A day late and a penny short, as they say..."

The tragedy of the statement rocked me to the core. The casual manner with which RJ delivered the information broke my heart.

"Is this why you said that 'love doesn't conquer all'?"

"Eh, maybe... I don't know..."

All I wanted to do at that moment was to hold her to me and convince her otherwise, but I remained seated. My eye caught a photograph she had on her desk. I'd never sat in her seat before, so I'd always just seen the back of the frame.

"Is this your dad?" I pointed at the photo.

RJ smiled, "Yup. That's him and me after we sold our little pharma company back in the day."

"That must have been cool!"

RJ nodded, an infectious grin spread on her face, "It was all dad's work. I was helping with the books while I was in b-school. The whole thing kind of took off: we were eventually bought out by Kovar. It's now part of one of the biggest bio-techs in the country. Dad retired and went into pharma-consulting."

"A consultant! He's a man after my own heart!" I quipped.

RJ arched an eyebrow, "He's too old for you... and he doesn't date."

"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree..."

RJ grimaced.

I instantly regretted the snarky comment. "RJ, I didn't mean to be flip. I-"

RJ held up her hand, "No, it's okay, I can see the irony. You know, the funny thing is, to this day, my father refuses to say a bad thing about mom leaving. He won't talk about what happened, but he insists it wasn't her fault."

"He loves her. She loved him. They must have had some understanding - no matter how fraught it was - before she left. I think it's quite noble."

RJ gave a short bark of a laugh, "Trust you to see the romance in this. I think of it as a cautionary tale."

"RJ, it's just risk and reward. You won't ever get a return without taking some risk. Same with love."

"Didn't work for my parents though, did it?"

"Look, I don't know what happened, but it's clear they had love. As in the real deal. They had you! And you obviously buy into it because you honor their love every day with your names. I seriously don't believe your 'I'm bad at relationships' schtick."

"My track record sucks," RJ looked at me earnestly, "I haven't had a relationship last longer than a couple of months."

"Why not?"

RJ lifted her hands, "I dunno... I lost interest... They lost interest..."

"What holds your interest?"

"What are you, my shrink?"

No... Just someone deeply invested in your answer...

I shook my head, "Hmmm... definitely not... I'm a colleague... A friend..."

RJ's eyes widened briefly as I said that.

"Okay 'friend', what holds my interest is how a person thinks... because it means conversations never get old. I'm interested in strength... strength of character, of purpose... I'm interested in someone who's interested in me... beyond the career, or savings account, or investment portfolio..."

Check. Check. Check. I think she'd say I was three for three...

"Those all sound reasonable, so..." I noticed the model was done running. I hit 'print'.

I picked up the printout and walked over to her, "So... maybe you just haven't met the right person..."

"I've been thinking that too, actually..." RJ blushed when she saw my look of shock.

WHAT?

I backed up a couple of steps in mock horror, "Is Rowan 'I think romance is stupid' Kan contemplating love?"

"It's complicated... um, it's... forget it," RJ pointed at the printout, "Let me see that."

"Wait, wait, wait," I said as I held the piece of paper away from her, "You've met someone?"

"Yes... I mean, no..." RJ looked adorably shy, "It doesn't matter, it has, like, a one in a million chance of happening."

We stared at each other. I was so distracted by what she just said that I let her take the sheet of paper from my hand. I was suddenly wracked with doubt. Oh my god, what if I'm not the person she's talking about?

"Nine bips." I blurted out. Yeah. Good job, Lauren. Way to change the subject and stomp on a moment.

RJ blinked, "What?"

"Fixing the inflation thingy. We got the gap down to nine basis points."

"Oh," RJ's eyes scanned the table, "Yep, that did the trick."

It was back to business. RJ and I talked through a couple other sensitivities. I tried not to kick myself repeatedly for completely whiffing on the window of opportunity RJ gave me.

"I think you are ready!" There was nothing else I could say, it was time to wrap up.

RJ smiled, "I think I am."

"You'll knock it out of the park tomorrow. I know you will."

"Thanks." RJ sat down in front of the computer, "I'll update that one slide and send it to the printers."

"You sure? I can do it if you want." I was scrambling for ways to extend our time together, but she didn't bite.

RJ gave me a quick salute, "No need. I wish you could come to the meeting with me."

"You're the Finance Director - this is all you. I just got things set up. And most folks get turned off by consultants..."

"I don't." RJ looked at me. It happened again: it felt like her eyes made my clothes fall off.

I stared at her, not sure what to say next.

RJ looked down and started shuffling papers on her desk, "Uh, anyway. Uh, can I take you out to dinner tomorrow? As a thank you?"

I shook my head. Her face fell. I rushed to explain, "Can't. Remember Mona is hosting good-bye drinks for me before my last day?"

"Right," RJ hung her head, "I forgot. Well, I can thank you at the thing. Buy you a beer or something."

"Deal," I grinned, "See you tomorrow first thing?"

"You got it."

Chapter 4: Medium Heat (The Next Evening)

If anything, RJ telling me about her family gave me a better understanding of what was going on in her head and basically made me fall for her even more. Ian kept trying to temper expectations; and it wasn't entirely wrong of him... the way I gushed about RJ was off-the-charts cheesy. But the heart wants what the heart wants, right?

"Remember," he said for the hundredth time, "there might be a huge gap between the fantasy RJ and the real RJ... and if you are going to make a move tonight, just remember that. It's not guaranteed to be rainbows and unicorns or mind-blowing sex."

"Why are you saying all of this? Have a little faith in our chemistry. And go finish putting your clothes on, we need to leave in, like, a nanosecond."

"I'm saying all this because you have no idea what you're walking into! RJ is like the paragon of perfection right now and you know that can't be true... and then if you get hot and heavy at some point it's going to be obvious that it's not like straight sex... and you are - well, let's be honest - a total novice."

"Sex is sex, and granted, I may have to re-orient things somewhat, but..." I squeeze my eyes shut, "Jesus, I'm not going to just jump on her, you know, I'm going to at least see if this was just a fun office flirtation. She might have moved on already."

"Part of me kind of wants you to jump on her and be done with it. It was more fun when we checked out cute boys together," Ian flashed me his cheeky smile.

I hugged him, "Thank you for keeping me sane. Now that RJ and I aren't working together, it's going to be a little harder for me to rein this all in. Ironically, trying to stay out of the office rumor mill helped me not do anything rash. Are you ready?"

Ian put his shoes on, "Wingman extraordinaire reporting for duty! Ready as ever."

"You just want to hang out with Jared." I wiggled my eyebrows. Ian met Jared, a VP on the Finance team, earlier on during my stint at Win-B when he came to meet me for lunch one day.

The tips of Ian's ears went slightly pink, "He looks like Prince Harry, except he's American... and gay... and you know I kind of have a thing for his Royal Highness."

"Just behave yourself. Both when you meet RJ, and when you get within tonguing distance of Jared."

Ian looped his arm through mine and we headed out. The party was at a bar in TriBeCa, and Mona had booked us the private room downstairs. Mona gave me a huge hug when we arrived, and I thanked her profusely for hosting the event. She congratulated me on a job well done - the Management Committee meeting went well and the proposal was approved. I loved it when I manage to help a client figure out a difficult problem. Win-B was the only one that threw me a farewell party though! There were maybe thirty-some people there, from a mix of departments at the firm. I felt so flattered that they all turned up for me; it definitely upped the guilt factor of me saying no to Mona's job offer.

RJ was nowhere to be seen, and I suddenly panicked with the thought of not seeing her at all. Thankfully, introducing Ian to everyone there kept my mind off RJ, and I soon found myself in a rousing conversation with Davina and Oliver about the merits of taking the B or D subway to work from Brooklyn versus the N or Q. I used to live in Brooklyn, so I had some skin in the game, but before I could really cast the deciding vote, Ian nudged me. It was close to eleven at this point, and I'd pretty much assumed RJ would be a no-show. But when I looked up, my eyes homed in on a figure by the door.

It was like a scene from a high school play, where you would hear two pops and a single beam of light would stream down on the star of the show. RJ was bathed in the proverbial spotlight of my gaze. She must have gone home and changed, because she was now in jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt and holy hell my eyeballs exploded. Even Ian, my stoic, objective Ian, muttered, "Fuckin' A!"

"I know," I said quietly.

"Look at those guns," Ian's eyes were wide, "You didn't tell me she was ripped."

I shook my head, "I've never seen her arms before. I've never seen her out of a suit before." Well, except when she's completely naked in my dreams. It made me realize how little I knew about RJ's life out of the office. I mean, she's talked about her friends and other non-work related stuff, but I didn't know that she worked out! If that's what her arms looked like, what did the rest of her look like?

RJ came straight towards us, "Hey!" She looked at me and Ian and gave me a big hug, "Sorry I'm late."

Home.

"This is my best friend Ian," I introduced the two when I reluctantly broke from her embrace, "Ian, this is RJ, Director of Finance at Win-B."

"Nice to meet you," Ian said politely as they shook hands.

"How was your last day?" RJ turned to me. I hated Ian hovering and watching us interact.

"Don't know yet. Tomorrow's my last day, remember?"

RJ smiled, "How is it that I didn't know that? I thought I was going to have to say good-bye tonight!"

"You weren't paying attention when I told you, clearly." I smirked.

RJ crossed her arms (I tried not to swoon), "Not true, I pay very close attention to you... um... to you when you're talking."

The sight of RJ's bare arms was causing some disruption to my brain neuron activity, and I kind of froze.

Ian cleared his throat, "It's okay RJ, I've lived with her for years, I can attest to the fact that she can do with some elocution improvement... she tends to mumble through her sentences."

"I. Do. Not." I said slowly.

"You kind of do," RJ agreed, her eyes boring into mine, "It's endearing."

Zap. RJ just zapped away my ability to speak.

"How do you guys know each other?" RJ looked between me and Ian.

"We grew up together," Ian said simply, "I'm your best source for Lauren Calder stories!"

"I'm all ears," RJ said with good humor.

I slapped both of them on their shoulders, "No ganging up on me!"

"I can tell RJ about Keith!" Ian suggested.

What the fuck?? I shot Ian a warning look. He gave me his 'trust me, I know what I'm doing' look.

"Who's Keith?" RJ asked.

Ian smiled slyly, "Oh, just this guy that Lauren came home one day talking about."

"Ian," I said firmly, my eyes begging him to stop, "That is not something we need to be talking about right now!"

"Why not?" RJ asked, "What's wrong with Keith?"

Ian wiggled his eyebrows at me. I shot daggers at him.

"Oh, nothing's wrong with Keith..." he said dramatically, "It was just another string of 'oh Keith this,' and 'oh Keith that'... She gets a little moony when she crushes out on someone."

I watched a number of emotions cross RJ's face. I squeezed his arm, hard, "Ian, can you cut it out? I don't want to talk about Keith anymore."

Ian seemed to finally get the message, "Ok, fine. How about something to drink? RJ? Lor?"

"I'll come with you," RJ said, "I need to go say a quick hi to Mona. Ellie, I'll be right back."

Ian circled back moments later with two beers, and he looked like he was about to burst. I glared at him, "What the fuck was that bullshit about Keith?"

He tapped his beer against mine, "I wanted to gauge her reaction to the possibility of you not being interested in her. I wanted to see how she would take it."

"You were skirting on outright LYING, Ian!"

Ian looked contrite, "I didn't say anything that wasn't true. I just didn't put it into chronological context. And by the way, she's so into you it's not funny."

"What? Really? What did she say?"

"Nothing specific. But she said I was lucky to have a friend like you. I said you were really special to me. And she said 'Ellie's special to me, too.'"

My mouth hung open. Oh...

"Why does she call you 'Ellie'?"

I scrunched up my face, "She misheard my initials as 'Ellie,' it's kinda been her nickname for me since."

"Well," Ian said, "It threw me off so I just stared at her with this 'what do you mean' look... and Lor, she didn't explain the name thing, but she said, 'I've never met anyone like her before, I never thought I would.'"

I stared at Ian.

Ian nodded rapidly, "Yup. She also said, 'Keith's a lucky guy.' She's into you. Totally."

I shot him a look, "What did you say back?"

"Nothing. Mona called her over and I went to the bar."

I looked around the room and saw RJ chatting with Mona. RJ was nodding as Mona was talking, so I just ran my eyes up and down her body. Jeans were basically invented for RJ's legs, I concluded. Without the usual dress shirt and suit jacket, I now had an unobstructed view of the nape of her neck, her shoulders, and yes, those arms... and her butt-

"CALDER!" Ian snapped his fingers in front of me.

I looked at him, "What?"

"Oh my god," Ian's eyes ran all over my face, "Oh my god, Lauren... you'd sleep with her tonight if she made a move, wouldn't you?"

I grunted, "Ian, I've been ready to throw myself at her since moment one. How have you not noticed?"

Ian leaned his body into mine, "Don't let her break your heart, Lor."