Jazzy and Ray

"What do you mean?"

"I was wondering what came first, the general or the job. Turns out you were born telling people what to do and they just threw you into this office building to put that bossiness to good use."

He scoffs beside me, rounding the corner. "Yep, I'm the reason there are hall monitors," he boasts. "I used to make the sashes myself."

I smile over the image, and wait for the elevator with him while the cellophane around my flowers crinkles in my arms. "It's not my business anymore, Mr. Vasquez, but I hope negotiating with Wynans is going a little better."

He sighs. "No, you crocheted her hair back together for my sake at that conference, I see that as a personal investment. The thing is," he says, stepping into the elevator. "I'm good at being in charge. But bad, very bad, at effectively communicating the things I want. I want to maintain the business bond I have with Wynans, while letting her know that I'm not interested in anything personal. I want to keep a good PA on for more than five months without wearing them out with the work schedule. Or with my demands."

I nod to this, and he catches the movement and smiles.

"And... a whole host of things, Jazzy," he says on a whoosh of breath. The doors slide open, and we step straight out into the slap of cold.

"Well, if I've learned anything here, you're one of the best at keeping your feelings under wraps. Maybe let them out once in a while, let the blood flow to those dead nerve endings and all that." I search in vain for my little car in a sea of silver Nissan Rogues. The parking lot is sparsely filled at this time of night, but it's hard to pay attention next to this man. "But then again, that's the philosophy I follow and you see where I'm at. Bad advice that you didn't ask for," I end on a mumble, ready to press the automatic lock on my car key so I can see where I parked.

"No, you've got something there. Live a little, stop being the agitated higher-up everyone's become accustomed to," he drones. "A little more liberty with myself and everything else will just follow naturally?"

I finally spot my baby Suzanne, streaked with road salt and parked in between two Hondas. I shrug, clicking the automatic starter to warm her up before I get there. "If that's what you got from that, yes." We're waxing philosophical and I'm just concentrating on inconspicuously sapping the heat of his body less than a foot from mine.

I notice how cold and quiet everything is around us, that he has yet to respond. "What, you thinking about doing something drastic, like not making Leilah wear heels for the next conference session?"

"I don't make Leilah wear heels," he objects.

I turn to him, slightly riled. "Why'd you ask me to wear heels?!"

"I liked looking you in the eye when I talked to you," he says quietly. "Although whatever you're wearing right now is good too."

That little Thinking Man face again, directed at me like it usually is, triggering all the same feelings as it usually does. I form my intent to turn away, to start walking to my car. "Well, that's good to know. I'll see you around, sir," I want to say. I just stand and watch him think. Watch him figure out what he wants.

"I lied," he says into the wide open silence.

"Oh?" About the reason he preferred I wear heels?

"My meeting got canceled earlier today, and I actually just wanted to walk you down here." His hands look like fists in his pockets, and I feel a fist of a similar size in my stomach.

"How noble."

"It's not, Jazzy." He stares down at me. "It's really not."

What do I do. What do I do. What the fuck do you do, Jazzy, when your ex-boss as of eight minutes is feeling you like you're feeling him?

"Oh... Alright. Fuckin liar," I bluster. His eyebrows shoot up, and he laughs, the one that I like to think is only for me, reverberating like a cymbal in my head. I don't know if I want him this close or not; my heartbeats are too heavy in my chest for me to tell.

He gathers me into his arms, careful not to crush my bouquet. I'm surrounded by him all at once, and I stand slack, numb with the sudden warmth, before I feel my free arm squeezing him in return without my permission.

"I'm gonna miss having you around, Jazzy girl," he says above me.

"I know, sir," I mumble, my cheek smashed against his chest. It rumbles with laughter, and the arms let me go. Without him, the cold slaps my cheeks again, and this time it makes my eyes a little watery.

"I still have the reservation." His fists are back in his pockets, the one in my stomach clenching even tighter. "Come have dinner."

"No." What? Isn't this what I wanted?

He arches an eyebrow. "No?"

I nod. "We..." you're flying by the seat of your pants, Jazz, even you don't know where you're going. "There's something going on. That I can feel, whenever we're around each other." Those are definitely words, sis, keep going and see if it gets better.

He looks amused, and a little excited. "Oh yeah?"

I suck my teeth. "We spent almost every day together, with me scuttling around after you attending to your every need. I'm not holding any faith in an interest that developed while we had that kind of dynamic. I don't want to hold faith in it."

His mouth moves to protest. "And I'm very well-accustomed to doing what I want," I add. That ended smoothly, Jazz. A little rough at the beginning, but you got there.

He nods, captures more of my face in his dark brown eyes like he's going to draw it from memory. "Heavens forbid I get in the way of your wants, Jazzy Lowe," he sighs.

I nod my head once, more to myself than to him, and I walk away. To my complete and utter outrage, I feel a tear gland activate, and threaten to release some of the precious stores I save up for distant cousins' funerals and weddings at vineyards. Not today.

I get into my perfectly warm car, watching Vasquez finally turn around and walk back into his prison. A tear does escape as I reverse out of the space. At least three more spill hot over my cheeks as I drive down the boulevard, and they're cooling punishingly in the collar of my sweater as I turn into my complex.

"Late night, Jazz?" Bisaam asks from his car behind me. The funk of weed drifts out from his car window, and I breathe in as deeply as I can, hoping to calm the fuck down the tiniest bit before I go inside.

"Yeah, the usual. Although I usually don't see you out this late either, what's up?"

He lowers the cone a bit, looking distressed. "I didn't get this position I wanted at a marketing firm I was interning for, so I'm probably going to be going back to work at my mom's restaurant until I find something else," he says mournfully.

"Aw, sweetheart. What are you looking for exactly?" I lean against my car, content to breathe in and out and remember post-grad life, pre rolled blunts in dark cars and months of disappointment.

"Nothing too specific, I've got a Communications degree and I just want something with benefits right now. That'll keep me from doing deliveries from 10am-2am Monday through Saturday."

I cock my head. "What if I told you a position just opened up at a production studio downtown?"

...

"You know, I never really realized how smoothly things went when we were working together, Jazz, until you left," Sabrina says. "The university kind of takes us for granted, I know, but I didn't realize how nice it was to just have somebody who was in it for the long haul with me. These Federal Work Study students weren't cutting it."

"I'm happy to be back, Bre," I smile. I really am, but not as happy as my smile says I am. Finals week is gearing up here and I'm already dreading the late nights.

But this is an investment. And I did miss Sabrina. She wears the print dresses and cat-eye glasses that Illiana had guessed at on that one damned conference. She dresses in lolita fashion part-time, too; I've seen her Instagram posts, and she has a pretty nice following. She's too shy to ask any of us to help her with photos, but I've seen her setting her phone against stacks of books to take pictures to post later.

"Anything major happen while you were gone?" she asks, walking in front of me to guide me back to my old office. Windowless, and still eggshell white. "SOs, family feuds, car chases?"

"Well, I think I'm an aunt now," I offer. "Not by blood, but simply because his cheeks were too round for me not to invite myself into the family. June's got hip dysplasia... and I think that's it."

Sabrina laughs and leans against the doorway, her waist-length curtain of hair swinging around her. "Good to know."

"How about you?"

She shrugs. "Been in the talking stage a few times, but some of them get kinda weird when I mention how I dress."

I sit in my rolly chair and plant my feet to whirl back and forth. "I've always been meaning to say, if you ever want help taking pictures for your uh... coords, that's what they're called, right?" She nods. "For your coords, I can help out."

Sabrina grins and pats the doorframe. "I really did miss you, Jazzy."

She closes the door behind her and leaves me to settle back into my office. I look around the drab space, and imagine I'm back at the desk in front of Vasquez' office, with a wall of windows in front of me and the distant shuffle of feet on carpet.

Maybe if I bring in a UV lamp I can grow some lush, leafy plants? I take my phone in hand and make a note to stop at Home Depot on the way home, trying not to remember how I was handwriting meeting times and memos on a clipboard not more than a couple of weeks ago.

And then, I get back to work.

...

"Well well well."

I smile. "Hi, Ysolde."

"Don't 'Hi Ysolde' me," the brawny guard says as I walk up to the front desk in the lobby. She tips back in her chair, chewing on a straw. "You couldn't stay five minutes to say goodbye to me, huh? Forget me."

"My darling, my love, the diamond of my heart," I croon. "Only because it would never be goodbye with you and me."

She scoffs and leans forward, peering at the gigantic box in my hands. "This is food, I presume?"

I open the lid, revealing dozens of overfilled doughnuts like a briefcase full of cash. "First pick goes to you."

She harrumphs, satisfied, and rifles through a drawer to flourish a napkin. "And you show up at 4pm, too, knowing full well I usually don't come in 'til seven."

I peck her cheek as she leans over to crane lift a boston creme from the box. "Leilah told me you'd be in early today," I say. "I've gotta catch Warren next time though."

"Get out of here, you player," Ysolde says, sitting back with her mouth full. The cream from the wounded pastry threatens to spill over her hands, and she rifles through the drawer for another napkin. "And come back over when you come back down, Warren's in early today too."

I wink at her and make my way up to my old floor, smiling at faces I remember and nodding at ones I don't. I creep into the lunchroom and sit at my old table, wondering if I should've brought extra napkins.

"Oh, look who it is!"

Leilah bounces through the door, and I hear a few other chairs rolling back as others start to clock out.

"The prodigal daughter has returned!" She shouts out into the office before planting a wet kiss on my forehead.

"Ew, Lei! And I saw you this weekend!"

"She's got treats," Wasan announces from the doorway, followed by Ruby. "Let me go check my sugar," he decides.

"OR," Ruby steps forward, "you can wait until tomorrow, because you already had a danish for breakfast."

Wasan sighs, watching everybody crowd around the box that Leilah has brought to the counter next to the fridge. "The old-fashioned glazed ones reheat really well," I promise him, and he hustles over to set one aside for himself.

I catch up with the crew and make plans with Lamar to babysit for him and Hadir the weekend after next, and on my way out, with three double chocolate doughnuts in sandwich bags in my purse, I stop for a minute. Should I go see Vasquez?

"Leilah, how's the interview process going? Is bossman looking at my nominee?" I know for a fact he is, because Bisaam told me he was coming back for a second interview, but it couldn't hurt to check it out. And to also see how the boss is doing.

She nods, fresh coffee in her mug. "I think that's who he's selecting, honestly. Cute guy."

I grin. "Isn't he? You know Oliver from the conferences, right?"

"Billsbury's assistant?" she asks casually.

I sputter a bit. "Yeah, yeah. He reminds me of him. Figured it'd be a good match."

She sips from her cup. "A good match in other ways, too."

I raise an eyebrow. "You into office romances? Girl, I never knew!"

She laughs. "I'm definitely going to ask Oliver out, yeah. But I know for a fact that Bisaam is into you."

"Oh, yeah. He's sexy as fuck, but uh..."

A cough behind us. "Ladies," Vasquez says, thermos in hand and probably empty. He looks like he's doing okay. Is he? I should ask.

"Hey boss, how's it going?"

He reaffixes his Grumpy Old Man™ face and waves the last bite of what was a chocolate frosted doughnut in his hand. "You brought snacks."

"Yes sir, I did."

"On your way out?"

Leilah sips quietly on her coffee, observing us.

"Eventually, yes."

"If you're leaving now, I'll walk you out, I'm on my way to a meeting with uh, Gina."

Ooo.

"Leilah, you'll text me?"

"I'm texting you now," she responds, walking away. I feel my phone buzz repeatedly in my pocket as I shuffle into the empty elevator with Vasquez, then press the button for the lobby and sit quiet against the wall.

"You're not going down to the lot?" he says.

"Gotta stop by the front desk and say goodbye to my people," I explain.

"Mmm." And a moment later: "Thanks for the new PA."

I look over at him, ready to give a beaming smile, but he's staring pensively at the closed doors. I shrug. "Of course. Hopefully he keeps you sane for a while longer."

"Aw Jazzy, you care about my wellbeing? Thought you were just doing your job."

I sideball him as the elevator slows. "Is that what you thought?"

"Well, you didn't even stop by my office today, and you knew I was here."

"Stop. You know exactly why I wouldn't-" the doors slide open and the three people waiting stand aside to let us through.

"Warren! Ysolde said you'd be here."

He stands and nods to Vasquez, kisses my cheek. "She also said you had doughnuts."

"I do," I nod, handing him a bagged one from my purse over the counter. He lights up like a little kid, and I laugh.

"I'll see you guys next time."

Back in an empty elevator, to the parking lot a floor below, Vasquez looks at me.

"Why wouldn't you?"

I gather my purse strap in my hands, preparing to venture out. "Because I turned you down earlier."

"Yeah, I remember that, very well. That doesn't mean you couldn't come visit me."

He gestures me out first, and I let the cool, crisp air burn sharp in my chest. "That's exactly what that means."

"Jazzy," he begins, staring down at me with a damn adorable rumple between his eyebrows, in exactly the spot we stood together last.

I pull his face down to mine, shivering in pleasure as he jerks in my arms and then wraps his own around me. Cursing myself as I rock forward into him, the sliding rasp of his tongue against mine making the knot in my stomach squeeze tighter and tighter.

It feels better than I imagined it would, and I exist for fleeting moments in the pressure of his fingers at my spine, stroking calmingly and understandingly. But he doesn't get it.

He can't feel the helplessness? I can try to make him understand, press the implication of desperation and hopeful want through my hands into the shoulders I've clenched them around. Pour the shameful heavy stream of it into his blood, so he can feel how intoxicated it makes me to the point of impulse.

He's following me stride for stride though, mirroring my roughness and responding with softer hands and lips when the mystified anger in me starts to dissipate. But with lucidity comes the realization of what I've done. Am still doing.

I pull away, barely, and watch him stand stunned, staring at my lips. "Shit," I try to laugh, but it's a hollow, pitiful sound, accidentally sincere and full of regret.

He only shakes his head slightly, bending back down towards me and taking my lips back with a gentle force. I'm dunked back under the waves of it and he's more assertive this time, kneading his hands in place and dominating the kiss, sweeping his tongue into my mouth and drawing my waist towards his. His hands sweep across my sides and clamp securely at the small of my back, and I don't exactly grunt, but make a hitched sound in my throat at the reaction my body has to his fingers.

I moan ever so slightly into his mouth as I slide my hands up his arms and through his hair, pressing my chest further into him.

A car alarm goes off and splits the air around us, jolting us apart. It's mine. My keys dangle around my neck from the lanyard my mother unearthed and gave me when she last decluttered her room. I stand, mortified, pressing the first button I can focus on and then looking at Vasquez in the renewed silence.

He just watches me. It's hard to exhale with the acknowledgement of what I just laid on him all in his eyes.

"You're going to be late," I wheeze, and he nods to this, making no move back toward me, and no move to take out his keys and walk away. "I'll, uh..." I'm rubbing the hand that was cradled at his neck a moment ago palm down over my forehead.

"What?" he says into the heavy air.

I can't save this. There's nothing I could say that would mean more than the panting heave of our breaths bouncing off the concrete pillars. I lift my keys from around my neck and take my first deep breath. "Sorry. I'll see you next time."

I almost sprint to my car before I calm myself. It's less than twenty feet away, you can make it before he calls your name and you have no choice but to turn back, Jazzy. That's what I tell myself. I hear his slow footsteps towards whatever shiny SUV he's driving today, a row away from me. I pull out of my space before he has a chance to start his car.

...

"Jazz, I got the job!" Bisaam peeks, beaming, out of his doorway as I walk past. I smile over at him, my insides still twisting slightly.

"I heard, sweetheart, I'm so happy for you!"

He walks all the way out of his apartment and I keep my eyes not on the swell of muscle in the thighs exposed by his shorts, but on his enthusiastic face. You've had enough erotic encounters for one night, Jazzy.

"I can't thank you enough. How about," he continues, "and really think about it, how about I take you to dinner? It can be platonic. I don't want it to be, let me specify, but it can."

I chuckle and wander over, his eyes following me. "Bisaam," I say, opening my purse to hand him the doughnut I saved for him. Glad Vasquez and I didn't squish it between our bodies. "I find you attractive. And I find you intelligent and funny. Cutest man I've seen in a long time."

He leans against the door, and I note a little bit of desire buried in his eyes for the first time. My stomach leaps at it gently. "But?"

"We would only be alright together, and I don't want that for either of us. Go ahead and live a little, travel with this new job, and all that. I promise, there's a lot more out there."

I'm actually a little disheartened. Should I just try it out for a bit? I do like him.

"You're considering someone," he comments, a little smirk on his face.

"Uh, no, not really. Nothing that'd stop me if we ever wanted to get together. But again," I reiterate, pressing the pastry into his hands. "I don't want you dating your neighbors."

He nods, and his shag sweeps over his shoulders, dreamily. I hold back a sigh. "Alright. But let me kiss you."

"I've been kissed enough today."