His Office, My Secret

Chapter 8 – A Spark In The Shadows

I hadn’t expected him to actually call. Most men don’t. especially, not after a night that looks half-dream, half-accident. But Asher did. He texted the next morning:

“Did the gatecrasher make it home safely?”

I remember smiling at my phone like an i***t. That was how it started, short, teasing messages that stretched into calls, then into the kind of kaughter that leaves you half-asleep and grinning in the dark.

Within a week, he talked me into coffee.

He chose an Italian café downtown with brick walls and hanging vines. When I walked in, he was already there, sleeves rolled up, studying the menu like it was some Python code.

“You made it,” he said, standing to pull a chair. “I was starting to think you only exist in fancy ballrooms.”

“Of course, I did make it. I wouldn’t miss a chance to prove I function in daylight.” I said, setting down my bag.

He grinned. “So, daylight is your natural habitat?”

“Well, that’s more like it.” I smiled.

We talked until the waitress refilled our cup twice. He told me about media strategy, tight deadlines, impossible clients. Woah! I couldn’t help but notice he was smart. I told him about PR dreams that felt too big for my previous workplaces.

“So where are now?” he asked, picking up a serviette.

“Just two weeks ago, my resignation letter finally left my drafts and this time around, it didn’t hit the recycle bin. It hit my HR’s email.”

“Interesting.” He smiled. “What a wonderful way of saying you’re unemployed.”

Chuckling, I replied, “Technically.”

“You would kill it in PR. You talk like someone who can make people believe in things.”

“That’s the job description,” I said.

“Then you already have the job.”

It wasn’t just words. He listened… really listened. Every time I looked up, he was watching my face as if cataloguing the details. When I teased him about it, he said, “I’m a strategist. Observation is part of the deal.”

Outside, he walked me to the subway. “Next time,” he said, “I’m picking dinner, not caffeine.”

“You’re assuming there’ll be a next time.”

He tilted his head. “There will be.”

And there was.

***

Weeks morphed into months. We became that couple people that irritated people because we laughed too much in public. He noticed everything: how I chewed on my pen or run my hand through my hair when nervous, how I switched playlists when tired. He would drop by my apartment unannounced with takeaway.

“Thought you might have forgotten to eat again,’ he said, handing me the noodles.

“You think I’m incapable of feeding myself?”

“I think you get distracted saving the world,” he would reply, kissing my forehead.

He made it hard not to believe him.

One evening, he showed up with a vinyl recorder under his arm. “Emergency dance therapy,” he announced.

“Where did you get that?” surprised.

“The belly of fish? An antique shop in a subway? Does it really matter?” he said, smiling.

“I don’t dance,” I said flatly.

“You didn’t at the mixer either, but you survived.”

He said the record spinning. s****l Healing by Marvin Gaye played. Marvin Gaye! That was one of my dad’s favorites. How did he know? I remembered once dancing to Marvin Gaye’s songs in the living room with my father. Before I could even protest, Asher pulled me into the center of the living room, swerving me off the memory lane. His hand rested lightly at my back.

“Relax,” he murmured. “It’s just two people swaying badly to good music.”

We ended up laughing through the whole song, out of sync and breathless. When it ended, he kissed my temple and whispered, “See? You do dance.”

***

The first tiny c***k came later. We were at a rooftop bar with his colleagues. A waiter flirted, harmlessly, and Asher leaned close, smiling but firm. “You should probably ignore that kind of attention. Guys in this city are wolves.”

I rolled my eyes. “Relax, it’s just small talk.”

“Small talk turns into stories,” he said. His tone was soft, almost playful. Yet, sharp.

I changed the topic, pretending it didn’t sting. I called it protectiveness, not control. Or wasn’t it?

By December, we were inseparable. He met my mother that December. It was a Sunday. I had warned him that she could be skeptical, or would I say wary of anyone who made grand entrances. That was my mother, through and through. But Asher was unshakable. He showed up early, bouquet in one hand and a box of Italian pastries from her favorite bakery in the other.

“Win her with sugar,” he whispered and winked as we reached the door.

I rolled my eyes. “Not my mom.” I retorted quietly. But it worked. Within fifteen minutes, he had her laughing about old movies and complaining about ports demurrage. He even insisted on helping her set the table.

At one point, while she told a long story about my childhood, I caught him watching me instead of listening. There was this quite pride in his face, like he had discovered something rare and wanted to keep it safe.

“You know,” Mom said, setting down a glass bowl on the table, “Naomi used to run a business from her bedroom when she was eight.”

“Mom,” I groaned, “please don’t…”

“Oh, I’m absolutely listening to this,” Asher said leaning forward. “What kind of business are we talking about here?”

“Stamps, bookmarks, construction paper cardboard paper… name it. She sold them to the neighborhood kids for fifty cents each.”

I covered my face. “They were quality stuff!”

Asher grinned. “So, you’ve been in PR since primary school. Branding, pricing, distribution, name it…”

“Exactly,” Mom said. “She even had a slogan: ‘Keep it simple stupid..’ I wonder how that related to the business.

I peeked through my fingers. “You memorized that?”

“She wouldn’t need to. Such slogan would haunt me.” Asher said in between a throaty laugh.

“How could I forget?” Mom said. “She made me sing it as a jingle for her commercial.“

Asher burst out laughing, full and honest. “I can’t decide what’s funnier. The slogan or the marketing campaign.”

“The fact that she made a profit. She saved twenty dollars by the end of that summer.”

“Ambition looks good on you,” Asher said, turning to me. “I should’ve known even eight-year-old Naomi was out here hustling.”

I shook my head, laughing in spite of myself. “You’re never going to let me live this down, are you?”

“Never!” he said, eyes bright. “I’m keeping it simple and stupid for future blackmail.”

When we left, my mom stood at the doorway and said, “That one’s polite. Don’t let him run away.”

Asher smiled as we walked down the hall. “See? Even your mother’s is on my side.”

I nudged him playfully, but a part of me liked how certain he sounded. He was so confident, and it was quite good for my energy.

I sighed.

***

That winter night, I sat on my couch staring at another rejection email. Asher looked up from his phone.

“Another one?”

“Vance Innovations,” I sighed. “I thought I nailed that cover letter.”

He frowned. “They would be idiots not to hire you.” Then, after a pause, “I know someone in HR. Want me to nudge them?”

“You would really do that?”

He shrugged. “It’s not charity, Naomi. It’s strategy. You belong somewhere that notices you.”

I squeezed his hand. “Thank you.”

A week later, the email came: Interview Invitation – Vance Innovations.

I screamed loud enough for the neighbors to bang the wall. Asher picked up on the first ring.

“I told you,” he said calmly. “Never doubt my instincts.”

“You’re my lucky charm.”

“Then you owe me dinner.”

He didn’t wait for me to plan it. He booked a tiny Italian place downtown.

“What do you have with Italian restaurants?” I asked as I sat down. Candlelight flickered off the glasses on the table.

He chuckled. “Maybe, it’s the way they speak their English with a flourish.”

He ordered before I could look at the menu. “You would like risotto,” he said. “Trust me.”

When the food arrived, he leaned forward. “So tell me, Ms. Future-Vance-Employee, what’s your five-year plan?”

I laughed. “Survive the interview first.”

“Then after that?”

“I want to manage campaigns that matter,” I said. “Projects that make people feel something. I don’t want to just sell things, I want to solve real problems.”

He nodded slowly. “You will. Just remember who to thank in your memoir.”

“Page one, dedication,” I teased. “To the man who jinxed the universe.”

He lifted his glass. “Guilty.”

Halfway through the dinner, he noticed sauce on my chin. Instead of pointing it out he leaned over and wiped it off gently with his thumb. The gesture was so natural that it made my heart stumble. “You have no idea how proud of you I am,” he said.

I looked at him eyes then; his warm eyes, the way he smiled when he spoke my name and thought, Maybe this is what love feels like.

Maybe it really was that simple.

Of course, nothing that feels simple ever stays that way. But in that moment, I wasn’t thinking about the complications that would come later. I was just a girl who found someone who saw, believed in her and made the world feel smaller, softer, livable.

And if there were any cracks beneath his glow, I was too happy to look for them.