Chapter 4: First Move
925 Words
She didn't call.
Three days passed and the card sat on her nightstand collecting the particular kind of dust that settles on things you keep telling yourself you'll deal with later. She walked past it every morning. Looked at it every night. Told herself every time that throwing it away was the obvious and sensible thing to do.
She didn't throw it away.
On the fourth day she woke up to her uncle leaving before sunrise without a word, an empty refrigerator, and a bill reminder slipped under her door from a landlord who technically wasn't their landlord but had decided he was. She sat on the edge of her bed in the grey morning light and looked at the card.
Then she picked up her phone.
She typed the number slowly like she might change her mind between digits. Stared at it for a full minute. Then she did the thing she almost never did.
She pressed call.
It rang twice.
"I didn't think you'd use it."
No hello. No identifying himself. Just that voice, low and immediate, like he had been expecting her and simply waiting to see how long it would take.
Aria opened her mouth. Closed it. Tried again.
"I almost didn't," she said.
"But."
"But." She looked at the bill reminder on the floor. "I need a job."
Silence. Not awkward. Just his particular kind of quiet where you could feel him thinking on the other side of it.
"What kind?" he asked.
"Anything that doesn't require me to defend myself on the way out."
Another silence. Shorter this time.
"Can you be in the Mirren District by ten?"
Her stomach did something she ignored. "That depends."
"On what?"
"On whether this is the kind of job offer I should also bring a glass of water to."
A pause. Then something that wasn't quite a laugh but lived in the same neighbourhood. Low and brief and completely unexpected.
"It isn't," he said.
"Then yes," she said. "I can be there by ten."
She was there by nine forty five.
***
The building was nothing like she expected. No grand entrance, no corporate logo sprawling across glass. Just a clean stone facade on a quiet street in the better part of Mirren, the kind of understated that was more expensive than anything that tried too hard. A woman met her in the lobby before she could approach the front desk.
Celeste.
Thirty five, natural hair pinned up, warm brown skin, sharp dark eyes that assessed Aria in approximately four seconds and gave nothing away about what they concluded.
"Miss Voss." Not a question. "I'm Celeste. Mr Holt's assistant. Follow me please."
Aria followed.
The interior was all clean lines and quiet efficiency. People moved through the space with purpose, heads down, no wasted motion. Nobody looked up as she passed and she got the distinct feeling that in this building everyone always knew exactly what they were supposed to be doing.
She was the only one who didn't.
Celeste stopped outside a door at the end of a corridor and knocked once before opening it.
"Miss Voss," she announced and stepped aside.
Aria walked in.
The office was large without being excessive. One wall was entirely glass looking out over the city. A desk sat near it, dark wood, clean surface, and behind it Damian Holt in a charcoal suit, phone pressed to his ear, one hand flat on the desk.
He looked up when she entered.
Something moved across his face too quickly for her to catch. He held up one finger and said something brief and final into the phone then set it down.
"You're early," he said.
"You're surprised."
"I'm not." He stood. "Sit down."
She sat. He remained standing, which she noticed, and moved to the window with his hands in his pockets looking out over the city below. The morning light hit him from the side and she found herself studying the line of his jaw, the slight silver at his temples, the way he carried himself like the room had always been his and always would be.
She looked away.
"I have a position," he said. "Administrative. Coordinating correspondence and scheduling for one of our junior divisions. It isn't glamorous."
"I don't need glamorous."
He turned from the window and looked at her. "The hours are consistent. The pay is fair. Celeste will supervise you directly."
"Why are you doing this?" she asked.
He looked at her steadily. "Because you asked."
"People ask you for things every day."
"Yes," he said simply. "They do."
The answer sat between them doing nothing to explain itself and everything to complicate the air in the room.
Aria held his gaze for as long as felt reasonable then looked down at her hands in her lap. Her heart was doing that thing again, the thing she didn't have a name for, the thing she needed to stop doing immediately.
"When do I start?" she asked.
"Monday."
She nodded. Stood. Smoothed the front of her jacket, the best one she owned, the one with the small tear at the inner lining she hoped wasn't visible.
She moved toward the door.
"Aria."
She stopped. Turned.
He was watching her from across the room with his hands still in his pockets and his expression doing that thing again, that careful, unreadable, entirely too focused thing.
"Eat something before Monday," he said.
She stared at him.
Then she left before her face could do anything that would embarrass her.
End of Chapter 4
- Writer
