Episode4
1185 Words
The voice message did not come right away. Clara looked at the screen for a minute after she had put her question out there. She told herself not to care. Not to look. Not to build an expectation of a man she couldn't even establish to be real.
Then the message came.
Incoming audio. One minute. From (Reed_Art).
She turned down the speakers on her computer, closed the other windows, and leaned forward. The room grew silent once again—the silence that made even her own
heartbeat sound boorish.
Clara hit play.
His voice tonight was richer. Slower. As though each word was barefoot and crossing hardwood floors.
When I think of you," he said, "I see someone who doesn't give herself away. Not in words. Not in appearance. Someone who waits until it's safe. Until it's real."
Her chest tightened. Her fingers clasped the blanket in her lap.
"I envision your eyes linger longer on you than you realize. That you gnaw the inside of your cheek when you are irritated. That you pretend not to care more than you actually do not."
A pause.
"I envision you standing by the window occasionally. As though the world owes you something it never did."
Clara pressed her hand against her throat, as though she could slow her pulse through contact alone.
"And I think," he went on, softer, "that if I were ever to touch your wrist—gently—you'd draw back. Not because you don't want it. But because it might feel like too much."
She didn't know what to do with her body. Her limbs were suddenly clumsy and hot. Her wine glass remained half-full on the table in front of her, but she didn't reach for it. Every inch of her felt charged and exposed.
She did not reply.
Not in a message.
Not in a recording.
She sat in that dark apartment, the lingering of his voice still hanging in the air like incense, and let the silence devour her.
The next day arrived too soon and too loudly. Clara woke up trapped in a knotted bundle of sheets and abandoned dreams. The app still hung open on her phone, the message played but not saved. She looked at it for a moment before waking the lock screen and sitting up.
She had three hours before meeting at NovaReign.
She hadn't gotten ready.
Not as she was used to.
She lingered under the shower longer than she meant to. Her thoughts strayed. Back to the voice message. Back to the precision of his conclusions. She'd winced, hadn't she? When he mentioned the wrist, she'd nearly gasped.
Her fingers remained sluggish as she chose her outfit. Not too obvious. Nothing that shouted "impression." A pale gray turtleneck, black trousers, ankle boots. Clean. Efficient. Invisiblẹ.
Savannah poked her head into the hallway as Clara passed. “You seeing your mystery man today?”
Clara paused. “No.”
“But you’re dressing like it.”
She didn’t respond. Savannah grinned and retreated to her bedroom, leaving the scent of hair spray trailing behind her.
By the time Clara reached Midtown, her anxiety was trying to break free from her skin. NovaReign's skyscraper loomed glass and precise, a discarded monolith no one bothered to make inviting. Security checked her ID, issued her visitor badge, and pointed her towards the elevators with the bored detachment of a museum.
She rode alone up. Floor thirty-two. Executive level. She checked her reflection in the metallic wall and picked a bit of fluff under each eye with a finger. No smudged mascara. No crumbs on the shirt. Good enough.
The elevator opened into silence.
The lobby was minimalist, the chairs too pointed to sit upon. A woman with incredibly pointed hair and gleaming nails peered up from behind the reception desk.
"Clara Brooks?"
"Yes."
"Mr. Reynolds will see you in five."
Clara nodded, stepped aside, and sat on the edge of a cream leather chair. She didn't belong here. The whole room screamed control. Cleanliness. Money. Her bag had been an afterthought on the floor at her feet.
She picked it up and put it on her knees.
Five minutes had elapsed.
Ten.
She caught the receptionist's eye, but the woman gave nothing. Just kept typing.
A door clicked closed down the hall.
Clara looked up.
The man who stepped out was tall. Broad-shouldered. He wore a black suit, open collar, no tie. He had the kind of attitude discovered on a runway or a war zone. His skin deep bronze, his jawline too sharp to be relaxed. His eyes—
She froze.
Grey-blue. Just the color she imagined every time she heard him speak.
"Clara?" the man said.
She rose, slow and deliberate. "Yes."
He held out his hand. "Damien Reynolds."
His handshake was firm. Warm. Not faltering.
She blinked. "Nice to meet you."
"This way," he said, already moving.
She trailed behind, not from knowledge of the direction, but because her body had made the decision that it needed to know what was happening next.
The conference room was glass-walled, sunlit, and too quiet. Damien gestured for her to sit, then took the chair opposite her, resting a tablet on the table between them.
“We’re keeping this phase small,” he said, voice clipped but calm. “I don’t like too many cooks in the interface.”
“Neither do I,” she replied.
His eyes flicked up to hers, sharp and assessing. “I read your early drafts. You’re good.”
She cleared her throat. "Thank you."
He leaned back in his chair. "No… I mean it. You're good, not just good. You don't just pretty things up. You make them functional."
Something in her face must have given away surprise.
He barely smirked and went on, "I can read UX, Clara. I made half of this business on gut."
"Most CEOs pretend to care about layout."
"I'm not most."
She said nothing.
The session lasted twenty minutes. Notes back and forth. Swirling thoughts. Clever, reciprocal, cutting criticism. And beneath it all was a strange tension. Not hostile. Not playful. Something other.
She caught him gazing once at her hands, and turned away too hastily.
He talked of Vermont for a minute, and she winced.
They both clocked.
Clara staggered out of the building dazed. The sound on the street blapped into her like static. She didn't remember getting down on the elevator. She didn't remember what the receptionist had said to her as she turned to go.
All she remembered was that voice.
His voice.
And how much it sounded nothing like the one on the app—yet did.
At home, she didn't look at the app right away. She cooked dinner. Swatted aside Savannah's questions.
Showered.
But once more, later, snuggled up in a blanket against the window, she opened it.
No new messages.
Nothing from (Reed_Art).
She stared at the chat for several minutes.
Then, on a whim, she typed: (What do you do for work?)
She waited for the cursor to flash.
Then, slowly, the typing bubble.
- Writer
