4. Derek

I don't know why the people who work for me irritate me so much, but they do. Always have. It started years ago, in the early days, when I started needing people to help me. Something about the smarmy, overeager way they treat me gets my back up. It exhausts me to my marrow. And I'm already fucking exhausted. I've had insomnia on and off since Barbara Anne and I split. Cutting down on caffeine and carbs seemed like a good idea at the time. I was told to expect better sleep and a more even temper, among a plethora of other health benefits, and God knows I could use that.

I guess it's one of those things that takes a while to kick in. It's been three weeks since my last sip of coffee and longer since I've had a nice bowl of pasta.

I've never felt worse.

I'm tempted every goddamn day to quit quitting, but I had a headache for three days straight from the caffeine withdrawals, and I'm loath to repeat that. I hate the thought of having a dependence on anything. Or anyone.

No.

I won't cave. I just have to get through the rest of the morning without touching coffee, and I'll be fine. I'm okay without the carbs, I think, but I can't stand the thought of waking up tomorrow or the next day without a cup of coffee.

No. I mustn"t think like that.

I just have to get through the next few hours, and I'll be okay.

One day at a time and all that.

I look out the window separating my office from the reception area.

A gallery window. That's what the architect called it. A gallery window, I ask you. It was meant to make me seem more accessible. Approachable, she said. I can't imagine why I agreed. I have no memory of ever aspiring to be approachable. Quite the opposite, if anything. Thank God I insisted on privacy smart glass. I've gotten used to being on display, and in recent years, I admit, I haven't used the privacy option as much as I thought I would, but this week, I've found myself changing the glass from clear to frosted by ten a.m. each day.

The last thing I need is my new PA watching me all day. He's a nosy little thing, and I can't stand it. I've never felt so observed. Since he started working here, he's spent most of his time peering in my direction, looking at me as if he's in the process of making a complicated assessment or drawing a damning conclusion about me.

His eyes are powder blue. Pale, almost translucent. Watery orbs that have filled with increasing judgment with each day that passes. They're the kind of eyes that make me think he doesn't have a privacy option. His emotions are splayed out for everyone to see. Hope, disappointment, annoyance, the desperate desire to please, it's all there, written across his irises. Light-blue ink on a sky-blue parchment. It's an uncomfortable gaze that slices through bone and brain matter, giving me an unpleasant feeling. A feeling that if I raise my voice anywhere near him, blue skies will cloud over, and rivers will run.

He's lucky I've been working on myself recently. Otherwise, I might see that as a challenge.

My phone rings, and when I see Miller's name flash on the screen, I answer immediately. I steady myself for a barrage of outrage over the letter I sent earlier this week, but he skips over that as if it never happened.

I can't help smiling. Miller is impossible.

Like father, like son, as my ex, Barbara Anne, always says. She means it as an insult most of the time, but still, it's hard to take it that way when it comes to Miller. I'm not saying he's perfect, far from it, and I'm not saying things are good between us. They're complicated and messy. They haven't been good for years, but I love my son.

"Dad, I have a problem," he says as soon as we're done with stilted niceties. There's something in his voice that makes my gut quiver. Yes, we don't get along, and yes, we take turns taking wild swipes at each other, but that voice, coming from him, ignites the same feeling it used to when he was a little boy and he'd come home from school and tell me someone was mean to him.

"W-yin!" I yell. It's Wyn with a Y, not an I, in case you were wondering. I know it's unusual, but he corrected me the other day. His eyes flashed when he said it and his head twitched so hard his dark curls bounced around on his forehead before settling back into their usual position. It seems like a ridiculous way to pronounce what should be a simple name, but I'm not here to tell someone else how to say their own name. "Tell Jason and the rest of them I'm going to be late for our call."

Wyn blinks at me in disbelief, teeth and tongue showing as his mouth forms a perfect O. It looks like he means to speak. He opens and shuts his mouth, and when he does, an eerie, vastly unpleasant sense of recognition worms through my veins. It enters my body through the soles of my feet but travels up quickly. It's tepid and nasty. Foreign but familiar. It's a vague, distant type of recognition. A rumbling perception more than anything. A warning.

It feels like one of those times when you're out and see someone you should know. When you can place their face but not their name. It's like that, but worse. The first time it happened was on Monday morning when he put his bony hand out to shake mine, and it happened again yesterday when he stood beside my desk and made silly excuses for the dog's breakfast he'd made of the minutes for the stakeholder meeting.

I'm at my desk now, sitting back in my chair, and he's at his station, leaning forward as if he's getting ready to run a race. He holds eye contact for three seconds. Three seconds or an hour. I can't tell which, thanks to a new flurry of tepid worms.

His skin is smooth and pale, with a light sprinkle of freckles over his cheeks and nose. He tilts his head as if to improve his view of me. His eyes narrow and his butter-wouldn't-melt demeanor evaporates before my eyes. Blue sparks and becomes electric. And like that, I recognize him.

I know him.

I know his name and his face.

And I know where I know him from.

My darkest nights.

My deepest secrets.

My hollow dreams.

My nightmare. That's what he is. That's who he is. Wyn Foster is my nightmare come to life. He's the man I've spent my whole life avoiding. He's the thing I've been running from for as long as I can remember, and he's in my building, on my floor, cavalier as you please, wrapped in a plucky smile and a pink-and-blue checkered bow tie.

He breaks eye contact, leaving me needing two breaths in a time that usually requires one, and raises his handset to his ear, tucking it onto his shoulder as he taps at his keyboard with near maniacal zeal, attempting to put out the dumpster fire I just lit by postponing the meeting.

"Dad, are you there?"

I spin my chair around, turning to face anything that isn't Wyn, and collect myself. "I'm here, Mills. What do you need?"

"W-yin!" He abandons his post and jogs over, arriving at my desk with a turquoise moleskin notepad and matching pen, poised and ready for action. "I need your help."

A kaleidoscope turns. Blue fragments and resettles. Hope flickers, or is that the desire to please?

Maybe it's both.

I ignore the flicker of annoyance that rises in me at the sight and don't waste any time explaining the situation to him. As I speak, I'm buoyed. There's a little lift in my mood when I realize that what I'm about to do might well be the best possible thing to do in the situation I find myself in. It's so completely unreasonable, it"s likely to push Wyn over the edge. It's likely to incense him so much that he'll pack his collection of coordinated stationery into the cardboard box it arrived in and walk out of the building.

Fingers crossed.

"Ryan and Miller's wedding has gone up in flames," I say. That's putting it mildly. Neither Miller nor Ryan is what I'd call a dream client on a good day, and they've been especially difficult lately. Their wedding planner has called me three times—in an increasing temper each time—to complain about their inability to make decisions. After months of not deciding on much, it appears that taking it upon themselves to request a change of venue three weeks before the wedding date has pushed her well and truly past her limit. "The venue has been canceled and their wedding planner has quit."

"What? Why?"

"That's not important. What's important is that Miller wants to get married in Hawaii, not the Seychelles, as originally planned." If you ask me, the venue should have been one of the first things they nailed down, but evidently, Ryan has only started feeling concerned about how his three-year-old nephew, Jamie, would fare on a long-haul flight recently. It's twenty-five hours from LA to Mahé, and apparently, young Jamie isn't the best traveler. Gets an icky tummy, according to Miller. Naturally, at the first sign of Ryan's perturbation, Miller jumped in and took a flamethrower to the entire wedding plan. A plan that's been underway for over six months. A plan that's cost me an arm and a leg, but who cares about that. Money's only paper, as my old man used to say. Miller's my son, my only child. He'll be getting married in Vegas—his suggestion to combat the problem he now finds himself in—over my cold, dead body. "There isn't time to explain, all you need to know is that planning this wedding just became your top priority. Hawaii, five-star, obviously, small and intimate venue required. Totally private. Hook up with Miller and Ryan to find out what else they want. And, W-yin, you might want to call Miller's mother, Barbara Anne. She won't be pleased if she's the last to know about this."

"Wait. Sorry. Planning the what? I seem to have missed something. I thought you said you wanted me to plan an entire destination wedding in three weeks, but that would be madness." He laughs nervously. "Obviously, that can't be what you meant. Obviously not. Because obviously, that can't be done."

Bingo.

"Why not?" I ask, purposefully obtuse. Before he can answer, I double down. "Of course it can be done. Why can't it be done? It can't be that hard. It's your job to organize things, isn't it? Isn't that the sole purpose of you being here?"

"I, um…"

"Exactly. So, organize this!"

There. That should do it. That should send him running. I want to look at him to assess the damage, but I can't seem to hold his gaze. His is water, mine's oil, so I focus on a tiny freckle above his left eyebrow instead as I wait calmly for his resignation. Even the anticipation of it is sweet. Hot, runny relief at the mere thought of being free of the questions his eyes ask of me. Freedom from pale-blue and puffy pink lips.

And the goddamn bow tie.

And those freckles.

Fuck. The freckles.

Yeah, Jesus. I can't do this. He has to go.

I start to smile but quickly remember what I'm trying to achieve and draw my mouth into a snarl instead. Pure, unfiltered annoyance flashes across his features. Soft lips press together firmly, his chest rises and falls once.

This shouldn't take long. I might be able to catch the end of the meeting after all.

I wait.

And I wait.

And nothing. Wyn simply turns and exits, arms stiff at his sides and nose pointed a little higher in the air than usual.

He has the phone to his ear before he takes his seat. Okay, good. Good. That's what I want. He must be calling HR to hand in his notice. Probably didn't feel comfortable broaching the subject with me.

See? This is exactly why I don't want to be approachable. Who needs this kind of shit in their lives?

I watch with interest that gradually turns to dismay as the situation unfolds. He finishes his call and remains seated. Less than four minutes later, Clarissa appears with an IT technician in tow. Two additional screens are plugged into his PC and Wyn is magnanimously issued a brand-new headset. Clarissa and the technician retreat to the elevator, glancing back furtively in my direction as Wyn carefully removes the headset from its packaging and positions it on his head with the resolve typically reserved for astronauts about to embark on a spacewalk.

Well, fuck. That's not what I was expecting.

Slender fingers dance across the keyboard. The rat-a-tat-tat of short nails on plastic becomes the soundtrack for my day, broken only when Wyn stops to drink from the oversized, pearlescent water bottle on his desk. He snatches it and lifts it to his lips without dragging his eyes from his screens. A wet, pink tongue peeks out between his lips, searching for the straw and drawing it into his mouth when he finds it. His Adam's apple rides slowly up and down the column of his throat. Once, twice, three times before he sets the tumbler down.

Mine does the same.