Not in Love

RUE

It took about two hours for Eli’s words to stop echoing inside my head. After two more, Florence stopped by to see me.

“What happened at the board meeting?” I asked.

“Not much. Eric bought some of their lies, and they got some concessions, but nothing to worry about. I’ll need to send them some documents in their preferred format.” She rolled her eyes. “They’ll review and find nothing suspicious, because there’s nothing to be found, and everyone’s precious time will be happily wasted.” She shrugged. “At least Harkness promised not to have an on-site presence anymore. Hey, did I see Eli Killgore and Minami Oka loitering around your office earlier?”

“I…wasn’t here. I wouldn’t know.”

She left with a wave of her hand and a satisfied smile, and I wondered when the last time was that I’d lied so deliberately to a friend.

Never, I thought, the shame of it sour in my throat. At least, not that I could recall.

If one good thing could be said of Harkness, it was that it kept its promise, because I didn’t see Eli during the following week. His absence from my life—and the absence of the havoc he wreaked in it—felt like a reward for being, if not a good person, someone who returned grocery items to their original places when she changed her mind mid-shopping, even if it was several aisles away.

I went over to Florence’s for Tisha’s birthday dinner, and found her mostly annoyed. “They keep asking for more and more documents, beyond anything that’s reasonable or that has been agreed upon,” Florence said, cutting a slice of cheesecake. The dark circles were back around her eyes. “I’m starting to wonder if they’re using the copies we send them for their kids’ papier-mâché projects.”

I paused with my glass midair, remembering Eli’s words at the retirement party. “Can’t we just give them access to everything? We have nothing to hide, after all.”

“We could, if we believed that they’re acting in good faith. But we know better. Plus, it’s not so simple. A lot of these documents have to be prepared by the accountants. Like I said, a huge time and money pit.”

See, Eli? I knew that Florence had an answer.

“But it doesn’t matter, because I have a plan to get out of this mess.” Her smile was suddenly broad and infectious.

“A plan—I love plans!” Tisha clapped her hands. “Do tell?”

Florence stuck a single candle in Tisha’s slice and handed her a plate. “I’ve been talking to some potential investors. Ideally, they’ll decide to back us and give us the capital to pay off our loan to Harkness.”

“Would Harkness agree to take the money and leave?” I asked, skeptical. Wasn’t their endgame the biofuel?

“They wouldn’t have a choice.”

I imagined a future in which Harkness was out of the picture. What it would do for the constant, low-level buzz of guilt I’d been dealing with, knowing that I hadn’t slept with the guy who might take Florence’s company away from her—I’d slept with the guy who’d failed at it.

I wanted that future so, so bad.

It wasn’t until later that night, while I was adding nutrients to my hydroponic garden, that the implications fully hit me: If Florence succeeded, I might never see Eli Killgore again. The relief was so strong, it felt like something else altogether.

“Do you have any idea how much one of my billable hours costs?” Nyota asked me the next time we FaceTimed. Her phone was propped on her treadmill, and she appeared to be running an easy six-minute mile with barely a puff. I’d been an athlete for half my life, but holy shit.

“Hundreds of dollars, I’d guess.”

“You’d be right. Remind me, why am I consulting for you for free?”

“Because I’ve been holding on to that picture of your goth phase for the last decade?”This content provided by N(o)velDrama].[Org.

She muttered a word that sounded like twitch. “For the record, this is extortion and blackmail. Both felonies. And I hate you.” A sigh. “I got the contract you emailed. The one that supposedly says that the ravioli patent is yours, no matter what.”

“It’s a microbial coating—”

“Yes, you’re a nerd first and a human being second. We’re all aware. Anyway, I haven’t gotten a chance to look at that contract yet. But I did check your brother’s letter.”

“And?”

“Honestly, I’m not a real estate lawyer, but your best bet is to buy him out. Can you afford it?”

Could I? The tech industry paid well, and I did have savings. Enough to buy Vince’s half of the cabin, though? “Probably not right now.”

“You could get a loan.”

I could. Except that my credit score was still convalescing after the abuse I’d put it through during my PhD. “With my luck, the loan would end up being owned by a pack of hyenas. Or by Harkness—same difference.”

Nyota chuckled, which made me feel oddly proud. Booger eater, I reminded myself. You don’t need to impress her.

“Tish tells me things are looking up,” she said, still breathing easily. “With Harkness, I mean.”

“Hopefully. If Florence finds a better lender. Or any lender, since I’m not sure there are worse ones.”

“Don’t be so sure. Harkness is not that bad.” She noticed my surprised eyebrow and continued, “Don’t get me wrong, there are no ethics in capitalism and all that. But these guys are on the less gross end of the spectrum of it. Guess how many companies they’ve bankrupted?”

I had no idea what a plausible number was. Three? Seventeen hundred? “Twelve.”

“That’s disturbingly specific, and no. Zero.”

“What does that mean?”

“I wouldn’t go as far as saying that they’re putting social responsibility before profit, but at least they try. Or maybe I’m just mildly fascinated because I work in finance—doesn’t exactly crawl with people with a strong moral compass. Or weak. Or any.” She shrugged mid-stride. Impressive. “At least they’re not saddling the companies they acquire with debt, or cutting jobs. They’re long-term. Their MO seems to be to invest in companies they believe in and use their capital to grow them. And they seem to be very intuitive when it comes to figuring out what tech has good market potential.”

I thought about Minami and her degree. “What about what they’re trying to do to Florence? Have they ever targeted a company to obtain control of their tech?”

“Not that I know of. But don’t worry, Rue. They’re still making money out of money and all that gross shit.” She grinned. “You are allowed to hate them, if that’s what sparks joy.”

Tisha and I hadn’t been the ones to start Kline’s monthly journal club, but Florence had forced us to take over when our predecessor moved to a cushy job at the CDC and a dearth of volunteers became apparent. And yet, while we may not have been the club’s first, we were undoubtedly the club’s best.

No one wanted to read scientific papers in their spare time, let alone have roundtable discussions about them. So, after the first monthly meeting had an attendance of three (Tisha, me, and a strong-armed Jay, who did not read the paper and threatened to call HR), we decided that some changes were overdue. Among them: moving the club to Thursday afternoons, snacks, and, most importantly, a keg budget—which Florence had agreed to, “in order to incentivize continuing education.”

Attendance had skyrocketed. “Journal club” had become a synonym for “company-wide nonmandatory party.” Even I, no social butterfly, enjoyed it for several reasons: nine times out of ten I got to choose the paper (no one else remembered to submit ideas in time); it was much easier for me to interact with people within the structure of a guided discussion; and beer was a powerful social lubricant. You give out way less of a “talk to me, and I’ll fuck up your human rights” vibe when you’re drunk, Nyota had told me years before, watching Tisha and me stumble home sloshed, mistake the bathtub for a bed, and use Mrs. Fuli’s loofahs for pillows.

I had elected to take it as a compliment.

That Thursday, amid some bisphenol A soapboxing, modeling techniques slander, burps, and someone pointing out over and over that they’d been in grad school with the third author on the paper, I was several beers in.

“…without even considering the ethical…”

“…always such a know-it-all…”

“…is this my glass or yours?”

“…they completely misattributed the catalytic activity.”

The last one was Matt. Tragically, I agreed with him, but I wasn’t about to admit it under threat of anything less than radical annihilation. So I stood, gave Tisha a pointed should we maybe wrap this shit up and go home? look, and headed for the closest restroom.

I was lightheaded, definitely buzzed—but not wasted enough to warrant the apparition coming toward me in the hallway. Eli couldn’t be here, could he? He wasn’t allowed at Kline anymore.

His slacks and button-down looked like they’d been a full suit and tie about eight hours ago. His hair had been cut since the last time I’d run my fingers through it. Still messy, a little shorter. The glasses were there, too. They didn’t make him look smarter, or softer, or more distinguished, but they did transform him into Private Equity Eli.

Even worse, they suited him, which was just unforgivable.

“Are you okay?” he asked. His voice sounded too real to be something pulled from my memories. And yet, it must be.

“Why do you ask?”

“You’ve been staring at me for thirty seconds.” He looked happy to see me, and the thought was infuriating, whether he was actually happy or I’d conjured him that way. He had no right. My brain had no right. That happiness was unearned.

“Rue,” he said, amused.

“Eli,” I said, trying for the same tone. I reached out, poking the closest part of him. An unfathomably solid, very unimagined bicep.

Fantastic. I loved coming across like an idiot. “You know,” I told him prosaically, “once upon a time, back before I’d ever heard the word Harkness, this startup used to be really nice.”

“Uh-huh. Is that why you’re so clearly drunk at your workplace at six p.m.?”

“It’s journal club.”

He seemed intrigued. “You get drunk at journal club.”

“Maybe.” I shrugged. My head swam. “The first rule of journal club is, don’t talk about journal club.”

“Whoa.” He pretended to recoil. “Drunk Rue makes jokes?”

I considered giving him the finger, but he’d enjoy it way too much. “Why are you here?” My eyes fell on the manila folder in his hand. “Stealing company property. Should I call security?” I thought about adorable, elderly Chuck, with his beer belly and quick smile and cheerful good mornings. Pictured him trying to escort a resisting Eli outside. My fantasy did not end well for Chuck, and since he was approaching retirement, I decided to abandon it.

“Everything that’s in this folder belongs to me,” he said, a little harshly. I wasn’t in the best state of mind to spot a lie, so I didn’t question him. Not even when a prolonged, vaguely uncomfortable silence fell between us.

“How are you, Rue?” he asked quietly, once a century or two had passed.

“Drunk, as you pointed out.”

“Aside from that?”

I shrugged—as accurate a description of my feelings as I could muster.

“It’d be nice to have an answer, since you’ve ignored me for weeks,” he said amiably.

“Have I? Or did our acquaintance come to its natural and predetermined end?”

“Maybe it did.” His jaw tensed and his eyes cooled, like he was no longer in the mood to feign nonchalance. “And maybe you don’t have any obligation to value my peace of mind. I’d still love to know if when you and I were together I did anything to upset you. Or hurt you.”

“No.” Had he been carrying this around for the past two weeks? I studied him, and the vaguely inebriated thought hit me that he was absolutely the type to do that. There was something white knight-y about him. Observant. He cares, he really does care about doing the right thing. Why is he with Harkness, then? “Everything was fine.”

He scanned my face for lies. His lips twisted into a slow smile. “Fine, huh?”

“Good. It was very good.” Though not as good as I remembered, I was certain of it. I must have inflated the night in my head. Glorified it past reality.

Nothing was that good.

“Yeah.” His eyes darkened. When he spoke again, his voice was rougher. “I thought the same. Too bad for no repeats.”

Tragic, really, I thought. With the beer sloshing through my veins, that rule seemed flimsier than ever. And maybe Eli could read my mind, because he said, “Go out on a date with me.” The words seemed to explode out of him, unpremeditated. He appeared just as surprised by them as I was, but didn’t backtrack. “Dinner,” he continued, decisive, as if happy that he’d managed to ask. “Let me take you to dinner.”

It was all I could do not to laugh in his face. “Why?”

“Because. I haven’t seen you in two weeks and—I actually do like this. Being with you.” That self-effacing, teasing smile of his—I wanted to touch it. “You can tell me more stories. The awful, secret ones. I’ll listen and tell you mine.”

It occurred to me that if there was a person in the world who could come to dinner with me and not be disappointed by how awkward, boring, inadequate I was, it was probably this man. We’d been nothing but brutally honest with each other, after all. No pretenses between us. But if having sex with him felt like a betrayal of Florence, talking with him would be pure treason. “Stories? Like of how you ended up trying to steal my friend’s work?”

His expression hardened. “Yes, actually. I could tell you about—” Abruptly, he stopped. His strong neck tensed as he turned over his shoulder, and a moment later he was pushing me through the closest doorway and into a lab. He pressed me into a workstation that couldn’t be seen through the glass walls.

My sluggish brain couldn’t keep up. “What are you doing?” I asked, and then fell silent. A handful of voices were getting closer.

“You know who that is?”

I shook my head.

“Kline’s CEO and its general counsel.” His eyes held mine in what felt like a challenge. “I have no problem with your friend seeing us together, but I figured you might?”

I did. So I fell silent, letting the bite of the workbench dig into my lower back, listening as Florence’s voice grew fainter. Eli remained close, his hands caging me to the table, and it soaked the air between us, the shame of what I’d done. What I still wanted to do.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

I blurted out the truth. “You said ‘negotiated.’ ”

A confused look. “What?”

“On the app. The checklist part of it, it asks about kinks. You wrote ‘if negotiated’ but didn’t elaborate.”

His gaze sharpened to something so intense, I couldn’t conceive it. It was heady. A little unhinged.

“You want to know what I’m into?”

I nodded.

“Why?” His head tilted. “Are you hoping I’ll take control? That if I’m the one calling the shots, it’ll make you feel less guilty about being with me?”

Uncomfortable, how spot-on he was. “I just think we should fuck again,” I heard myself say. The alcohol dulled the bluntness of my words, but Eli’s pupils still widened.

“As far as I can recall, we never did that.”

“Semantics.”

“How much have you had to drink, Rue?”

“I don’t know.” I did. “A few beers.” Three. A few sips of a fourth.

“Yeah. Okay.” He took a step back. Turned away to stare at an embossed Kline logo on the wall, tendons tense on the side of his neck, as if under great strain. Then he looked back at me, once again tightly leashed. “We can revisit the matter when you’ve metabolized the alcohol out of your system.”

“Just like I metabolized you?” I said under my breath. His nostrils flared. “We could leave together. Tonight.”

“Rue.”

“Unless you’re busy.”

“Rue.”

“You can say no, if you—”

“Rue.” His interest was a palpable presence, as concrete as the floor between us. He’s going to say yes, I thought, elated. But: “Tomorrow.” His knuckles whitened around the edge of the bench. “We revisit this tomorrow, if you still want to. Call me, and I’ll tell you what I like.” He had the final look of someone who hadn’t budged in years.

“Sure. In the meantime, feel free to touch me. Or kiss me.”

He exhaled. “Rue.”

“What? It’s a kiss. Are you scared of me now?”

He stepped closer, slowly leaning into me. My heart hammered in my chest, then exploded when he let his hand slide upward under my sweatshirt.

My brain stumbled. The AC blew across the exposed skin of my torso, turning it into gooseflesh. Then his large palm wiped the chill away, and a powerful shiver shook my spine.

“Rue.” Eli clucked his tongue, patient, inching even closer. His lips pressed against me—corner of mouth, cheek, ear. He spoke in a low whisper. “Fair warning: if you don’t stop pushing me, I’m going to bend you over this bench and show you exactly what I’m into.”