“Rossi,” I say sternly as I place the empty coffee cup into the waste bin in the kitchen I never use, because I don’t cook, nor do I have friends over other than Rossi, and Rossi only drinks wine. “I did what I had to do to get her off my back.”
“So the excruciating ordeal of running for an hour has nothing to do with that kiss?”
“Nothing,” I say coldly.
“Liar,” says Rossi.
“Professional one,” I retort. He sniggers, and I join him.
“And here I was, thinking you’d finally move on.”
My body becomes rigid, and I fall silent.
“Too early?” he asks.
“Don’t ever do that again,” I say and hang up.
I throw the phone onto my bed, remove my clothes, drop them on the floor where I stand, and get into the shower.
Two hours later, I walk into Federal Plaza through the front entrance, using my own card with an envelope in my hand.
Glorious,I think to myself. They gave a conwoman a card.
“Good morning,” I say when I walk into Shaw’s office without knocking, pretending nothing has happened.
She eyes me with dark circles under her eyes.
“You should use some eyepads,” I tell her as I place myself on a chair opposite her desk. “Helps with the puffy eyes from sleep deprivation.”
“Are you always this nice?” she snaps at me.
“I’m not nice,” I say. “Why would I? Nice brings you nowhere. Being what others consider an asshole, however, does. It makes you memorable, and I sleep quite well knowing others are losing sleep over me.”
Her deep breath tells me how much I vex her.
“I hope you choke on your arrogance one day,” she says.
“Mhhhmm,” I say and grin devilishly. “I love to be choked.”
It was the one thing too much.
“OUT!” she shouts at me as she jumps up, and small drops of spit fly all the way to me. She shouts so loud that the other people in the bullpen open-plan look at us.
“I don’t want to see your face, hear your voice, or be around your lying ass. Get the fuck out of my office and get lost where I don’t have to see you!”
I place myself complacently in the chair as I don’t do what she says.
“Breathe and sit down,” I tell her. “Losing control like this doesn’t help with the whole respect thing.”
She opens her mouth, looks at me as reproachfully as someone can, and closes her mouth again and sits down, her arms on the table, hands as fists.
“Where is the camera in my apartment?” she asks through gritted teeth, in a hissing tone so the colleagues can’t hear it.
“There aren’t any,” I say.
“I know there are!” she says with a rising voice. “You knew I searched for it last night.”
“I know, because you’re you. You’re a neurotic control freak who assumed the second I knew something about you, that I bugged your apartment, instead of thinking about all the other possibilities of how I could know things about you.”