Going Down: The Elevator Series (21 page)

I was positively in love with Cole and that would have to be enough for now.

On the way back to the city, I couldn’t stop talking about how much fun I’d had. I wanted to go back and see his family as soon as we could. I knew it was way too early to be this attached to his family, but as Cole had pointed out, nothing about us was conventional.

“Oh, we’re not going back anytime soon, Cici. Not if you’re going to hold out on me. It felt like I was back in high school. I thought about rubbing one out in a sock this morning.”

“You poor thing. Do you think you will live until we make it back to your place?” I hoped he picked up my heavy sarcasm.

“Very funny, Cici. I’m so glad you’re sympathetic to my plight.”

I had the beginnings of a terrible idea, and I was never one to shy away from terrible ideas. We hadn’t passed very many cars, and Cole had pretty dark window tint. This was possibly my worst terrible idea ever.

“Well, maybe I can help you with that.” I tried to make my voice sound seductive, but it came out a little eighty-year-old-chain-smoker-y. I didn’t wait for his response. I unbuttoned his jeans and pushed up his shirt. He veered wildly into the other lane.

“Cici, what are you doing?” His voice was higher than usual.

“Being sympathetic to your plight. Now you just watch the road and keep your hands on the wheel.” There wasn’t a ton of room between the steering wheel and his lap, so freeing his billy club was more of a challenge than I’d anticipated.

“I don’t think this is a good idea at all.” He glanced at me from the corner of his eye.

“You’re probably right. Eyes on the road.”

I was at my most Cirque du Soleil while maneuvering my torso over his small center console. I left my seatbelt on because I had visions of the coroner explaining to my parents how their baby girl was thrown from the car while giving head.

I licked the tip of his womb broom, then sucked just the tiniest bit into my mouth. He twitched in my hand.

“Cici, I’m really not sure about this.”

I sat up a little and pecked him on the chin while stroking his other stick shift. Cole’s teeth were clenched, his hands gripping the wheel and making his knuckles white. He looked at me with wide eyes and started to speak again. I kissed his lips and turned his head forward again. “Eyes on the road, mister.”

I shimmied back down and slipped his manhood back into my mouth, my head bumping the bottom of the steering wheel as Cole veered over the lane dividers.

“Sorry! I’m sorry!” He patted the top of my head.

It wasn’t exactly like they show it on the premium channels. Not having much room to get crazy, I took him as deep as possible, bobbing my head up and down like a dashboard ornament. Cole felt like he was enjoying it, despite the restrictions.

“Oh hell yes, baby! Fuck yes! You—yes! Fuck!”

He is enjoying it.

Every time he removed one hand from the wheel to place it on my head, I would groan, but that was having the opposite effect of what I intended. The car’s speed became less steady. Cole spat out sentence fragments laced with curse words, so I knew he was close. I moved my head as fast as I could in the confined space, and it didn’t take much longer.

“Bloody hell, Cici… fuck… yes, baby… oh yeah… Benjamin ass-fucking Franklin!”

I felt like I was first chair in the Skin Flute Orchestra for not choking at the angle to which I was contorted. I don’t think I felt this much pride when I graduated from college with honors. I felt like I could do anything.

Except… get my head out from under the steering wheel.

Don’t panic.

Don’t panic.

Don’t—too late.

My massive cranium had somehow slipped under the steering wheel, and I was quite effectively penned in between Cole’s eggs and bacon and the center console. I thrashed my head in a blind panic, nearly knocking myself unconscious and causing the wheel to jerk erratically to the right.

“Cici, what are you doing? You’re going to get us killed!” Long gone were Cole’s orgasmic sentence fragments. They were replaced with befuddled terror.

“I’m stuck! I don’t want to die like this!” I tried again to free my head using brute force. Neither the car nor Cole responded favorably.

The car slowed to a stop, as Cole must have pulled over. He very carefully unwedged my head, and I had the briefest flashback to my birth.

“Are you all right?” he asked, checking me over for injuries. “Do you realize you could’ve killed us?”

“Yes, but do you realize Benjamin Franklin was never president?”

I hadn’t seen Maggie all weekend, and this was the first time in years I could remember going this long without talking to her at all. I hadn’t seen her in person nearly as much as I used to, but we always at least texted. The days with Cole and his family had been nonsstop fun, but I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach all weekend from lying to her. I had stretched the truth so thin you could see through it. I’d told her I was going out of town for the weekend to visit family. While technically, I was going to see
a
family, I knew she would assume I was going to see
my
family. She would have a million questions for me today, and I was having more and more trouble rationalizing lying to her face.

I spent the entirety of my subway ride figuring out what I was going to say to her. My head was so chaotic that I got off three stops too early. Even with my detour, I still had no solution when I walked in the building. I would just have to avoid her until I came up with a plan.

I begrudgingly rode the elevator to my floor. I still hadn’t quite made peace with the entire species, but I was willing to offer an olive branch. At least this sleek piece of modern technology would get me to Cole faster. It had only been a couple of hours since he left my apartment, but I had become greedy for his presence. I missed him when he wasn’t there. Even Leroy was warming up to him. Actually, I think Leroy liked Cole better than me.

I was so wrapped up in my thoughts about my Judas cat and being googly-eyed over Cole that I almost ran right over Maggie standing outside the elevator.

“I need to talk to you.” She turned and started down the hallway to her office.

Maggie was not only a morning person; she was a Monday person. She was never this serious so early. “Is everything all right?”

She didn’t turn around to answer. “Would I be standing at the elevator if everything was all right?”

I wished more than ever that I had stopped for more coffee on the way to work. “What did Barry do now?”

Maggie walked into her office and closed the door behind us. She didn’t speak until she was seated at her desk. “Cici we’ve been friends for almost ten years now. As a courtesy to you and in deference to that friendship, I’m keeping this meeting off the record.”

Very slowly, I sat down in the chair in front of her desk. I wasn’t certain I heard her correctly. I’d never, ever heard her use this tone before. She was cold and distant. This was a Maggie I’d never met.

I had a feeling I knew where this was going, and it was not good.

“I’ve always thought of myself as an intelligent person,” she continued. “Recent events have caused me to reevaluate that. Maybe I don’t know myself as well as I thought. I certainly don’t know
you
as well as I thought.”

All the air in the room was gone. I felt like I might pass out at any moment. My voice had deserted me entirely.

Maggie didn’t wait for me to respond. “Exactly how stupid do you think I am? Actually, don’t answer that. I already know how stupid I have been, and it makes me physically ill. I turned a blind eye to all the red flags I saw because you were my
best friend,
and I believed you would never keep secrets from me.”

I didn’t know which would be worse—standing on the tracks and waiting for the train or running to meet it. The end result would be the same.

“Maggie, can I explain?” My voice sounded so tiny I didn’t recognize it. As a matter of fact, I didn’t recognize anyone in this room.

“What’s there to explain? How would you explain not telling your closest friend that you were sleeping with someone? Is there a way you could possibly explain to your HR Director why you felt the need to screw your assistant? I mean, out of the millions of eligible men in this city, you picked one that’s off-limits. The best part is, you didn’t just
omit
things, you looked me in the face and lied to me countless times. I would love to hear how you’ll explain that.”

All of my worst nightmares combined didn’t total the absolute hell that was this moment.

“Maggie, I never meant—”

“You never meant what, Cici?” She threw her hands in the air. “You lied to me! You played me like a fool. I didn’t think we were friends that hid things from each other. We were better than that. Or so I thought.”

It wasn’t escaping my attention that she was using past tense. We had been friends almost our entire adult lives. I couldn’t imagine a scenario where that wasn’t the case.

“Maggie I—”

“I’m not finished,” she interrupted. “You knew what you were doing would cost you your job if anyone ever found out and you took advantage of my friendship. Everyone here knows you’re the closest thing I have to a sister. Did you think for one second anyone would believe that I didn’t know about your fraternization? Did you?” Her eyes were so cold and her voice sounded a million miles away.

I had never stopped to consider that angle. I assumed I was protecting her if she didn’t know. Cole and I were consenting adults. We knew the risks and we knew we were stupid. I never thought for one second we could be putting anyone else at risk.

“Maggie, I didn’t think—”

“No, you didn’t think. You were too busy doing the handsome new employee on your desk to think. Do I even want to know how long this has been going on?” She paused for a millisecond and apparently reconsidered. “No, don’t tell me. It’s obviously been going on long enough for you to meet his family. I may be an idiot, but I can read a Facebook post.”

I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but this shocked me even more. “How—”

“Mark VanHausen. His family and mine go back to the Mayflower or something. I didn’t know until this past weekend that he was married to Cole’s sister. He posted a lot of pictures. Neither of you are tagged, of course, but I could easily recognize you seeing as I work with you both.”

Karma.

I had done something awful to my best friend and the universe had to right itself. The disgrace I felt was palpable. I had never hurt anyone like this before.

“Maggie, I’m so sorry. You have no idea how sorry I am. I know this looks like some office fling, but it’s not.”

She cut me off again before I could finish. “I don’t really care what I is. It ends now or you’re forcing me to make an official record of this and fire you. End of discussion.”

I had never seen Maggie this upset. It was like an alternate universe. I had to make this right. “I really want to apologize for everything—”

“Cici, I don’t have the free time that you apparently do. I have work to be done. Please close my door on your way out.”

I sat there with my mouth agape for what seemed like an eternity. Maggie busied herself with rearranging the papers on her desk, but she wouldn’t look at me. My body went on autopilot, walking out of her office and closing the door softly behind me. I only made it back to my office because it was two doors down.

I wanted to do anything in the world, except the thing I knew I had to do.

I pushed the intercom button on my phone in a daze.

“Cole, can you come in here for a minute?”

Cole walked in, closing the door behind him. He hadn’t stopped smiling since we got back from his parents’. The thought of removing that smile from his face made me physically ill.

Rip it off like a bandage, Cici. It’ll be easier for you both this way.

“What’s up, babe?” He picked up my sticky notes and fanned them out like an accordion.

“I, um…” My mouth had never been this dry. I thought I had a loosely formed plan to tell him that Maggie found out about our illicit affair and it had to stop. But that felt like I was letting Maggie down again. She was just doing her job; I was the one who should’ve ended this relationship as soon as I found out he was my subordinate. Maggie wasn’t the bad guy in this scenario, and Cole shouldn’t have to feel awkward working around her. I was certain I could feel awkward enough for the both of us. I could probably feel awkward enough for the tri-state area, if I let myself dwell on it.

“Cici, is everything all right?” Cole put down the notepad and stood from his chair.

I swallowed, but it was like swallowing hot ash. Cole didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve any of this. I lucked into a job at Grantham; he sought it out. He shouldn’t lose this job and have a black mark next to his name at other firms. “No, it’s not all right.” I couldn’t even look at him. I stared at the wall to the right of his head. “I, uh, I think things are moving too fast for me. Now is a terrible time for me to have a relationship. I need to focus on my career, and that’s all I really have time for. I can’t do this thing we’re doing anymore. I hope you can respect my wishes.”

The room was too silent for too long. Cole cocked his head to the side. “Cici, what are you talking about? Where is this coming from?” He ran his hands over his hair and then down his face. The wounded tone of his voice was like a kick to my stomach.

I knew my resolve would break if I looked at his face longer. I willed my eyes to stay focused on a small dent in the wall. “This relationship is getting in the way of my goals. I can’t have that. I need for our dynamic to be strictly professional. I’m very sorry if I led you to believe I wanted something else.”

Cole paced in front of my desk. “You very much led me to believe you wanted something else. I thought we were both on the same page there.” His footsteps halted. “Did something happen? I don’t understand the sudden one-eighty. Please talk to me.”