“You’ve been kind of… weird. Short with me.”
“Just tired. That’s all.”
I didn’t believe him for a second, but I didn’t know how to press him for answers. Maybe he was telling the truth and needed some time alone. “I brought you dinner. I know you don’t eat stuff like this, but—”
“I’m not hungry but thank you.”
I ignored the uncomfortable tightness in my chest. It was hard to not take his attitude personally. Something was bothering him, but he wasn’t telling me what.
“I’m going to bed,” I muttered. “Good night.”
“Night.”
* * *
It went on like this for another two weeks. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. This distance. Where the hell did it come from? Was Jesse still mad about me running off to Blue Cloud Financial and just wasn’t telling me? I thought we were past that. I promised never to do it again and meant it, so what was eating him?
Why was he being so cold?
He literally kept himself at arm’s length. Whenever I entered the same room as him, he’d move to put space between us. It wasn’t obvious at first, but now I was actively looking for it.
He wouldn’t let me near him.
He wouldn’t come close to me.
We were in each other’s orbit, but our trajectories didn’t allow us to collide. He was actively avoiding me and I was done with it.
Was he tired of me? Was that it? Now that he had his fill, he didn’t need me around the same way anymore. Or maybe he was getting bored of playing bodyguard. He’d taken my case on as a favor to Wally, after all. And now that Wally had dipped, Jesse was tired of being stuck with me.
And it sucked. A lot. Because every time I saw him, the tiniest bit of hope kept me yearning. Maybe today he’d be in a better mood. Maybe today he’d tell me what was going on. Maybe today everything would go back to the way things were between us —fun and sexy and wonderful.
At some point, I started sticking to the guest room. Call it childish stubbornness. Call it a woman scorned. If Jesse didn’t want to see me, fine. I didn’t want to see him, either.
But staying in the confines of my room sucked, too. This penthouse was starting to feel a lot less like a safehouse and more like a prison. I wanted to go out, for a walk, to the park for a run. To a local coffee house for a hot beverage and buttery croissant. Heck, I even wanted to go back to work.
Maybe not at Blue Cloud Financial, but somewhere. Just to keep my mind busy. These periods of silence were getting longer and longer. There was even a day when Jesse and I didn’t cross paths once, not a single word exchanged. I could imagine my brain turning into goop, so bored out of my mind that I could practically hear my synapses caving in on themselves because there was nothing else to do but listen.
That night, I treated myself to a hot bath. Borderline scalding. My skin was pink and tingling, scrubbed clean within an inch of its life. It wasn’t the same kind of warmth I found in Jesse’s arms, but it would have to do. Sometimes I’d close my eyes and imagine him in the bath with me, not that he’d ever entertain the idea now.
“I’m just a job to him now, apparently,” I grumbled bitterly to myself.
But the tiny voice in the back of my head told me that couldn’t be true. I saw the way he looked at me. I remembered the way he touched me and kissed me and made me feel like a million dollars. What had happened between then and now to make him act so differently?
With a heavy sigh, I slipped a hand beneath the water and reached between my legs, recalling how attentive Jesse was whenever he ate me out. I tried to mimic the movements of his tongue with the tip of my finger, but it wasn’t the same. Not even close.
I tried to think of his praises, the way he’d shower me in endearments.
Good girl. Smart girl. Angel.
When I came, it was underwhelming. Nothing could compare to his tongue and the stretch of his fingers.
* * *
I woke up on Monday feeling bloated. I did some mental math —an easy enough task for a math whiz like myself— and realized I was a couple days late. My cycles had always been really irregular, though, and it was safe to say I’d been under a lot of stress lately. As quickly as the concern crossed my mind, it faded into nothingness just as quickly.
I rolled over in bed. Flipped my pillow to the cool side so I could bury my face in it. In my palm, I held the USB I’d stolen from Blue Cloud Financial. The download, though rushed, had been successful. All the encrypted files I needed were on this drive. I didn’t tell Jesse about it, though. He’d lose his mind. Maybe he’d be even angrier at me than he already was.
I had no way of decrypting the files, though. Math and coding used the same alphabet, but they were still two different languages. I supposed I could go online and try to learn a few things, but who was I kidding? I was an accountant in training, not some sort of hacker spy.