Personal Geography (2 page)

*

When I arrive
at quarter to eight, Lucy is already at her desk. “Good morning, Ms. Burke.”

It would be rude to respond to her chirping with, “Fuck off, Lucy,” right? I wouldn’t win Miss Congeniality on my best days, but for the past two weeks, I’ve been in an especially foul mood. It’s been well over a month since my last hook-up, and I’m edgy as fuck. I settle for, “Coffee?”

“Of course, Ms. Burke. And Mr. Valentine asked for you to come to his office as soon as you got in.” She takes in my current state, her brown eyes disapproving as always when I come straight from the gym. “But…”

“I’ll be there in ten.”

“Yes, Ms. Burke.”

Her chipper efficiency makes me ill. Even her reddish hair is bobbing cheerfully. If only she were half as good as she sounds. As she looks. She could play a secretary on
Mad Men
. Maybe she should.

I shower and dress, slipping into a grey sleeveless dress and my signature black Louboutins, praying Lucy will have my coffee ready when I walk out my door. But, as always…

“Lucy! Coffee?” I cannot face Jack without it, not when I’m walking into this blind. There are a dozen things he could want to talk to me about, but I’m betting on the LAHA project.

I’m a consultant to public sector agencies. All that waste and bureaucracy people complain about in government? They hire me to clean it up. I get paid to tell people what they’re doing wrong and how to fix it—professional bitch, a job built for me. I’ve dealt with some high-profile projects, ranging from restructuring the Santa Monica mayor’s office to administering the public process of a proposed freeway, but LAHA… This is huge.

LAHA is how we refer to the Los Angeles Housing Authority. It’s currently in receivership, which is what happens when an agency is so broken they’re not allowed to fix themselves and HUD hires a babysitter. In this case, my firm: Jack Valentine Associates. It’s a huge coup for us—me especially since Jack’s made me his number two on this. It’s an enormous undertaking by definition, and while I understood the basic premise of public housing coming into this, the industry is a morass of regulations and the nitpickiest requirements I’ve ever seen.

I think we’re out of our depth, but there’s no way in hell Jack would ever admit defeat. Instead, he’s been riding everyone twice as hard to make this work. That’s meant ninety-hour weeks and piles of takeout. Not to mention an extra and extremely unpleasant new duty for me.

Jack hates press. Abhors how he looks in newspaper photos, detests how he comes across in sound bites, and loathes how red his face gets when someone asks him a hard question he doesn’t immediately have an answer to. So now this falls on my shoulders. I’d come as close to begging as I ever have with him to please, please not make me do this. I’m no more thrilled about the idea of being in the public eye than he is, but he was insistent, so here I am—the new public face of JVA.

But I don’t think we’re talking about press conferences today. No, today we’re talking about the report due to HUD on Thursday—or so he bellows at me as soon as I set foot in his office. This is one of the things Jack likes about me: my ability to be yelled at without blinking. It’s how he communicates. If you listen hard enough between all the curses, he’s telling you what he wants and how he wants it done. But if you’re too busy bursting into tears, you’re not going to catch that, are you?

I take a seat and scribble notes while he—salt-and-pepper hair already in disarray, blue eyes blazing—rages at top volume. He’s taken his suit coat off, his tie’s been flung over a standing lamp, and he’s pacing while he shouts. It’s a good thing Lucy got her shit together so I at least have a cup of coffee to down amidst his emphatic cursing. He’s very creative with his insults. They can be almost Shakespearean.

“Shit-eating maggots have more sense than these people do. They wouldn’t know which end was up if they were part of the human centipede.”

I see we’re going more contemporary today. And so it goes. On. And on. And on.

*

Three hours later,
I collapse at my desk. At least when I check my personal cell, there’s a text from Rey:

Call me.

This is promising. I take a well-deserved minute to do just that, resting my feet on my desk.

“Aloha, kitten.”

“Hawaii?”

“If you don’t mind the flight.”

“I don’t.”

“Good. I’ll have Matthew make the arrangements.”

“You’re the best. Give Matty a kiss for me.”

“Will do. We’ll talk later.”

I press the end call button on my phone and tuck it back into my purse. That’s one thing I don’t have to worry about anymore. Seventy-two hours of debauchery and my clock will be reset. I’ll be good to go for another month or so. I take a deep breath and close my eyes before I press the intercom button.

“Lucy.”

“More coffee, Ms. Burke?”

“Please.”

It’s going to be a long day.

*

Twelve hours later,
I’m on my way home and Jack’s got a draft of the report on his desk. He’ll hate it, but it’s better to give him a product that needs a lot of work than to give him nothing at all. He’s not difficult to manage once you understand him, but I think most of my predecessors—my many,
many
predecessors—were scared off before they had the chance.

Not me. I’ve got my sights set on running the place one day. Of course, I’ll have to change the name. Jack Valentine Associates has a nice ring to it, but I think Burke Consulting Group sounds better. I’ll get rid of the heavy wood and leather bank décor and go more airy and modern. But I’ve got a few years to plan my interior decorating. Jack’s still got two kids in college from his second marriage. Or are they from his third? I can never keep track, although I know he’s on wife number four. Candi—with an
i
that I bet the vacuous woman dots with a fucking heart. Thinking about her bottle-blonde head and unsubtle boob job make me cringe. There you have reasons number seventy-eight and seventy-nine why I’ll never get married: becoming that or being left for that.

At any rate, I think I’ve got, at most, seven years before I’m in Jack’s corner office. Which is reason number three: it’s hard to sit behind that luxuriously big desk if you’ve got a husband and kids on the other end of your phone. I know people do it and do it well, but it can’t be easy and it’s not worth the bother to me. I didn’t bust my ass at Princeton and Columbia to change diapers, oh no.

I spend the rest of my drive mentally redecorating Jack’s office and selecting the color scheme for my business cards. By the time I’ve parked my car in the garage, stumbled into and out of the elevator, and made it down the endless hallway to my apartment, it’s eleven thirty, and I debate whether or not to call Rey. After a minute of half-hearted agonizing while I kick off my shoes and hang my bag by the door, I dial. If he’s busy, he’ll let it go to voicemail, but it’s rare he doesn’t take my calls. Sometimes if he’s in the middle of a training, but often even then.

“Kitten, I’m glad you called. I’ve been waiting on you.”

“I hope not. I should’ve texted to say I’d be late. I’m sorry.”

“No, no, I didn’t mean it like that. I’ve been looking forward to talking, that’s all. I think you’re going to be very pleased.”

“Hawaii’s a good start. What else have you got for me?”

“Y’ever play with a Cris Ardmore?”

I pause for a second. “No. Would I know him by any other name?”

“Nope.” I hear his smirk all the way from the Castro, and I know why. He knows it annoys me when people play with ridiculous fake names (e.g., Strider the Hobbit), which is pretty hypocritical but can’t be helped. I have huge respect for anyone who plays with their real names. “He goes by Cris. No
h
.”

My nose wrinkles.

“No
h
, huh?” The respect-o-meter has gone down. That’s almost as bad as Candi with an
i
. Why no
h
? I shouldn’t be too harsh. His parents could be dingbats, and I shouldn’t fault the guy for that. God knows I’d get scrapped from just about anything if having sane parents were a requirement.

“Give the guy a break, India.”

“You know me too well. Tell me more about this Cris Ardmore.”

“He’s on the big island, been active in the scene for a long time there and on the West Coast. I asked around—no one’s got a bad thing to say about the guy. Safe player, knows the rules, keeps his subs happy.”

“Why haven’t I run into him before?”

Rey pauses, and I wonder if his hesitation is from reluctance or because he’s so damned delighted with himself he wants to make a royal pronouncement.

“He’s monogamous with his subs, and he just ended a five-year contract.”

Holy. Shit.

“I get to be the rebound fuck?” I squeal with delight.

“Yes, you do.”

“You’re the best! How did you pull this off?”

“I know a guy.”

“You know
all
the guys.” I hold my phone to my ear with my shoulder as I pour the last of a bottle of Malbec into a glass. “But seriously, you’re amazing. What do you want? I’ll do anything.”

He laughs. “Why don’t you wait until you get back to sell your soul to the devil?”

“You’re hardly the devil. I’m about to sing you the fucking Hallelujah chorus.”

“And you’d sound like an angel, but we don’t have time. Matthew is putting together a dossier for you. In the meantime, anything specific you want to know about the illustrious Mr. Ardmore?”

“How old is he?”

“Thirty-nine.”

Well within my range.

“Do I get a picture?”

“You do.”

“Is his contract weird?”

“I don’t have it yet. He has to write one.”

That’s not unusual. Most of the guys Rey finds for me don’t keep contracts like this on hand.

“Was he surprised to get your call?”

“They always are.”

I snort. I know.

“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, Reyes Llewellyn Walter. I could kiss you on the mouth.”

“Monday night. We’ll see if you still want to kiss me or if we’ve moved on to the punching phase. For now, go change into that sexy lingerie I know you wear when I’m not there and get some beauty sleep. Don’t want to be all puffy for—”

“Cris Ardmore,” I breathe, my mouth caressing his name. The more I say it, the more I like it. I don’t even notice the missing
h
much anymore. Yes, Mr. Cris Ardmore sounds promising.

*