Marcus had been saying "we should do drinks" for two months.

By "we" he meant the Hartwell happy hour group: his finance colleagues, a few people from the second floor, whoever else showed up. He'd been inviting me for eight months and I'd been declining for eight months because Fridays at six were no longer free.

I told him she'd come.

He sat with that for about four seconds.

"She wants to meet people," he said.

"She's curious about the group."

"She already knows she'll be the most attractive person there."

"Rooms don't surprise her much."

Marcus looked at his desk. "Okay," he said. "Friday. Beva, on Vermont."

---

Dark jeans, a top that fit her tits the way her tops always did. Like the fabric had been given a job and was barely managing it.

We walked from my building. She'd already decided what was wrong with the bar based on something she'd seen online.

"Good lighting?" I said.

"Interesting lighting," she said. "There's a difference."

I didn't ask what the difference was. I was learning which questions could wait.

---

Beva on Vermont. Exposed brick, craft cocktails, medium crowd. Music at conversation volume.

The group was at a table in the back: Marcus, his colleague Dina from acquisitions, a man named Brett from the second floor whose last name I'd been pronouncing wrong for four months, and a woman I hadn't seen before who turned out to be Brett's girlfriend Caitlin.

I introduced Amber.

The table did what tables did.

Dina looked at Amber, then at me, then at Marcus, then back at Amber.

Brett stared at Amber with the transparency of a man who had not noticed his girlfriend was watching him.

Caitlin noticed. She looked at Brett, then at Amber, then at me. Same expression I'd been seeing everywhere, working out what it meant that this woman was with me.

Marcus watched all of it like he'd called it in advance.

---

We sat.

Amber ordered something. The bartender came over from the other end of the bar to take it personally.

Dina asked Amber what she did. Amber said personal training. Dina had follow-up questions, the kind that extend a conversation, not the kind that need answers.

Brett was directing comments toward Amber at a frequency that was not appropriate and a warmth about twenty degrees higher than baseline. His girlfriend was receiving this information.

Amber answered his questions the same way she answered Dina's. No encouragement, no discouragement. She knew the difference between someone wanting information and someone wanting something else.

Marcus was watching me watch this. Amused.

"She can handle herself," he said, low.

"I know."

"You're not worried."

"No."

He looked at me for a beat. "She's different from what I expected."

"What did you expect."

"Someone more — " He searched. "Decorative. Less present."

"She's very present."

"Yeah." He picked up his drink. "So are you, actually. When she's there."

I held that one. He'd dropped it in the middle of a sip and was already on to the next thing. I let him stay there.

---

The evening was good. Dina was sharp and dry. Caitlin relaxed once she was sure Amber wasn't interested in Brett, and turned out to be funny. Brett settled down when his girlfriend stopped watching him.

Sarah from the floor above showed up at seven-thirty. She came in, saw us, came to the table.

"Owen." Warm.

"Hey. Sarah, this is Amber."

Sarah looked at Amber. Quick read. "So nice to meet you," she said, and meant it. Not the warmth aimed at me. The warmth of someone who'd decided the person in front of her was interesting.

Amber looked at her. "The one from the building."

Sarah blinked. "He mentioned me?"

"Once," Amber said. "He said 'someone from the floor above.'" She kept her eyes on Sarah. "You have an opinion about the firm's cable management."

Sarah laughed. A real one. "I really do."

She pulled a chair over and sat next to Amber and the two of them got into the cable management problem with a completeness I had not provided when it had been discussed with me.

Marcus appeared at my shoulder. "She just made a friend."

"Yeah."

"That isn't what I expected either."

---

Eight-forty. Marcus had an early morning. Dina had a flight. Brett and Caitlin left. Sarah said she'd see us next time, and she said it to both of us.

Amber and I walked to the parking garage on the next block.

Concrete and strip lighting, half the bulbs dead. Mostly empty at this hour. My car was on level two, near the stairwell.

We were almost to the car when I stopped.

She looked at me.

I didn't usually take the lead. Something about the evening — watching her handle the group, the way she'd redirected Brett without making Caitlin small, Marcus saying *so are you, actually* — had done something to me. I wasn't waiting for her to decide.

"Owen," she said.

I took her hand and walked her past the car to the stairwell wall.

---

I pushed her against the cinder block.

Not the pillar from last time. The flat wall beside the fire door, rough under my palms when I pinned her wrists above her head. She made a sound. Surprise, not protest. Her eyes went wide. She was used to initiating. She wasn't used to this.

I kissed her hard, my hands holding her wrists against the wall, my body pressing her into it. I pulled her top up and got my mouth on her tit, my teeth on her nipple, and she arched into it. I worked the button on her jeans with one hand while I held her wrist with the other.

I dropped to my knees on the concrete. Pulled her jeans and underwear down past her hips and put my mouth on her pussy. She was already wet, from the evening, from the group, from whatever she'd been planning on the walk over. My tongue flat on her clit, slow and deliberate. Two fingers inside her, curling. Her back against the cinder block and her hands free now, gripping my hair, pulling me in.

I ate her pussy against the stairwell wall until her legs were shaking. I held her hips and kept going. My tongue circling her clit, my fingers working inside her, the taste of her on my mouth. She came with her heel braced against the fire door and a sound that rang down the stairwell.

She pulled me up by my shirt. Reversed us. My back against the wall. She had my cock out and her mouth on it before I'd straightened up. Not the slow version. She was giving back what I'd given her. She took me deep, her throat tight around me, and pulled back and did it again. Fast, wet, her hand gripping the base. Her eyes up on mine, wet at the corners from the depth.

"Fuck my mouth," she said, and I did. My hands in her hair, my hips driving forward, the slap of it echoing off the stairwell walls. She took every thrust. Her hands on my thighs pulling me deeper.

I came in her throat. She swallowed. Wiped her mouth and stood and pulled her jeans back up and looked at me with an expression I hadn't seen before. Not the settled look. Something closer to impressed.

My breathing was going to take a minute.

"Your friends are nice," she said.

"Yeah."

"Dina's sharp." She found her lip gloss in her jacket pocket. "Sarah's going to be at the next one."

"Yeah?"

"She texted me." She checked her compact. "She wants to know where I get my hair done."

I stood in a parking garage on a Friday night and let that be where I was.

"Marcus is going to ask you something at the next one too," she said.

"What."

"He wants to know if you're happy." She put the compact away. She looked at me. "He won't ask you. He'll ask me."

"What will you tell him?"

"That he already knows the answer. He's been watching you all night."

She walked to the car. I followed.

I was happy. I hadn't expected to clock it on the walk to the car. I clocked it.