Author's Note: Any similarities between this story and
Laying in Bed at One in the Morning
are purely intentional. (See the postscript for details; reading that story is not required but encouraged).
*****
Stephanie Becker lay in bed next to me, her perfect green eyes bright. Dawn over the Atlantic had woken us.
"Hi Nick."
*****
After COVID was mostly over we got a bunch of new hires. To a one they were roughly around thirty, some more or less straight out of school, a few coming off a first job. Digital forensics is a growth industry; my company mostly worked with the financial sector. Stephanie's previous job was in finance doing analytics.
Being one of the senior people left, it fell to me to train the incoming employees. Some of them really weren't into the job for one reason or another. Some just weren't all that good. There were a few though that stood head and shoulders above the rest.
Stephanie Becker was one of them, the best of them. Smart, a fast learner, sometimes bloody single-minded, she was the definition of forensic, pulling things apart at the subatomic level and making sense of them. Not only was I a teacher and mentor to her but we also worked cases as part of a four person team. Right now, the team was in Florida.
*****
Last night...
"Hey Stephanie. Come in." She'd once told me that she never used Steph anymore, that was her name as a child.
She stepped into my hotel room. I'd seen her a whole 12 minutes ago when she went to change. Yeah, I counted.
*****
Our team hit the road four or five times a year. Basically, we were living in each other's hip pockets sixteen, seventeen hours a day for a week at a time. We'd put in ten, twelve hours and then find a local brewery and hang. I was 15 years older than them and wasn't accepted as anything but a coworker despite the drinking together.
Spend that kind of time with people and you get to know them. Mostly. Stephanie didn't talk about her past a lot. I knew she came from down South, not too far down, where the biggest event in years was when they opened the Dollar General. Whether it was because of our age difference or she was just intensely private I never knew. I suspected it was a mix of the two.
I'd learned quickly that her facility with the English language was beyond compare, she wasn't just funny, she was witty. Her ability to banter went beyond anything I'd ever seen before. I gave up trying to get the best of her.
And Stephanie was scary smart; she had no peers. She wasn't egotistical about it. It got to the point where we finished each other's sentences, professionally speaking. As her mentor I knew she'd arrived. So, we've got witty and smart. Only woman I've ever met who pulled off the hat trick; throw drop dead gorgeous into the mix.
Stephanie was in her early thirties and shapely, a species of curvy that I never knew I was into before meeting her. She clocked in at 5' 5" with dirty blond hair, (she colored it), and dark eyebrows. And the single most gorgeous pair of green eyes I'd ever seen. When she was dialed in you knew she was totally focused on you with those eyes, not thinking of what to have for lunch or something.
Where some women might go for clothes that concealed their curves she took the opposite strategy; most days she wore form fitting jeans and looked good doing it. Her choice of tops didn't run as tight as the jeans; she was more modest where her not inconsequential chest was concerned. She was always exquisitely put together. But then again, I might be biased.
*****
"Let's sit down" I said.
Stephanie wore black leggings and a loose black tee shirt, (they were offset by her grey hoodie). There's a reason why blonds in black is a classic and I was looking at the living example. She was wearing running shoes so, as always at these times, I tried to get a feel for how tall she was without heels. (Stephanie was quietly sensitive about her height, she used heels to offset it). I've never really seen the problem.
*****
One day I was minding my own business at home when it hit me out of the blue; I realized I was attracted to Stephanie. I marveled at the feeling for about two seconds before everything came to a screeching halt. There was the age difference, I was her mentor, and based on her excellent work I'd been trying to get her a promotion: how would it have looked if we were involved? I was a cautionary HR tale. Topping it all off was the fact that she was uninterested in me. We got along great and had the cutting edge banter but that was it.
I came to the realization that I had a crush on Stephanie. (Yes, even at my age, it turns out they're not age limited). I did a lot of research on crushes and yup, I had one bad. Interesting thing about crushes, basically you rewire your brain to dump a ton of dopamine and oxytocin into your system when you have any contact with your crush. Even a picture can do it. The most perverse thing about all this was that when I was with her, I knew I had zero romantic interest in Stephanie. In time I wondered if it was because I couldn't have her, I convinced myself I didn't want her.
*****
"You want something to drink?", I asked. "I've got water, somehow I wound up with what was left of the wine from last night and Diet Pepsi."
"You and Diet Pepsi. Someday I'm going to get you to embrace Coke Zero fully." It had been a running gag with us.
"Oh, you've already gotten your hooks into me, that's what I get when I can't find a Pepsi."
In an undertone she started chanting, "One of us, one of us." If there was a close second to those eyes it was her smile.
How the hell was I ever going to do this?
"I'll take water, I had enough to drink while we were shooting darts." Steve, Mandy and the two of us held an impromptu competition at a bar after dinner. It was an elimination kind of thing, the two of us were matched against each other. Stephanie, despite all protestations to the contrary, was
good
. Somehow, I kept up with her until I threw the final throw, as in I let her win. Don't look at me like that.
Her shoes came off and she tucked her legs under her. I did what I'd done so many times before, in the office, in meetings, in rental cars on trips; I looked at her when she wasn't looking, trying to commit her image to memory. I guess I try too hard because I never managed it.
Stephanie and I talked about the day at work. Unaccountably she still lacked confidence in her performance. She'd made a tough call and asked me at lunch if she'd done the right thing. I told her yes and to have confidence in herself, trust herself. Unfortunately, you can't give a person confidence just by saying it. It only comes with experience. I moved on...
"That summary you wrote was a masterpiece of managerial doublespeak and buzz words, they'll love it at home. It was so good I'm putting a copy of it on my refrigerator."
"Next to your macaroni artwork?" she deadpanned.
*****
So, I was convinced that there was not and could never be anything between Stephanie and me. My brain chemistry had found a hill to die on, I couldn't get her out of my head.
And then I started to notice these little things.
We had one case that went so far wrong we dubbed it 'dumpster fire'. It was all hands on deck for my team as well as a couple of pickups we'd caged from another team. For privacy reasons because of the data we worked with we were divided into four person offices. (With real walls and everything). Of course, the four of us didn't share the same one that would have been logical.
One day there's five people near my desk, it was figuratively SRO. Mandy was sitting on the floor under my whiteboard, Steve in the only free chair, Stephaine standing next to my flippers, Mari and Brian looking in from the hall. (No matter how many times Steve and I offered, neither Mandy nor Stephanie would take our chairs when offered).
Steve, as team lead, was directing things and I'm simply sitting and listening. I look up to find Stephanie staring at me and she didn't stop once I noticed her. Normally when people are caught staring, they look away. Except when they're into you. I decided to test the theory and stared back. For a few, all too brief, seconds we locked eyes.
*****
So, Stephanie and I sat on the couch in my hotel room talking. It was more than we'd ever talked about ourselves before. I learned about her last job taking her to London for a year. I had had friends there so we traded stories. I talked about being from the 'burbs and she from what we laughingly started referring to as 'East Jesus Nowhere'. If there was any alcohol left in our systems it would have lost all its effect an hour ago.
There would never be a better time, still didn't make it easy. With my heart rate up around 300 I looked into her deep green eyes.
"You know I have a thing for you right." Said it just like they do in the movies.
Remember what I said about her looking at you to the exclusion of all else? It was the most intimate and at the same time unnerving moment of my life. I felt naked in the truest sense of the word before those eyes.
Stephanie had the gentlest smile on her face when she looked away; it didn't fade when she turned back toward me.
"I had hoped."
