Chapter 120
Chapter 113: The Call
Cameron’s POV
I didn’t sleep well, but I slept p>
That was something. After the night before-the bar, Durian’s guest room, the drive to Lucian’s
apartment and everything that had happened inside it-I’d returned to my own apartment at four in
the afternoon and sat in the chair by the window and looked at Seattle in the rain and done something I didn’t usually do, which was nothing. Not productive nothing, not the kind of
not-doing-things that was actually doing things internally, organizing and planning and running
calculations. Just nothing. The rain on the glass and the city below and the particular exhaustion
of a person who’d been managing something for eighteen months and had, in the space of twenty-four hours, made it significantly more complicated.
I woke at six.
Lay in bed for eleven minutes, which I knew because I watched the clock, which was a habit I’d apparently developed at some point without noticing. Counted through everything that was true: it was Tuesday. Lucian had said he’d call in the morning. The Meridian call was Wednesday. Sedona was in the hospital doing well. I had gone to a man’s apartment yesterday in sweatpants and his sister had answered the door and his four-year-old had called him a monster.
I got up.
Made coffee with the intensity of someone not thinking about something.
I drank the coffee standing at the window, looking at the city turning bright, making people get
ready for the day.
He’d said he’d call.
He hadn’t specified when in the morning. Morning could mean eight or it could mean eleven-thirty, and I had no basis for knowing which part of the spectrum, his personal life worked at because I had spent 18 months focused on his work life and had blinded me to other things. I also knew that staying at home, waiting for a call that may or may not happen today was counterproductive.
I went to the office.
Not because there was something urgent that I needed to do, but it gave me the illusion of dignity, that I was not putting my life on pause. The office at least gave me the appearance of purpose.
My assistant for the day was a temporary assistant from the agency Lucian had mentioned, she
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was a woman named Caroline who was good at her job, competent and organized and had been given Lucian’s workload to go through and sort out. She greeted me professionally when I came in,
ad coffee waiting, had printed the morning briefing.
She was fine.
She was completely fine, and nothing about her work was wrong, and I sat at my desk reading the briefing she’d prepared and thought about the note in the margin of Lucian’s Singapore file.
I put the briefing down.
Picked it back up.
My phone was on the desk, face up, screen dark.
At nine-fourteen, it lit up with a buzzing noise.
Unknown number. Seattle area code, different prefix from the one I had memorized Lucian’s
number to be. I looked at it for exactly one second before I picked it up.
“Preston p>
“It’s Lucian.” His voice was calm, collected as he continued speaking, like he had a good reason for
calling. “I said I’d call p>
“You did.” I kept my voice the same way his was, which required some effort on my end because I was freaking out internally and didn’t want to say anything that would make him decide to not
return. “Thank you p>
A brief pause. “I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday p>
“Which part p>
“All of it.” Another pause, shorter. “The reinstatement p>
“Yes p>
“I have conditions,” he said.
I hadn’t expected that. I’d expected either yes or no, and I’d prepared for the possibility of him to
turn down my offer and me having to live with the consequences of my actions.
Actual conditions for him returning wasn’t an option that I had considered.
“Tell me,” I said.
“I want the termination removed from my file. Not noted as a reinstatement. Removed-as if the
process was initiated and withdrawn before completion, which is accurate to what actually
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happened p>
“That’s reasonable,” I said, because it was. HR hadn’t completed the formal process.
The file could be cleared and there wont be a smidge of it in his file. “Done p>
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“And I want-“A pause. This one was different from the previous ones, more hesitant, like he was scared of poking the sleeping lion.
“I want to know what the complete reason was. You said yesterday that what you told me was incomplete. You said it was probably something I should know p>
The office was very quiet.
Caroline was at her desk outside, I could hear the distant sounds of work going on in the
background, despite the heavy beat of my heart.
“You said tomorrow,” he said. “Yesterday. When I asked. You said tomorrow p>
“I did p>
“It’s tomorrow p>
“Lucian.” I said his name and then stopped, because the next sentence required something I had
been suppressing for 18 months and I needed a moment to find it.
“If this is-” he started.
“I’m trying to find the right words,” I said. “Give me a moment p>
He gave me a moment.
“When I came into my office on Monday night,” I said, “and I saw-Lyra Cheng, and your-the situation.” I paused. “My reaction was not proportionate to a professional judgment concern p>
“I gathered that p>
“It was disproportionate because-” I stopped, and started again. “I’ve been working with you for
eighteen months. In that time I’ve-I’ve noticed-” I stopped again.
“Cameron.” His voice had changed slightly. Barely. “Just say it p>
“I find it difficult to watch other people-I find it-” I pressed my hand flat on the desk.
“When I saw her hand on your chest I broke something. In my office. I put too much pressure on
something and it broke, and I realized after that it wasn’t the first time that this kind of situation
had elicited this kind of uncalled response in me. There was an event, eight months ago, and
someone kissed your cheek and I broke a glass. I am aware that this is not a proportionate
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professional response. I am aware that what I’m describing is not something an employer should be experiencing in relation to an employee, and I want to be clear that nothing I did or said or decided in the past eighteen months was motivated by-I never acted on it. I never intended to. I managed it. Until Monday night, when I didn’t manage it correctly, and you were the one who-you
paid the consequence of that, which is not something I can justify or adequately apologize for p>
Silence.
I waited.
a/n; sorry guys, I skipped an update yesterday, due to a shitty week. I’ll work on mass release this week. note Cameron has a fear of being seen differently, hence his resistance to being open with what he wants. hopefully this ends well for him. don’t worry Logan is still coming, I will enter his arc
soon.
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