tonywalt
06-23-2025, 09:23 AM
It starts in the middle of the meeting.
His fingers tap the table, soft, restless. A screen full of numbers, a voice from the far end of the room moving through the slide deck. Q3. Margins. Optimism.
Jon watches the light on the wall. Thin stripes from the blinds. Outside — heat, sky, the city breathing past the glass.
And then it’s there — the small click. The one you wait for, or maybe dread.
He stands. Jacket, phone.
The door opens. The door closes.
No one calls after him. No one follows.
Out on the sidewalk, he types:
Come with me. St. Barts. Today. Now.
He walks — down toward the river, the heat pressing through his shirt. The phone buzzes in his hand.
You’re ridiculous.
Plane leaves in three hours. Meet me.
Another block, another message:
I can’t. You know I can’t.
He smiles.
You will. If not now, when?
And then:
Tell me where.
Two hours.
She leaves work with a lie — one sentence, no explanation. The uber ride is long, the driver saying nothing.
At home she pulls clothes from drawers, the suitcase catching on the floorboards. Black dress. Heels. A slip of silk she hasn’t worn in months.
Lipstick in the mirror, dark red. Eyes that do not look away from themselves.
At the small terminal, heat rising off the tarmac.
She crosses the floor — dark glasses, red mouth, a suitcase wheeled behind her with two fingers.
He’s already there, leaning against the wall, watching.
“You sure?” he says.
She steps closer. Her voice low:
“I’ll tell you when we’re old and wiser.”
In the air: gin, knees bare against the leather seats. The engine’s hum folding around them.
No talk of who is left behind. No talk of what this is, or isn’t.
She rests her hand on his wrist. Her other hand loose on the armrest, fingers open.
He looks at her. The line of her mouth, unreadable.
Out the window, the sea darkens. The sky folding into the island ahead.
Not knowing the shape of what waited, or what was lost.
His fingers tap the table, soft, restless. A screen full of numbers, a voice from the far end of the room moving through the slide deck. Q3. Margins. Optimism.
Jon watches the light on the wall. Thin stripes from the blinds. Outside — heat, sky, the city breathing past the glass.
And then it’s there — the small click. The one you wait for, or maybe dread.
He stands. Jacket, phone.
The door opens. The door closes.
No one calls after him. No one follows.
Out on the sidewalk, he types:
Come with me. St. Barts. Today. Now.
He walks — down toward the river, the heat pressing through his shirt. The phone buzzes in his hand.
You’re ridiculous.
Plane leaves in three hours. Meet me.
Another block, another message:
I can’t. You know I can’t.
He smiles.
You will. If not now, when?
And then:
Tell me where.
Two hours.
She leaves work with a lie — one sentence, no explanation. The uber ride is long, the driver saying nothing.
At home she pulls clothes from drawers, the suitcase catching on the floorboards. Black dress. Heels. A slip of silk she hasn’t worn in months.
Lipstick in the mirror, dark red. Eyes that do not look away from themselves.
At the small terminal, heat rising off the tarmac.
She crosses the floor — dark glasses, red mouth, a suitcase wheeled behind her with two fingers.
He’s already there, leaning against the wall, watching.
“You sure?” he says.
She steps closer. Her voice low:
“I’ll tell you when we’re old and wiser.”
In the air: gin, knees bare against the leather seats. The engine’s hum folding around them.
No talk of who is left behind. No talk of what this is, or isn’t.
She rests her hand on his wrist. Her other hand loose on the armrest, fingers open.
He looks at her. The line of her mouth, unreadable.
Out the window, the sea darkens. The sky folding into the island ahead.
Not knowing the shape of what waited, or what was lost.