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Gerri does the New York Times crossword puzzle every morning. The paper copy gets brought in and laid out on her breakfast table, a ballpoint pen set beside it. She’s never done the puzzle in pencil. Pencil is for idiots. Some days she has to bring the puzzle with her, finishes it in the car, or on the elevator ride up to the top of the building.
No one talks to her in the mornings, and that’s the way she likes it. Competent, loyal, terrifying: the three words anyone would use to describe her.
There’s always coffee on her desk waiting, warm and black, steam rising up from the mug. She tosses the newspaper into the recycling bin and takes a sip. Everything in its place. Everything filling into black and white squares, correct answers and wrong ones, and she’s never wrong.
She puts everyone she meets into boxes, likes to know who she’s dealing with, likes to be prepared for anything they might do. It’s how she fights, how she wins.
She’s been present for the birth of all of Caroline and Logan’s children, hasn’t had to change her opinion of his children since the day they came into the world.
When Kendall was born, Baird Kellman slapped Logan on the back, told him the true heir has arrived. Gerri held Connor’s sticky hand and pretended she couldn’t hear them, watched her husband and her boss take the elevator outside, thick cigars in their fat fingers, knew her husband would smell like smoke and ash as they drove home. She took Connor to see his new baby brother, peered through the glass at all the infants, sleeping and mewling and staring.
“That’s him,” she said, pointing, her finger leaving a small smudge behind. Kendall laid out in the middle of the room, the very center of it all, crowned from the moment his head popped out into the cold air of the delivery room.
“He’s small,” Connor said, both hands on the lip of the window, tall for his age, but not tall enough.
“They always start out that way.” Connor looked up at her and she just smiled, walked him back to his mother’s room, to wait for the men to come back. Kendall would push Connor aside, would be the jewel in his father’s crown. But Kendall will be trouble - the ones who usurp the throne always are - that, she knew for certain.
When Gerri thinks about Kendall now, she always thinks of Connor saying, “He’s small,” because that’s what he is. No matter how much posturing, how much success, he will always cower, in the end. She’s seen it time and time again, with his wife, with his father, with her.
Roman was born with less pomp, less fuss: Baird away on business, Gerri working late, Logan in the office next door, Connor and Kendall with a babysitter. Just Caroline in a private hospital room, a secretary outside the door, someone from the company expected to do too much.
“Already the forgotten child and he’s not even an hour old,” Gerri said to the empty chairs in front of her, the dim light from Logan’s lamp the only other illumination on the floor. She didn’t know what he was working on then, though she knows now. It was her first month on the floor, toes just dipping into the water. And now there are days where she wonders if she’s in over her head.
Her daughter was home with a nanny that night, a girl just slightly younger than Kendall. She wondered how children make friends, if the Roys and the Kellmans will spend their summers together, just a passel of children to keep each other company when their parents forget. Her thoughts slid from Roman, likely left alone for the night, to the pregnancy test on the counter of her bathroom sink, two blue lines, stark against the white.
Roman never stopped being the forgotten child, the overlooked Roy. Not good enough to rival Kendall, not bad enough to rival him either. Bullied by his brothers, defiant enough to not fight back, but not to take it either. A saucy grin, a well-placed barb, his intelligence just beyond theirs, when he chooses to focus. He’s ordinary. Ordinary and very rich, with time to spin out and no one to reel him in.
Gerri’s stomach was rounded with her second daughter when Caroline’s third - and final, she proclaimed - pregnancy is announced. Roman doesn’t even get a Kellman child his own age, but his siblings will each have one. She felt the kicks against her ribs, excused herself from meetings to use the restroom, wouldn’t take time off work, not until she had to. And even then, she expected her calls forwarded, faxes sent to her home line.
When Siobhan was born, Logan went to the hospital with his wife, bickered the whole way but bursting out of his skin to have a baby girl. Her siblings sat in chairs in the corner, Kendall blinking, watching, Roman, already dark and wary, Connor off with friends of his own, a dividing line between him and the rest of the Roys.
Gerri took the baby from her mother’s arms, held her close. She smelled the same as her own daughters, the same as every baby, new and warm, like bread fresh from the oven.
“You’re her godmother, of course,” Logan boomed, his joy bleeding out from him, so charismatic in all his moods, infectious in everything he feels. “And tell Baird, when he gets home, to get his ass to the church for the baptism too.” Scottish brogue licked at his syllables, and Gerri didn’t even bother to cover the child’s ears. In the Roy household, Fuck Off is practically the family motto, and Siobhan’s first word will be a middle finger to her older brothers.
Shiv’s been the same, her father’s favorite, silver in the middle of a dung heap, always the smartest, the best, the lucky penny. For all that Gerri’s her godmother, she’s never been sure if she likes Shiv, if she trusts her. But she smiles and hugs her and gives her advice and takes her to the drug store for tampons when she turns thirteen because Caroline’s already gone and there’s no one else.
Connor’s set apart, Kendall’s the boy who would be king, Roman an unsteady shadow and Shiv is the gleaming hope for the future. Gerri always knew who they were, from the moment they were born. People fit into boxes, black and white, and she’s never wrong.
-
Logan has a stroke. He has a stroke, and Roman offers her the company. She can see the wheels turning in his head, the cogs grinding, knows every move that led him to this point. And she knows the moves he’s never even seen, which is why she says no, why she walks away. But somehow, he keeps following her.
Something changed, in his mind. He decided something, she thinks. Decided to try. Decided to take life even just a little bit more seriously. He comes to her meetings, to strategy sessions, to conference calls. Even if he takes off his shirt and jumps around, a wealthy Dennis the Menace on a table, it’s miles ahead of where he was, phoning in late, or no contact at all, just disappearing when he got bored.
They become friends. Sort of. Gerri doesn’t really have those. She supposes Logan is a friend, if that’s what you call a person you fucked once thirty years ago, drunk and foolish and giddy, and have seen every day since. Perhaps even Marcia, a tentative truce there. But it’s all hedging and guessing and in the end, she wouldn’t call them from prison, so what good are they as friends, really?
But Roman gets her number - her real one, the one that only about three people have, and two of those people, she gave birth to. He texts her in the middle of the night, when he’s wired and awake and doesn’t know what else to do, when he’s alone in bed with a model down the hall. She texts back because she doesn’t sleep, because she gets hot in the middle of the night, too hot for clothes, too hot for blankets, and stands stark naked in her bathroom, the only place that feels cool.
He starts sending her movie ideas.
What about King Kong meets Sound of Music?
That doesn’t sound like an asset to the abbey.
Is that a joke? I don’t get that.
Go to bed, Rome.
She calls him Rome, sometimes. When it’s late, when her eyes are soft with sleep, when she feels something towards him. Not maternal, not that, but...something. The nickname is a caress, the only kind she’s ever really known how to give, all angles and sharp points with her daughters, but giving them everything they asked for. Everything they needed. She wonders if they’re spoiled.
Maybe dragons in Manhattan.
She doesn’t even answer that, just turns her phone over and climbs into bed. She never turns it off, never turns it on silent. Her predecessor missed a phone call once and, well, that’s why he’s her predecessor. It’s a strange way to live, always braced for impact, but she’s grown used to the tension, isn’t sure who she’d be without it.
Her phone buzzes.
What about a guy who fucks his dad’s lawyer.
She sends him the middle finger emoji and closes her eyes.
-
Roman texts her a photo of the World’s Biggest Turkey mascot - purple-headed, bright blue badge on its chest. And wings highlighting pointing down to the crotch, hips pushed forward.
Don’t molest the patrons too much
He doesn’t text her back, and she can only imagine the havoc he’s causing, the complaints they’ll receive. But her lips tip up at the idea of a turkey spewing profanity under its breath. She tries to be unaffected by his antics, by anything any of the Roys do, tries to stay in the background, passing judgment quietly, but doing what has to be done. She thinks Roman might be getting under her skin.
She doesn’t have to coddle Roman, lull him into a false sense of security, make him think her ideas are his own before he’ll act on them. It’s a welcome change from the rest of the men she works with, thinks that’s part of the reason she’s so willing to help him. She’s not known for being particularly benevolent.
Which is why, when he calls her later, she doesn’t just hang up on him the second he tells her to build his roller coaster.
“Go to bed, and masturbate all your ideas out, and let's see how excited you feel tomorrow.” She can hear his breath ratchet up, can practically feel the tension in the distance between her words and his response. She hears his belt rattle, the rustle of fabric. At the sound of his panting breath, the silence from his end of the call, Gerri feels...bemusement, shock. Power. Delight. A challenge.
Getting to say what she thinks, words she’s held back in meetings, thoughts that roost in the back of her mind, it’s thrilling, wonderful, a kind of freedom she could get used to. She wonders, in an abstract sort of way, if this should feel wrong, if she should feel embarrassment. Instead, it feels like the high point of her week, the first fun she’s had in ages.
She insulted Baird, would throw barbs his way when he was drunk at parties, handsy with the caterers, overly loud with his golfing buddies. Sly whispers, slithering from her mouth as she passed by, enough to make him straighten up, enough to get him to the car. They yelled at home, slammed doors, fights giving way to stony silence and arched brows.
Fights with her husband weren’t like this. She never felt aroused after a back-and-forth shouting match that left her hoarse and fuming, never went off to bed and got herself off with her hands, fast and furious against her clit.
But when she hears Roman’s stuttering breath, the guttural sound of his release, she feels a warmth in her belly, a twitching between her thighs. She manages to wait until he hangs up, a terse “g’night,” before she slides her skirt down her legs, before she props her ankles up on the table again, and finds the angle she needs, the one that makes her calves shudder.
Echoing in her head is Roman’s moan, his bitten off curses, his harsh requests for more, and all she feels is power, feels a sensuality thrum through her, feels wanton. Her blouse is already loose, her hand easily fits, sliding against her skin, molding against her breast, fingers pinching through her bra. She feels warmth on her cheeks, on her skin, a flush suffusing through her body as her hands move in opposite circles, as her nails scrape and squeeze.
In her mind’s eye, she can see herself, in high heels, in her fitted suit, standing over Roman, pressing a stiletto against his chest, just hard enough to feel, too soft to hurt, and that feeling of control washes over her, makes her hips buck against her hand. She cants her lower half a little, enough so her fingers can slide deeper, so she can flick them just so inside her, thumb rubbing at her clit, nipples hardening at every sensation.
She sees her phone light up, a phone call from the office, pushes herself over edge with one hard thrust of her fingers, so close already that it’s enough to make her groan, enough that she can feel the edges of her vision blacking out. She feels boneless and happy and sated, and it’s been so long. She’s still slightly out of breath when she answers the phone, four rings gone, her hand still sticky, fingers still warm, cheeks still red.
-
Roman is awkward, jerky, the next time they see each other, face to face, a dance to get on the elevator, one she doesn’t know the steps to. But he acts strangely enough that she imagines their phone call was a one-off, a never-to-be-repeated experiment.
They haven’t regressed, really, haven’t lost anything. There have still been late night texts and occasional calls when he gets bored of the training, bored of videos that have Kendall reading blandly from a script.
He’s definitely not an actor
At least he got cast in a role.
Fuck you.
She turns her phone down on the table, looks back at the people around the table, not one of them looking at her, and she draws a turkey on her notepad. When her phone buzzes again, she can’t even stop herself from flipping it up.
Free tonight?
It’s an uncharacteristically thoughtful question, to check her schedule, instead just calling, assuming she has nothing better to do. It makes her feel a little bubbly inside, buoyed by an unspecified thought of what might be coming her way. She texts a thumbs up back, tunes back in to what’s being said. Deals being made, millions of dollars changing hands, Logan’s cousin’s daughter’s boyfriend works there, is that too much of a conflict?
“We’re far enough removed that it shouldn’t be an issue. Just make sure he’s not Shiv’s college fuck buddy and we’re golden.” She’s heard enough to know the solution even if she’s not fully briefed on the problem.
The turkey gets a pin drawn on its chest. World’s Biggest.
Roman calls late, so late Gerri wonders if he forgot, downs two glasses of whiskey, over-poured, making her brain feel fuzzy, her skin feel alive. And when her phone buzzes against her thigh, it startles her, jumps out of her hand.
“Hello? Hel-LO?” Roman’s voice says to the couch cushion. Gerri grabs the phone.
“I’m here. What did you need?” She asks like she doesn’t have an inkling, like Roman didn’t dangle the call like a worm on a hook. Her fingers tap against her thigh.
“If I escape from management training and run screaming into the city, what’s the outlook for promotion? Get that fuckface Frank off my back?” He sounds wired, like he’s had too much coffee, like he’s pacing the floor.
“Running through the streets, yelling about Waystar Royco didn’t turn out so hot for your brother,” she says, “and you’re much scrawnier.” She sips from her third glass of whiskey, not as much bite on her tongue any more.
“It’s from years of parental neglect,” he says, words light, airy, even as it sounds like the phone is shoved between his ear and his shoulder. She wonders if he’s already taking off his pants, if he’s standing in his bathroom in nothing but boxers.
“Yes, well, they knew from an early age you’d come to nothing.” Her voice isn’t unkind, just matter-of-fact. She hears an intake of breath, as if Roman is just as unsure of this evening’s proceedings as she is.
“I think we both know I come with something,” he says, always reaching for the easy joke, always wanting to make her smile, make her laugh, and Gerri can’t hide her undignified snort. There’s a pause, long enough that she can imagine that he’s trying to think of the next thing to say, of how to start whatever it is they’re doing, without saying it flat out.
“Did you manage to make it through the whole work day without getting bored?” Gerri throws him a bone, settles on her couch, feet tucked up underneath her.
“I didn’t make it five minutes without getting bored,” he shoots back, and she can practically hear the grin in his voice.
“Just like you. Frivolous fuck.” Her lips curl around the words, a smile on her own face as she warms to the conversation. “You equanimous egotistical little worm.” She’s always been good with words.
“Yeah?” He’s already breathy, already panting into his phone. She wonders if the screen fogs up. “What else?”
If she weren’t going through the thesaurus of her mind, she’d wonder why it is that this is what Roman needs, that it’s what he wants. It gets filed away, something to think about later, to go over in her mind when she can’t sleep.
“You breeze in and out of that office like a preteen girl at the mall, taking what you want, leaving the rest. At some point you’re going to have to lay down that plastic and put some skin in the game.” He will grow up, at some point, Gerri is sure of it. She doesn’t know when it will be or what will make that happen, but she’s determined to be a part of it. They’re in this together, now. He ensured that the first time he called.
“When do you put any skin in the game?” The words come out in spits and starts, and she imagines his hand moving up and down, sliding back and forth, thinks she can make out the soft wet noises in between his breaths.
“My life’s been on the line since before you were born, you blasé little shitstain.” There’s a grunt through her speaker, a series of them, and she knows he’s got dirty hands now, imagines the splotches on his screen as he fumbles with the button to hang up. There’s no post-coital glow, no long-distance cuddles. It’s as much a transaction as anything else at Waystar Royco.
Fifteen minutes to get bored today. Progress!
Going so slowly it’s almost backwards.
-
The third call ensures that it’s going to become a pattern. The fourth one is when she gives herself permission to get off after every phone call with Roman, when she stops feeling guilty for the wetness between her legs, for the way she clenches her thighs together as she spits out insults at her young protégé.
The fifth through eighth calls are when Roman forgets about the time difference between them, off in Tokyo doing some management something or other. He interrupts a meeting, two real conference calls and lunch with her daughter, tells her to fuck off over her salad.
It’s the fourteenth call when Roman finally asks her what she gets out of it.
“What I get out of it?” The disbelief colors her words, sarcasm too.
“Yeah, like. Why do you answer the phone? Why do you do, you know, the whole thing?” She contemplates how much to tell him, decides there’s no point in secrets between them, not with everything else they share.
“What do you think happens when you hang up?” she asks, arching a brow he can’t see, a finger already fiddling with her waistband. “This isn’t all about you, Roman Roy. Not everything exists for your sole pleasure.”
There’s silence, the true definition of bated breath on the other end of the call. “When you’re busy cleaning yourself up, mopping up that shower of semen all over your pants, then it’s my turn.” He once talked about having phone sex with his girlfriend like a normal person - is this as close as he’s going to get?
“Yeah? What - what do you do?” There’s a shakiness to his voice, a nervousness she hasn’t heard before. Like he’s scared to fuck it up, like he’s worried he’ll do something wrong.
She stops herself from answering, asks him a question. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Tell me what you do,” he says, voice more firm, more confident. “If you’re taking advantage of my happy-go-lucky nature and all that, I think I should, like, know about it.” She can’t stop the bark of laughter. No one would ever accuse Roman of being happy-go-lucky.
“I’m already wet - dripping - by the time you hang up. You come so easily, it’s like a game. How many words does it take. And I have you in the palm of my hand.” She feels like sinuous snake, her words winding around him, clenching, squeezing, tighter and tighter, can practically sense the pressure he must be applying to his cock.
“Uh...huh.” The panting grunt, the effort put into those two syllables, makes Gerri feel that ever-growing rush of pride that pools somewhere south of her stomach, turns into something else. Her skirt is somewhere near her ankles, her underwear not far behind.
“What do you think happens next?” She wants to wring it out of him, wants him to say the words, wants to see what she can make him do.
“Fingersss,” he says, hissing on the last letter, and she smiles into her phone, holding it against her shoulder, taking his suggestion, sliding her fingers right between her thighs, three fingers fitting so easily, so quickly. She huffs a little as she widens, stretches, settles.
“Right on my couch,” she says, “in the middle of my living room. Right out in the open.” She moves her fingers back and forth, up and down, slow movements until she gets a feel for how close Roman is, how far along. He’s always fast, always harried, but it seems like he’s holding back, trying to keep up with her.
“Fuck,” is all he says and she lets out a low laugh, nothing more than a murmur.
“Yes,” she says, slowly, carefully, enunciating every word. “That’s exactly what happens.” She arches her back away from the cushions, squeezes her thighs, clenches, bucks against her hand, driving the movement.
The only noise is their mutual panting, the quiet squelching of their moving hands. “Is this what you wanted?” she asks, so close to the edge, her hand moving at a fever pitch, wetness covering her fingers, musky scent in her nostrils.
The only answer is the grunt, the sound of Roman spilling over the edge, a soft, “Fuck” in the aftermath, muffled into his pillow, the couch, his arm. Gerri doesn’t know where he goes when he does this, has no image in her mind except his pale arms, shirtsleeves rolled up, once-pressed trousers now wrinkled at his feet.
“Good night, Roman,” she says, tossing her phone to the couch beside her, focusing back on the hand between her thighs, on the push and pull of her fingers, the flicking of her thumb. It’s a hum at the back of her throat when she comes, pleasure coming out in a soft sigh, body boneless against the cushions.
She turns to her phone, sees that Roman never hung up, imagines his face, that combination of smirking and wonder that he so often gets when they’re together. She presses the red phone icon with her thumb and washes herself off in the bathroom.
-
The world explodes. Their world, anyway. Pierce, the senate hearings. The yacht, Kendall. Logan. And then it knits itself back together.
Roman comes through it different, but still somehow the same. He becomes COO, right there at the top. And he doesn’t fuck it up right away. But he says it’s because Gerri’s right there beside him, acting CEO, the job she never wanted.
They can see each other so easily throughout the day, glass walls looking into glass walls. All she has to do is look up and she can see him, feet up on the desk, tossing a paperweight in his hands, tilted back in his chair. He always knows when she’s looking, winks at her and straightens up, puts on his Real Businessman act, puffed chest, pursed lips, hands on the keyboard, mashing gibberish.
The real work comes at the end of the day, when most of the desks are empty, when he sits on her couch and she looks at him over the rim of her glasses. He levels with her, asks her questions like he cares about the answer, makes notes in tiny book that he keeps in his pocket. She’s never asked the see it up close, always wonders what he writes.
He’s surprisingly nimble in negotiations, never quite what people expect, no one ever knows if he’s serious. Even Gerri sometimes can’t tell. They sit beside each other, a united front against whoever it is they’re bartering with, a brick wall no one can bulldoze over. She gets used to their names being used together, to people understanding that they come as a pair.
She’s never had someone to depend on like this, not Baird, not her daughters, not Logan, not any one of the many people she’s stepped on to get where she is.
If anyone in the family is shocked, they don’t say it. Logan imagines himself still the puppetmaster in the background, orchestrating Roman’s rise to prominence, but no one really believes it, for all the times Logan laughed, said the kid would never amount to anything. Kendall’s all but disappeared into the background, launching start-ups in California, smoking pot by the pool and throwing money away. Only Shiv is left to poke, to prod, a thorn in their side, but she stays mostly silent when the deals get made, when the debt dwindles and disappears. No one thinks to ask Connor’s opinion.
In the middle of everything sinking, Gerri and Roman built a raft and held on. And now they have Waystar Royco to show for it. She can look out of her window, at the very top of the building, and see all of New York City below her, the sun rising over the buildings, glancing off the windows. Some days, the clouds hang so low, she can’t see the sidewalks, can’t make out the cars.
Are our conference calls as fun when you can see me and I can see you?
You’re presuming they’re fun for me.
You don’t do anything you don’t want to do.
It’s been over a year at this point. From phone calls to bathrooms to the dividing door between hotel rooms. And the more they talk about it, joke about it, tell everyone that they spend evenings getting each other off, the less anyone believes them.
She puts down her phone and dials Roman’s extension, lets it ring once before putting it on speaker and walking around her desk to lean against the other side. There’s the sound of static, fumbling, and she can see Roman scrabbling around on his desk to get to his phone, to find the button he needs.
Cocking her head, she pulls at the side zip of her skirt, lets it fall, glad that it was warm enough to forego hose today, that she didn’t even have this in mind when she dressed for the day. There’s no sexy panties, no thongs, just perfunctory black cotton, enough to cover everything.
She crosses her legs at the ankles and watches Roman, momentarily frozen. He knows what she looks like, day to day, but he’s never seen her like this, not even at Tern Haven, when he knew what she was doing on the other side of the door.
The whole floor is dark except for their offices, the light from the night sky coming in through the large windows. Roman’s shirt is stark in the evening, and he’s already rolling up his sleeves. She’s always liked that about him, the way he gets down to business, the routine that he follows.
Their movements are in tandem, though her mouth moves more, spitting insults, slight degradations, encouragements. He just responds in grunts she can barely make out through the shitty phone system, but she can see the way he angles his body, the rubbing of his hands, can anticipate the noises he’s making just there, across the hall.
There’s a spot on the carpet when he’s done, a wet patch near his feet. Gerri grabs tissues from her desk, wipes at her fingers, wipes a little bead of sweat from her brow. Her hips hurt from where they’ve pressed against the wood of her desk, her knee sore from locking at the angle she needed. She knows her hair is mussed, her chest flushed, she can see that much from her reflection in the glass. She knows its mirrored in Roman’s pink cheeks and hair pushed back from his forehead.
“Can you get some work done now?” she asks into the phone, and his head snaps up to look at her, as if he almost forgot she was there. He nods, and she places the phone back into the cradle, turns back to her computer.
-
It is suggested by Karolina that a Christmas party would do wonders for morale, that people need to blow off steam. Not a gala affair where it’s $100 a ticket and no one employed on the lower floors could ever dream of going, but an all-employee gathering with hors d'oeuvres, trays of champagne. Gerri sees no downside, just asks her assistant to reserve a larger space than usual, and the decorations go up, an email goes out.
It ends up being a perfect winter evening, snow lightly falling, but not enough to derail traffic. Gerri stands near the back of the room, forcing people to come up to her to engage, not seeking anyone out. Her daughters wander around the ballroom, Heather and Anne deigning to come to the company party for the first time in years. She thinks it has something to do with Instagram and influencing and stops listening. If her oldest daughter wants to take a posed picture in front of a large Christmas tree, she’s not one to stop her.
When she’s on her third glass, she sees her younger daughter sidle up to Roman, their shoulders touching. She says something, holds out her hand to shake his, and Gerri can see his eyes go wide, his posture stiffen, his gaze cast about, and she knows he’s looking for her.
He finally finds her in the crowd and all she does is raise her glass in salute. He can get himself out of this mess, and she’s happy to watch.
Heather’s cheeks are pink from blush and alcohol, her hands fixing Roman’s collar, a finger reaching out to brush his cheek. His shoulders are practically by his ears as she laughs at some comment he’s made, and when he tries to move away, she catches her arm, threads hers through, rests her hand at his elbow.
She watches for a while longer, drains her glass and grabs another from a passing tray, finally moving across the room, smile on her face, merriment in her heart. Leaning in to press a kiss to her daughter’s cheek, she hazards a wink at Roman.
“I can’t believe Roman let you ensnare him,” she says with a laugh, gesturing at her arm in his, and Roman practically shoves Heather aside, pulls his arm away, his discomfort palpable. Heather just laughs, playfully hits Roman on the shoulder, unaware of his disdainful look at her touch.
“I’m going to…” he starts, trying to move away, trying to do anything that gets him to the other side of the room as fast as possible.
“What were you and Heather talking about?” she asks archly, watching his cheeks flush, enjoying this almost more than anything else they’ve done, loves to watch him squirm and fumble. He shoves his hands in his pockets, shrugs his shoulders even higher.
As if to compound things, Connor appears, smirk on his face, champagne in hand, Willa trailing sort of behind, an unwilling shadow, too entrenched in things to leave now, too unhappy to fully commit. Gerri affords her a fake smile, just a twitch of the lips. She can afford to be generous.
“The Kellman women have a taste for the Roys, it seems,” Connor bloviates, barreling into the conversation, a lot of bluster and bluff for a man overly concerned with how the olives were stuck to the cocktail skewers an hour earlier.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Roman says, the look of disgust never fully leaving his face, his arms crossing as he tries to put as much distance between himself and Heather as possible without actually moving his feet. Gerri sees how he closes himself up, can imagine it time and time again, with Tabitha, with whoever that girl was before. And the one before that.
“You don’t think Gerri - Gerri - got to where she is without porking the old man at least once, do you?” He grins mawkishly at them, and Gerri meets Roman’s eyes, thinks there’s a matching horror on both their faces.
She recovers quickly, her face going to a blank mask. “What a lovely way with words,” she says, clearing her throat slightly. “I think I’ll pass on the pigs in a blanket for the night. Excuse me.” She ducks her head and moves away from Roman, from Connor, from Willa and Heather, wishing she’d at least gotten in a comment about how her daughter was one of Willa’s classmates in college.
Roman’s hand is on her elbow before she can move too far, and she ignores the touch until they’re back in her corner of the room, out of the spotlight, further from prying eyes.
“Did you?” he demands, looking every inch a toddler deprived of candy, everything but hands on his hips. His foot even stomps a little, and Gerri’s mouth twists.
“It was once, Roman. One time against the old desk in his office, not some clandestine romantic affair.” Her words are curt, tone terse, and if it were anyone else, she’d reach out with a gentle touch to the shoulder, a squeeze to make him feel comforted.
“Like us, you mean?” The words startle her, make her really look at him, all closed off and small, and, just like in meetings, she isn’t quite sure if he’s serious. For all that he’s clammed up, there’s still a smirk on his face.
“What do you want, Roman? For me to say that twelve months of phone calls are more important than one night with a man too drunk on his own power to think about anything else?” There’s only the smallest bite to her words, because there’s truth to them too.
“Can we go? Like who even cares if we’re here?” Roman’s posture relaxes, softens, he moves infinitesimally closer to her. “Let’s go and fuck in your bed like a couple of normos.” Gerri smiles, leads the way, skirts sweeping behind her, Roman at her elbow, long strides and dangling hands. Her little finger just brushes against his thumb as they walk to the car.
-
Gerri’s house is dark when they pull up. If the driver has any qualms about leaving them together, any thoughts in his head about it at all, his face does not betray them. “Have a good holiday,” Gerri says as she steps from the car, a congenial pat to his forearm. Roman just skulks behind her as she unlocks the door.
Kissing Roman is a surprise, her eyebrows near her hairline as he presses his lips to hers. She isn’t sure how she feels about it, about his hands at her waist, about reconciling the hundreds of phone calls, the text messages that make her laugh, the meetings that make her almost cry in frustration, with this, him.
“Okay, okay,” she says, hands going to his shoulders, pushing him away. “Let me get out of this thing before we do anything else.” He leads the way, at home in her house after late night meetings that spilled over into whiskey in front of her fireplace, strategy discussed over the crackling logs.
Her bedroom is large, once two rooms, a wall taken down to give her open floors, plush carpet she sinks her feet into, stepping out of her heels. Roman’s fingers start her zipper, his keen focus gratifying, that same pleasure and power she feels over the phone flooding through her now. He’s so eager to please.
The dress comes off easily - she’s at an age where it’s easy enough to combine function and form, doesn’t have to squeeze herself into a girdle, soft material falling to the floor. She’ll never be able to wear it again without thinking of this, Roman’s breath hot against her neck, the small hairs at her nape moving as he exhales.
She turns so they’re facing each other, grasps his chin in her hand. “Can you do this?” she asks, because all she’s ever wanted from Roman is honesty, wanted to be the person he told his secrets to, told his truths to. Rescuing the forgotten boy, turning him into a man. He nods his head, hampered by her fingers, but she turns her grip into a caress, the shadow on his jawline becoming more pronounced, stubble scraping slightly against her nails.
He is catlike as she starts to unbutton his shirt, as if he’s unsure of her next move. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she says, running a hand down his bare chest, thumb pausing at a nipple, pressing slightly harder against the rosy flesh. “You tell me when you’re done.” Because she doesn’t want to this, not if he doesn’t want to. He nods, some of the wary alertness leaving his posture.
She kisses him, then, initiates it this time, sliding her tongue into his mouth and he still tastes like champagne. Without giving him time to worry, to doubt, to hide, she maneuvers them to the bed, doesn’t let herself think about how long it’s been since she’s shared it with anyone.
They kiss, nothing more, for a long while. She lets Roman explore with his hands, his touch so tentative at first. She’s past feeling self-conscious about her age, about the wrinkles and the sagging. He finds the stretchmarks left over from pregnancy, his fingers tracing along them. He rests his head against her chest, bare except for her bra, and his hand caresses her through the fabric.
Her hand comes to his pants, and for the first time, she’s the one to unbuckle him, to slide the zipper down, a sound so familiar to her now, always heard through a barrier before now. His legs flail a little as he kicks them down to his ankles, off the bed, toeing his socks off too. She can feel him through his underwear, warm to the touch even with silk in the way.
He’s getting hard already. But he’s always been easy in her hands, so responsive to her, and she doesn’t even have to think of words to say. But she says things anyway, tells him how ridiculous he is, how he almost outed them in front of his brother, how this is their secret, it’s just for them. His underpants bulge as she whispers to him, words curling into his ear. His hands never stop moving against her, like he’s amazed by her skin, by her presence.
She straddles him, a knee on either side of his thighs, dislodging his head, making him flop back against the pillows, her hands on his chest once more, no pressure, just gently resting. She touches the fine trail of hair that disappears into his briefs, leverages herself up just enough that she can push them down his legs, so that she can follow the hair with her fingers, to where it grows coarse, curls against her nails, and she can grasp his purpling cock.
Roman gasps at the touch, even though he can’t be surprised at it. She watches him carefully as she starts to move her hand, thumb circling the head, pooling the silvery drops, wetting it. Her other hand slides to the apex of her own thighs, her own wiry, curly hair, where she’s already wet, already ready for him. He stares at her.
“You like this, don’t you?” she asks, because he’s always better when he can talk, when he can say what he’s thinking, when no one will tell him to shut up. He nods. “You like being underneath me, you like watching me.” He nods again. “This never stops being wrong.”
“But you’re never wrong,” he says, his voice lilting, teasing, that impish tone she knows so well.
She hums in the back of her throat, lifts herself once more, this time so she can slide, slowly - so slowly - down Roman’s cock, letting him fill her in a way she wasn’t sure he could. She can see how he’s holding himself, tensing to stop his hips from bucking upwards, from pushing in too fast. “You didn’t want to do this with Heather?” she asks, lips twisting, not able to resist.
Roman just scoffs, rolls his eyes, amazingly casual for all that his hands are gripping at her own hips, his blunt, short nails digging into the soft flesh there. “Maybe if Anne…” he trails off into that trademark smirk and Gerri squeezes her thighs, her inner muscles, watches him spasm slightly at the sensation around him.
“So that’s how to get you quiet,” she says thoughtfully, reaching down to press a finger to his lips, isn’t surprised when he tilts his head up to catch her finger in his teeth. She’s not even worried about her manicure.
Slowly she begins to move, to roll her hips. She’s seen his rhythm from afar, heard it against doors, knows the pace he likes. Tortoise-like until he’s ready for the hare. It’s strange to see his panting breaths, to hear the soft curse-words escape his lips, to feel it all against her skin. She leans down, ignoring her back, ignoring everything, and kisses him again, sloppy and wet and messy, and he just thrusts up into her, his tongue swirling a beat against her mouth.
She can feel when the pace quickens, feels the way his body changes, sees it too. And then he’s moving faster and faster, and she’s bracing her hands on either side of his head, and they’re just looking at each other, his dark eyes looking warmer than she’s ever seen them.
He comes with a stutter, with his eyes clenched up tight, and manages the last thrust Gerri needs to follow, biting her lips to keep the sound inside. She’s never been loud, she thinks he knows that.
“Fuck, Gerri,” is all he says as she moves off him, settles back against the headboard. “I didn’t know…”
She doesn’t know how he wants to finish the sentence, wouldn’t dream of all the things he doesn’t know. She just looks down at him, messy hair, flushed face, pushes at the duvet with her feet, enough that she can slide underneath. Roman follows suit without comment, and Gerri wonders how many times he’s done this. If he’s ever done it.
“You surprised me,” she says.
Roman just shrugs, those thin shoulders up by his ears and he rolls away from her, faces up to the ceiling. “That’s what people always say.”
She thinks about reaching out to touch him, but nothing feels right. Not a hug, not a kiss, not holding his hand. She settles for stretching her toes out, just grazing his calf, then moves back to her side of the bed, the invisible line between them, the space he needs, the space she isn’t sure how to cross.
It’s early when she wakes, slides out from under her duvet, soft as a cloud. Her bathrobe hangs on the door of her en suite, silken and soft. The mirror is unforgiving in the morning, as she stares at her wrinkles and tries to sort out her hair. Easiest to clip it back, for now, easiest to wash her face and remind herself that the man in her bed knows what he’s getting, knows more than anyone else, maybe.
It’s a Thursday, and when she sits down at the table, the crossword looks starkly back up at her, the first few clues making her frown, the top of her nose just crinkling as she considers, pen tapping against the table. She doesn’t hear Roman when he comes in, only looks up when he sits across from her, sliding into the empty chair in the dining room, one foot resting on the seat, knee tucked under his chin, shirt sliding towards his shoulder, his skin somehow paler in the cold morning light.
“Gimme a clue,” he commands, always posturing, even in front of her. She looks at him over the rim of her glasses, waits until he slouches a little, stepping back from ordering her around.
She smirks. “Three across, five letters. Member of an ancient empire.” Her pen touches the paper.