I shook my head because I didn't have an answer. Both of us knew it was a mistake. And yet neither of us was reaching for the door. More alcohol certainly wouldn't solve anything and yet more alcohol was all we had.
"You must think I've changed quite a bit," he admitted.
I laughed as he passed back the bottle. "I was just thinking the same thing."
Michael lifted an eyebrow. "Were you?"
I nodded, my lips around the bottle as I lifted it higher than I should have. But Zara was at a friend's house for a sleepover and I couldn't handle whatever complicated feelings I had for Michael sober. So I tipped the bottle back even further before wiping my lips and passing it back.
"Maybe it was bullshit," I said, to which Michael raised a curious eyebrow. "That we were different people back then, I mean."
He remained silent, his intelligent green eyes patient as he watched me grapple with my thoughts.
"I mean, maybe this was always who we were, deep down," I went on. "Maybe nine years ago, maybe that weekend, maybe we were just kidding ourselves. Maybe we were just…pretending."
Michael rested his hands on his knees, seemingly thoughtful as he rested his head against the door behind him. He stared up at the hanging light bulb above us.
"It felt pretty real to me," he said, his voice soft.
When he looked back across the crammed linen closet at me, I didn't see the cold, ruthless business man, but the young boy searching for what was important in life, eyes wide, heart open.
I shook my head. "We both know it was just a dream," I said flatly, taking the bottle.
"Then let's close our eyes again." His words were incendiary.
My eyes darted to his as if to a bush alongside a hiking path at the distinct sound of a rattle. "We can't do that."
"Why not?"
There was fire in Michael's eyes, a challenge, a dare like we were two kids on the playground. I wrenched the bottle of wine from his hand and finished it with a couple of large swigs. Michael grinned as he opened the bottle of whiskey.
"Because I don't like you," I said, feeling the temperature in the linen closet rise, feeling the air grow denser, hanging thick and heavy and oppressive over us. "I don't like anything about you. You're unfeeling and calculating and arrogant. You're a prick and I want nothing to do with you. You're rude and selfish and—"
"And still your boss, Ms Miller," Michael interjected sharply.
I blushed slightly. I'd forgotten myself for a moment. I'd been too brazen, too bold, too daring. I'd overstepped the boundaries I'd established for myself.
And I liked it.
I looked up to find a victorious grin tugging up the corners of Michael's lips.
"You tricked me," I said.
"I did nothing of the kind," he said.
I was getting angry. I was angry at myself for letting my emotions get in the way of what I was supposed to do, aka not Michael. I was angry at Michael for bringing out that side of me I'd tried so hard to repress, to reform. He made me feel rebellious, made me like feeling rebellious.
"Stop it," I said, fingers balling into fists.
Michael laughed and held up his hands. "I have no idea what you want me to stop, Abbi."
I snatched the bottle of whiskey from him before he could raise it to his own lips. The burn of the alcohol was supposed to wake me up, to clear my head like a splash of icy cold water. It was supposed to part the churning, sparking storms that were clouding my judgements. But it did nothing of the sort: it was simply fuel to the fire.
And Michael's sharp green eyes on me, unrelenting as a hot summer wind, just made that fire roar inside of me.
"Stop it," I repeated.
When Michael grabbed the bottle his fingers skimmed against mine, the lightest of touches. But a parched, dry field needs nothing but a single ember to alight.
"Stop it," I whispered.
I sounded like I was begging. Perhaps I was. Because I no longer had any illusions about being in control of the flames.
Michael grinned around the lip of the bottle. "Stop what?"
How was I supposed to explain what he was doing to me? Stop making me feel like my stilettos were Sharpie-covered Converse? Stop looking at me like he wanted me to break into more than just a linen closet in some hotel? Stop awakening in me that wildness I put away so many years ago?
I was determined to be a groomed and manicured garden shrub and Michael seemed intent on seeing me as a sunflower, growing wildly and without restraint and always yearning toward the bright sun. Maybe it was the alcohol or maybe it was the way his eyes felt upon me like rays of morning sunlight, but I felt different, I felt transformed.
"Stop it," was all I said.
It was all I could manage to say, whiskey tingling on my lips.
Because it was my eyes that were speaking in the tight, hot, unmoving air of the linen closet. And they weren't just speaking as I looked across the space at Michael; they were screaming.
Don't stop.
Please, don't stop.
Michael
Her breath left her wine-stained lips as I slammed her against the wall. I claimed the soft exhale as if I was inhaling her very soul. I felt her fill me, pulsing in my lungs, racing through my veins, burning every inch of me. She made me feel alive, like I was on cocaine, out of control, like I was tipping back an endless bar top of whiskey shots. Reckless, like I was driving drunk down an abandoned country road, engine protesting as I hurled faster and
