Work Text:
Sequestered in her office, nursing a cup of long cold coffee, Gerri glanced once again at the clock in the corner of her laptop screen, 10:56 am. Only one minute since the last time she’d looked. The brief she was supposed to be consulting on was open on her screen, but as the minutes ticked closer to eleven o’clock all focus had gone out the window.
It had all started last week when someone mysteriously picked up the check for her dinner. She’d gone to her favorite little Italian restaurant. Some women didn’t like going to a restaurant alone, but Gerri had never minded. She usually took a book enjoyed being surrounded by busy hum of city life. Up until last year, she’d rarely had time to enjoy a leisurely dinner out.
It had taken her some time to decompress. The constant anxiety built up over decades at Waystar, years of running headlong from one crisis to the next always at the whim of Logan Roy didn’t melt away overnight even with eyewatering sums of money sitting in her brokerage accounts. For months she’d woken up in the middle of the night feeling like there was some task she’d forgotten to do or a deadline she’d lost track of.
It was reassuring to know she could afford to do just about anything she wanted, the problem had been figuring out what it was she wanted. She’d taken her girls on a trip to Paris, spent time at a spa in Switzerland. She’d even shopped like a mad woman in Milan like she was exacting some kind of revenge on the city that had wronged her.
She’d just recently started consulting. Currently she was advising on a class action suit against a Fortune 500 company that all but institutionalized sexual harassment. The irony hadn’t escaped her but being one of the white hats for a change, brought out a new kind of ferociousness that she was thoroughly enjoying.
Her eyes darted back to the clock… 10:58. What would it be today? She could feel the energy balling in her stomach, a combination of curiosity, anticipation and of course a large dose of anxiety over what it all meant.
Every morning since the morning after that dinner, she’d received a delivery at exactly eleven o’clock. To a casual observer the gifts would appear normal enough, a bottle of wine, a box of chocolates, but the wine was a five-thousand-dollar wine, the chocolates were an enormous box of her favorite imported Belgian chocolates. Everything was completely over the top but also so very personal that it could only be one person. So far in addition to the wine and the chocolates, she’d received a case of her favorite vodka accompanied with the largest bottle of vermouth she’d ever seen, a case of her favorite champagne along with an absurdly large tin of caviar. She nearly knocked over her coffee when the doorbell rang and even though she’d been expecting it.
When she answered the door, she was handed the most stunning orchid plant she’d ever seen. “Thank you, Ray.” She’d learned the delivery man’s name after the second day and that no matter how hard she’d tried he wouldn’t accept a tip.
“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” He asked with a smile.
“She sure is.” She agreed setting the intricately enameled pot down gingerly on the high table near the front door.
“Oh, and this,” Ray remembered as he handed her an envelope.
“Thank you,” Gerri replied her eyes fixed on the plain white envelope.
“Enjoy your day, Ms. Kellman.”
“You too, Ray,” Gerri replied on autopilot. She barely had the door closed before she opened the envelope. Silver embossing gleamed against expensive black cardstock.
tomorrow night?
7:00
umami ai
No RSVP, no signature, not that she really needed one. Just a date, time, and place. Tomorrow night and a question mark. Tomorrow night? Tomorrow night. Tomorrow night! The words kept swirling in her mind. Then it hit her. Tomorrow was Valentine’s Day.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Roman sat hunched in on himself in a secluded booth in a corner of the dimly lit restaurant. He’d agonized for hours whether to ask for a table where he could watch the door or one that offered them more privacy in case she actually showed up. Originally, he’d thought that the Japanese restaurant was exactly right place, but now he was second and third guessing his choice. He should have picked a restaurant he knew she liked, not some trendy new place that had just opened up, but it had reminded him so much of her and of the dinner they’d shared in Japan.
Anticipation had driven him out the door before six o’clock, so now he was here, waiting, nervous energy pulsing through every cell in his body. He watched as condensation formed on his second glass of water, afraid that if he started drinking anything stronger now, he’d never stop.
Just as he glanced down at his watch, he heard the unmistakable sound of high heels striding purposefully in his direction. She was wearing the highest, pointiest shoes he’d ever seen her wear, a tiny little strap across the ball of her foot. His eyes quickly scanned up the gold and black swirls of her dress and landed on the gleaming ivory skin of her chest, collar bones, shoulders and finally her indulgent smile.
He stood up as she got closer and without thinking she leaned in to kiss him on the cheek surprising them both, but she thinks maybe she hid it better than he did before he quickly kissed her cheek in return.
He watched as she slid into the boot before retaking his seat across from her. There was a long moment of uncomfortable silence which he finally broke by blurting out, “Fuck. You actually came.”
She tried to stifle a nervous laugh. “It would seem so.”
“So, what’s up?” the stilted small talk seemed foreign in his mouth.
“I’m keeping myself busy. I read about your latest acquisition. she replied deftly steering them into an actual conversation.
“Eh… no big deal,” he replied with a dismissive hand wave.
“From what I read it was quite the coup. Both Paramount and Netflix were wooing those filmmakers.”
“It was easy,” he shrugged. “I just convinced them I’m more fun to work for than fucking Zaslav or Sarandos.”
Gerri gave him an approving smile as a server approached the table.
After ordering drinks, they were plunged back into an extended silence before Roman again filled the void, “You look phenomenal by the way, like, incandescent.”
Gerri had just started to say, “Thank you,” when he cut her off.
“Hot date later?” As the snarky words were still coming out of his mouth, he wanted to pull them back in and swallow them.
Her answer was a quiet, “No.”
Somehow that made him even more uncomfortable. “Good” he breathed out shakily.
“Roman –”
“Gerri –”
She gestured for him to speak first.
“I know you’re about to ask me what the fuck this is all about and I don’t know if I have an answer. I just… I saw you last week, sitting there reading your book, eating your pasta puttanesca all gorgeous and… and… I just … I didn’t know what to do. I figured you wouldn’t want to talk to me,” he explained.
“So, you paid for my dinner and started sending me booze?” she questioned still puzzled by it all.
“Well, I wanted to send you stuff I knew you’d like,” he joked, “There was more than just booze, you know.”
“There was,” she signs, “and thank you… for all of it. The orchid yesterday was stunning. I’ve never seen a blue orchid.”
“It reminded me of your eyes.” He gave her that look, the one was someone a mixture of lost puppy and lecherous old man.
“What goes on in that head of yours?”
“Smut… pure smut and Road Runner Cartoons on an endless loop” His head made a complete circle as he said the word loop then it pinged back and forth like he was watching a tennis match, “meep meep… sex… meep meep… sex.”
She couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up from deep within.
“Seriously, Gerri. I just wanted to talk to you again,” He leaned across the table as he spoke, “I’ve gone to that restaurant and all the others I know you like probably thirty times in the last six months hoping to run into you in one of them and I finally did. And you looked so good… and I know I don’t even deserve to be in the same room with you after everything, but when you didn’t send back my gifts, or text me telling me to fuck off, or have your lawyers send a cease-and-desist letter, I thought maybe…” his voice trailed off and his eyes drifted down to the table.
“Maybe what, Rome?” She reached out and touched the back of his hand with her fingers trying to get him to look back up at her.
Reluctantly he tore his eyes away from where she touched his hand, “I’m not sure but I’d really like to figure it out. That is if that’s what you want.”
“That’s why I’m here.”