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8:25pm
They’re almost done. The last amendments are being made to the contract and some of the junior members of the team are trying, surreptitiously, to clean up the table that’s been steadily been covered up by loose papers, food wrappers, and plastic coffee cups. Lydia pinches her inner thigh so her eyes don’t look glazed over from three hours of listening to Whittemore Sr. brag about the profits he’ll bring in, glances at the clock, and tells herself there’s only ten minutes until freedom.
8:38pm
Heather brings in the latest copy of the contract. It’s 42 pages long, deadly boring. Lydia breathes in and prays the man signs it. She makes a trip to the Manhattan office once a month and she’s got the timing down to the second—as long as she’s out the front door by 8:58pm she’ll make it to Grand Central Station with time to spare.
9:00pm
Whittemore Jr., after an afternoon of relative silence, speaks up just as his father is patting his jacket for a pen. There are countless pens on the table in front of him and Lydia had been resisting the urge to just shove one in his hand, but perhaps she should have.
“I don’t know about that 23%,” Whittemore Jr. says, sitting up. “The value—”
She screams internally.
The 7 stops at the station at 9:12pm. It’ll get her to Grand Central in time, so long as she runs.
9:51pm
The ink isn’t even dry on the page by the time everyone in the office disburses, handshakes and bright eyes all around, like they hadn’t spent an entire day pandering to a man with an inflated sense of self-worth. Lydia packs her bag carefully, no reason to rush given her train had pulled out of the station six minutes prior. She dismisses asking any of her colleagues if they have a spare room almost as soon as she considers it, but a light at the end of the hall catches her eye and though it’s a longshot, she decides to check it out.
Stiles has never been such a welcome sight. “Hey,” she says, leaning in his office doorway; his messenger bag is over his shoulder and he’s hunched over the desk, which means he started packing up to go anywhere between one and twenty minutes ago. He may have transferred from her office over a year prior, but she still remembers his idiosyncrasies. “I missed my train, can I stay with you? Do you and Derek still have that spare room?”
He twists and gives her a brief smile before turning his focus back to the open document on the screen. “Uh, no, but yeah? I mean, he’s gone this weekend but technically we do have a roommate now. You’re welcome to it, though. Our couch sucks.”
“If you’re sure he wouldn’t care,” she starts, and he waves a hand, turning the screen off.
“He’s a regular boy scout, he’d probably insist,” he says. “You hungry? I skipped dinner. Derek’s probably got something waiting.”
11:02pm
“I put clean sheets on the bed,” Derek says, giving her a one-armed hug as he shows her down the hallway to a relatively plain room. “You know where the bathroom is. Sleep well.”
It’s not until after he and Stiles retreat to their own room and close the door that she realizes she hadn’t asked for anything to sleep in, and she’s loath to interrupt them and impose any further. But there’s a dresser in the corner of the room and if the roommate is really such a boy scout, surely he wouldn’t mind if she borrowed something. One shirt—he probably wouldn’t even know. She’ll just toss it in the hamper in the morning.
The shirt is easy enough and after another moment of consideration she digs through the drawers until she finds a pair of sleep shorts. She slides into the borrowed clothes and washes up in the bathroom, hand washing her underwear and bringing them back into the room to lay on top of her folded dress to dry. The bed is comfortable when she climbs in, sheets fresh and cool against her skin, and it takes no time at all for her to fall asleep.
2:17am
She doesn’t know quite what wakes her; she has a vague recollection of a thump, which she assumes may be Stiles coming in for whatever reason, but then someone drops into the bed next to her and she startles, gripping the blanket tightly and sitting straight up with a gasp.
The man falls off the bed.
“Shit,” he says, and Lydia scrambles back, mouth open and ready to yell for Derek before she registers that this must be the roommate she was told would be gone. “Jesus, sorry, I—”
A hysterical laugh bubbles up in her throat. Boy scout indeed, if he’s apologizing for trying to use his own bed. “It’s—” she takes a stuttering breath in. “I’m sorry, Stiles told me I could stay, he said you wouldn’t be here—I’ll go out to the couch—”
“It’s okay,” he says. She can hardly see him in the dim light from the windows, but his expression is earnest when he stands up, and it does a lot to calm her pounding heart. “No, really. You can stay in here, I can go out to the couch.”
Lydia hesitates. Both Stiles and Derek had professed their dislike for falling asleep on the couch before showing her to his room; she can’t ask him to go out there. “The bed’s big enough,” she says. It wouldn’t be the first time she was in a stranger’s bed, at least someone has vouched for this one. “If you wouldn’t mind sharing, I’m fine with it.”
He hovers by the bed for a moment. “I don’t want to bother you—”
“I’ll take the couch, in that case,” she says, inching towards the edge.
“No, that’s—okay,” he says, sitting on the bed carefully and pulling up the blankets she’d kicked into a heap. “Just kick me or something if I get too close.”
8:11am
“Hey, Lydia—oh, whoa.” Stiles’ voice is too loud in the doorway. She has no doubt he’d keep talking, but Derek’s voice murmurs something too low for her to hear and the next thing she hears is the click of the door closing.
She’s so warm. The mattress is comfortable and she relaxes back into the blankets, letting out a contented sigh—until she realizes that it’s not the blanket she’s snuggling into, and there’s a mouth pressed against her shoulder.
He seems to realize it at the same time. His breath hitches and he starts to move back, mumbling that he’s sorry, and Lydia grips his arm, looped securely around her stomach.
“Ten more minutes,” she says. She’s happy to put off the awkwardness of the situation until then.
8:54am
She’s still dozing when there’s a bang from the living room, then Stiles’ voice calls, “Wake up lovebirds, we brought coffee and bagels!”
The arm around her stomach tightens. “I didn’t catch your name.”
“Lydia,” she says, trying not to shiver at the way his breath ghosts over her shoulder. “I don’t think Stiles told me yours.”
“Jordan.” She hears him breath in, his chest expanding against her back. “You know, he probably has pictures.”
Lydia’s worked with Stiles in some capacity for almost a decade now; she’d be surprised if the picture isn’t already in her infrequently used text-thread with him. “Wouldn’t put it past him,” she says. Now that they’re fully awake the awkwardness is setting in, and she’s not entirely sure what to do next.
“Sorry about—all this, by the way,” he says, pulling his arm away.
She hums, adjusting the pull of her shirt when she rolls onto her back and looks over at him as he scoots away and sits up. “Oh yes, I was clearly bothered.”
His cheeks are pink; it’s surprisingly endearing. Lydia doesn’t usually go for men like him—she tends to attract the ones who would have assumed she wanted more from them, who would have been confident in her desire to be with them—but there’s something appealing about him. She wants to pull him back down and wrap herself around him; he’s out of the bed before she can act on that desire.
He’s out of the room when she remembers she’s wearing his clothes.
10:17am
“I should probably go,” Lydia says, glancing at the time on her phone. The train leaves in forty minutes; Derek had assured her it would only take ten to get to the station but she wants to make sure she doesn’t miss another one.
“I’ll walk you,” Jordan says. It’s completely unnecessary but she smiles at him anyway and trails after him when he goes into his room so she can gather her bag. “How long does it take you to get home?”
“Two hours,” she says. She’s not looking forward to putting her wrinkled and stale clothes back on but she certainly can’t go out in what she’s wearing.
It must show on her face though, because Jordan clears his throat and says, “Cora’s got a bag of clothes in the hall closet, I bet there’s something in there you could wear.”
“If you don’t think she’d mind,” she says, and wavers for a moment before lifting her chin and looking at him. “Is that your girlfriend?”
His brow furrows, and she would swear his expression is one of faint hurt. “Derek’s sister,” he says, and adds, “I wouldn’t have—” he breaks off and waves a hand at the bed. “That would have been shitty.”
She shifts around the pile of folded clothes so her bra and underwear is tucked in between everything else. “So—I’m hearing you’re single?”
The blush is back on his cheeks when he looks over at her.
10:34
“Are you in the city often?”
“Every third Thursday,” she says. “It’s usually just for a few meetings and I can be home by dinner.” His arm brushes against hers as they walk, and she finds herself blurting out, “I’ve been thinking of transferring out here though. I loved Philadelphia when I started out there but I’ve been feeling like I need something new lately.”
It’s not a lie—Stiles, Jackson, and Kira have all left over the last few years, leaving Lydia stuck somewhat by herself. It’s difficult to make friends when all she does is work, and she’s senior enough in the company now that making friends with the juniors makes her cringe. It’s not the entire truth either, because she’s only considered it once and had quickly shut down the notion when she realized all the work it would entail, but Jordan doesn’t have to know that.
With the right incentive, she could see it happening.
“I’ve never been there,” he says, and she stops in the doorway.
“Do you want to come?” His eyebrows raise, and she continues. “I could show you around. We could—” she scans his room quickly, because she has no clue what he likes to do, but there are no clues to be seen. “If the Phillies are in town, we could go?”
She’s guessing, making the assumption he likes sports from the amount of conversations she’s had with Stiles about baseball, but his eyes light up. “You like baseball?”
Lydia presses her lips together. “I like the math,” she admits, smiling a little sheepishly. “All the statistics and the probability—it’s fun.”
His lips part. “I think we should get married,” he says, voice serious, even as his eyes twinkle.
“Is that a yes on coming home with me? If you need any extra incentive, my bed is just as comfortable as yours.”
He doesn’t hesitate. “Let me grab a bag.”