“What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you.”

It’s a barmy summer evening. The kind that sticks your clothes to your skin until sweat rolls down your spine. Small flying bugs hop slowly, lazily from light to light. Vibrating the air with a heady friction.

“You better come inside then.” Alice steps past him and turns the door handle.

“You don’t lock your door?”

“I don’t have anything worth stealing.”

It’s true, she doesn’t have anything worth stealing. She pushes the door open and her studio greets her, small and bare. Mould shadows speckle the ceiling, the stringent smell of yesterday’s bleach still ripe in the air. A mattress, meekly dressed in white linen sheets, sits on the floor in the corner, obscured by a bursting rack of clothes.

There are no windows.

Alice places her shopping on the bench. It moans and bends at a daunting angle. She turns and faces him. “What’s up?”

Scott strides into the room and pushes her against the bench. His fingers glide along her chin, her cheeks, her neck, alighting a warm trail of goosebumps in their wake. His cologne, a sharp mix of eucalyptus and salt, tickles her nose. Blurring her senses. She can already taste him in the back of her throat.

She tilts her head up, waiting for the kiss that will turn her head dizzy.

And the kiss would have come…

If they were different people in a different time.

Alice blinks the fantasy out of her mind.

Scott’s boots make an audible ‘click’ as he takes three steps into the small room. A further four ‘click, click, click, clicks’ fill the air as he turns in a complete circle. “I paid you a six-figure salary.” His eyes catch and hold on the shabby plumbing facilities, widening as they land on the loo next to the oven. “What are you doing living here?”

Alice lifts her shoulders, shrugging away the heat in his words. “I like to keep things simple.”

“What did you spend all that money on?” he presses.

“Is that what you came here to talk to me about?”

His eyes lock on hers with a force and intensity that should have faded after so many months of space between them. “No. No, I…”

Scott pulls a set of keys out of his pocket and fidgets with them. He pauses. Takes a deep breath and looks at her. “I came to offer you your old job back.”

She snorts. “Absolutely not.”

He rolls his eyes and sweeps his arms wide to indicate their Spartan surroundings. “You clearly need some kind of income.”

“I think I’m doing quite well for myself.” Alice continues to unpack her shopping. When she wraps her hands around a frosted grey bottle of vodka she cocks an eyebrow at him meaningfully.

“Then why?” Scott shoves his hands deep into his pockets. His face is smooth, but she can see his sleeves bulge and crease as he tries not to fiddle with his keys. “Why won’t you work for me?”

“That’s just it.” She turns to face him. Hands on hips. “I don’t want to work for you.”

“You worked for me for 10 years!”

“I guess you shouldn’t have fired me then.”

He sighs. “I’m obviously very sorry about that.”

“Obviously.”

“Alice.” His eyes darken to a cool-blue stone. “I’m not going to beg.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to.” Her warped reflection catches in the shiny metal sink and stares back at her, stretching the dark circles across her cheeks.

If Alice closes her eyes, she can feel the pressure of his hand against her back, guiding her away from the sink and towards the mattress. His grip tightens around her waist, anchoring their bodies together. The silk lining of his suit jacket is cool against the back of her hands. Slippery and soft. As soft as his thumb caressing her lower lip.

Alice sucks a deep breath into her lungs.

Her warped reflection in the sink stares up at her.

Over her shoulder she calls, “Would you like a drink?”

“No.”

“Suit yourself.” Alice plucks a coffee mug from a box on the floor.

“Special occasion?” Scott asks, eyeing the drink in her hand.

“It’s my birthday actually.”

“Seriously?”

“So, you know where I live but you don’t know when I was born?”

“It wasn’t in your HR file.”

“You mean you didn’t ask.” Alice squints at him over her shoulder.

Scott stands in the middle of the room, his eyes jumping from wall to wall, as if searching for anything eye-catching other than her. “Sitting alone in your flat drinking vodka.” He shakes his head. “I can’t think of a more pathetic way to celebrate a birthday.”

“You’re forgetting”—Alice lifts her mug in a salute—“it’s expensive vodka.” She brings the mug to her lips and wiggles her eyebrows at him over the rim. “Very expensive.”

“You can’t honestly want to live like this.” Scott takes a hesitant step towards her. “You’re clever. One of the cleverest people I know actually.” His eyes cut through her with a depth and sincerity that could split diamonds. “Aren’t you bored?”

She draws a slow breath in through her teeth. Between the oxygen and her ballooning heart, there is barely any room left in her chest. Breathing doesn’t calm her down. So, she downs the mug instead.

“What’s happened?” She dangles the empty mug on her index finger, swinging it idly. “Why do you need me all of a sudden?”

Scott stares at the ceiling—a terrible habit. “Marlene fucked up.” The muscles in his jaw flex and unflex. Revealing the bones in his skull and hiding them in an odd, fluid contortion. “She leaked the Lundler report.”

Unease trickles across Alice’s neck.

No wonder he’s in such a mood.

She tries to keep her voice steady as she asks, “To who?

“Heston.” Scott’s voice breaks on each syllable.

Alice unscrews the vodka and tips two generous swigs into her mouth. She tips a third shot into the mug and passes it to him. “Then you definitely need this.”

Scott stares at her hands blankly. Then he takes the mug and hugs it to his body like a third limb.

A small smile tugs her lips at the sight of this perfectly suited corporate goon attempting to recall his shadows and hold the smallest presence possible in her tiny flat. The angles of his body jut awkwardly as he adopts the posture of a man who isn’t well-accustomed to hunching.

“Make yourself comfortable. I assume this is going to be a long night.” Alice steps around him and pulls a laptop from beneath her pillow. She sits down, cross-legged on the mattress and snaps open the lid.

“I am not going to work on this in your bed.”

Alice peers around the screen. “Then sit on the floor.”

Scott stills—visibly contemplating the social, physical, and economic repercussions of such a seating arrangement. His knuckles whiten around the mug. He swallows the contents in a single gulp and walks over to her. He picks up one of the embroidered pillows and rests it against the wall.

He, very pointedly, sits down on the small expanse of floor next to the mattress.

Alice spins the laptop around to face him. The company intranet site open on the screen. “Fill in your credentials.”

“You can use yours.”

She raises an eyebrow.

“I had IT reactivate them twenty minutes ago.”

“That was awfully presumptuous.” She grins and spins the screen back to type in her password.

Despite the heavy mood, a small smile creases Scott’s face. “You still remember your login details to my company. I knew you hadn’t moved on that quickly.”

“Not really.” Alice allows her eyes to become suddenly pre-occupied by a shadow on the floor. “My password is password.”

His smile drops faster than gravity. “Damn it. Alice, seriously?”

If she tilts her head slightly to the right, the shadows seem to melt and bend into a different shape … a silhouette of a man lifting a woman onto his hips and spinning her around in a circle. The woman tosses her hair back and laughs, he laughs too, a deep rumbling noise that makes her bones vibrate…

“You’re an executive member of staff. If anyone got access to your emails—”

“Was an executive member.” She fidgets the cursor across the screen. “We should start by trying to assess how many people have seen the report. How did she leak it?”

“No.” His voice rises, sending the night-bugs buzzing even brighter. “Change your password first.”

“Scott, you came here for my help. Not to give me a lecture on IT security.”

He lifts the computer off her lap in one swift movement.

Alice shifts uncomfortably and stares at the clothes rack swinging at the end of the mattress.

She can feel the weight of his eyes on her skin like a thickly padded coat. A cheap one. With scratchy stitching and sweaty polymers. She rolls her shoulders back and forth to shuck him off. He is one of the few people who can ever make her feel guilty.

For anything.

He taps the keyboard and informs her, “Your new password is ‘ISolemnlySwearToTakeCyberSecuritySeriously’.”

“That’s not a password, that’s a pass-soliloquy.”

“If you type it often enough perhaps it will sink into your subconscious.”

“If that happens, I’ll bill you for the lobotomy.”

He sighs.

She logs into his company with his new ‘passphrase’, taking extra care to finger-type each word in slow, painful strokes. An error message flashes across the screen, announcing she made a mistake. Alice types the password again. Twice as slow and murmuring each letter aloud under her breath. When the computer finally lets her in, she ticks the ‘always remember password’ option and turns to Scott. “There. Happy?”

His eyes rise and fall from the ceiling, then land on her face. “No, I’m not. Seeing as I’ve just found out one of my favourite employees has committed corporate negligence.”

“Then you should probably steer clear of 90% of the people who work on Level 4.”

The corners of his mouth twitch. “Very funny.”

A quiet familiarity settles between them as they sit together side-by-side. Scrolling through lines of numbers. Spitting ideas at each other well into the evening.

After a few hours, Scott sighs heavily. “This is ridiculous. I need to shut down that department and fire Marlene.”

“You can’t fire Marlene.”

“You bet I can. She just lost me 40 million dollars.”

“Which you will make back in less than a week.”

He lets her words hang in the air for a moment and then blows them away by saying, “Not without you.”

“I’m not coming back, Scott.”

“I’ll double your salary.” The blue in his eyes deepens, twinkling with boyish earnestness. “I’ll give you a corner office. And I’ll fire Burke.”

“Firstly, I don’t care about the money. You should have fired Burke a long time ago, the man is a few long handshakes away from a sexual harassment lawsuit. And thirdly, I don’t need an office for the type of work I do.”

His bottom lip folds into a pout, every crevice of his face the embodiment of a kicked puppy.

“Don’t start begging,” she teases. “It doesn’t suit you.”

Scott’s face hardens. “I’m starving.” He stands and opens her fridge. Stale orange light streaks across his face. He wrinkles his nose in disgust and lets the door swing shut. He inspects the shopping bag sitting on the bench and, pulling out a bottle of gin, asks, “Don’t you have anything solid?”

“I like to eat out.”

Scott stares thoughtfully at the minimalist furnishings of her apartment. After a long pause, he asks, “Am I the reason you’re an alcoholic?”

“I am not an alcoholic.” Her head snaps up. Her eyes bore into him in utter consternation. “I don’t like to cook.”

“But you do like to drink.” His eyes run over the bottle on the table, then flick back to her. “Alone.”

“Unless I’m hallucinating, I am definitely not alone.” Alice stands and walks towards him. She presses her finger gently against his nose. The soft skin ripples around her finger and then snaps back into place as she retrieves it. “Feels real to me.”

Scott pulls out his phone. “We’re getting a pizza.”

Alice wraps her fingers around the bottle of gin in his hand.

He holds tight and doesn’t let go.

She gives it a tug.

Their eyes meet.

“I don’t have a drinking problem.”

He ignores her.

“Scott, I swear!”

The blue light from his phone’s screen paints his face a ghostly, artificial white. He focuses on the screen. Refusing to continue the conversation.

She wriggles his fingers, trying to pry them off the bottle one by one, two by two, three—

His fingers go slack. The bottle falls and smashes across the floor.

Scott doesn’t flinch.

Alice stares at him. “That. Is. So. Rude.”

She grabs a tea towel from the box on the floor, wraps it three times around her fist and carefully mops up the spill. Shards of glass twinkle as they knock against one another. Alice stands and wrings the tea towel into the mug, squeezing the liquid through the fabric.

Scott finally looks up from the screen. “Oh, Alice come on.”

She ignores him. Blood runs down her forearms in the places where the glass has cut her hands. It feels good. Electric. Pain-free and flying.

“Alice. You can’t drink that. It has glass in it.”

She grabs the mug. The pressure makes the cuts on her hands buzz brightly.

“Alice.” He grabs her arm, firmly. His eyes lock onto hers. “What is wrong with you?”

“Let go!” She steps back and winces as the glass on the floor digs into her heel.

Now that she can feel.

Intense vertigo blurs her vision as her feet leave the floor. Scott exhales sharply under her weight. His boots crunch against the glass as he carries her to the mattress.

Carefully, he lays her down and lifts the mug from her hand. He turns, pours the gin down the sink and rummages through the boxes on the floor. He fishes out a shiny roll of clingwrap and walks back to her. He stretches the plastic wide; it hovers in the air like a bright, orange light sabre, then he wraps it around the small cuts on her hands and feet. His voice is cool and calm when he says, “Stay here.” He turns away and searches her apartment for a dustpan and brush.

Glass tinkles like wind-chimes on a spring breeze as he brushes them into the builder’s bucket she uses as a bin. Scott turns to the vodka on the bench. He unscrews the lid and pours it down the sink.

“Hey! That’s mine.” Alice lifts her body off the mattress with more speed than necessary, blurring the room into a dizzying contrast of sequins and white linen.

“Don’t move. There’s still glass on the floor.”

She breathes through the disorientation and swings one leg over the mattress edge.

“Alice, if you stand up on that foot, I swear I’ll—”

“You’ll what?”

Scott places the empty bottle on the counter and looks at her over his shoulder. His expression serious. “I’ll section you and send you straight to rehab.”

Alice very carefully retracts her foot and lays back down on the mattress.

Time passes by in a steady silence.

The hollow bottle stands on the bench, orange light catching on the glass. Glowing ominously. The drinks she downed earlier hit her brain with the enthusiasm of a freight train.

The room slants to the left.

She tilts her head to the right to try and straighten it.

“Alice.”

“Mmm?”

“I think you have a problem.”

She tilts her head too far, the work bench looms, curves and bends. Alice leaves it there and focuses on his face instead. “A problem with what?”

Scott stares meaningfully at the cut on her hands.

“It’s my birthday! You’re allowed to have a drink on your birthday.” It is so difficult to sound calm and rational when you’re slightly tipsy. Everything you say comes out high-pitched and dizzy.

Scott carries on speaking as if she hasn’t made a single objection. “I don’t think you should be living on your own right now.”

“Well, I don’t think you should wear so much Prada.” Alice pulls her body away from him. Wanting to put physical distance between them. “It makes you look like a fuckboy.”

He allows the comment to wash over him without reaction.

It occurs to Alice, that maybe looking like a fuckboy isn’t the insult she had intended it to be.

Scott settles his blue-eyed gaze on her. “I want you to stay at my place for a couple of days.”

The part of her brain responsible for sexual gratification lights up like a Christmas tree. Possibilities flood her imagination. Sleeping next to Scott. Waking up next to him. Racing each other into the shower in the morning. She bites her lip and searches desperately for a valid reason to refuse the offer. “But what about all of my stuff?”

He tries to hide a smile by looking around the tiny apartment. “I think I can find room for it all.” The corner of his eyes crinkle, barely containing his laughter. He pulls out his phone and in three taps says, “A car will be here in seven minutes.”

The floors tilt and the walls turn inside out. She tries to concentrate on breathing, but it doesn’t seem real. Is she really going to stay with this man? The only man in this city who has ever known her friendship? The only man she’s ever imagined a future with? It takes all her emotional strength to drag her mind away from that thought.

He made his choice.

She refuses to give him a chance to rewind it.

“Car’s here.” Scott levers his body off the floor and onto his feet, standing tall and solid like the pillars that hold up classical monuments. “Let’s go.”

Alice rolls her body into a vertical position, catching at the air for balance and falling in successive movements.

Scott grabs her elbow and steers her to the front door.

“I can walk by myself.”

She might as well have commented on the number of cicadas in the park for all the response Scott gives her.

He has never beaten her at poker, a fact he ardently chalks up to the phenomenon she is incredibly lucky, and he is not. Sometimes Alice believes him, and other times she is convinced he intentionally throws the game to hide the fact he is much better at reading people than he lets on.

They descend the rusty external stairs that wrap around her building with a volume and velocity the creaking structure can barely accommodate. “If we die on these things, I want separate obituaries,” he mutters.

“Great, I’ll take the front page.”

She can hear, rather than see, the eyeroll in his voice. “Posthumous rivalry doesn’t suit you.”

A car on the street flashes its lights, igniting a splotchy pool of orange between the potholes. A young man, smelling strongly of purple air freshener, pops his head out the window. “Scott Huxley?”

“Yes.”

The young man leaps out of the driver’s seat and—dragging the smell of purple with him—hurries to open the rear doors.

Alice doesn’t need to look at Scott. She already knows the mixture of uneasy embarrassment that will crease his forehead. His last name always has this effect on people.

But that doesn’t mean he likes it.

She gingerly lowers her body into the backseat and scoots across for Scott to sit beside her.

The driver shuts the door behind them so carefully it barely makes a sound. He slips back into the front seat and waits patiently for them to buckle their seatbelts.

Alice fumbles with the buckle, her movements slipping against the tight cling wrap of her makeshift gloves.

“Here, let me do that.” Scott reaches over and snaps the buckle into the receiver by her hip.

“I really am much more competent.”

“I know.” He glances up at her and smiles. “That’s why I hired you.”

“You’re patronising me.”

“A little,” he admits.

“And you fired me.”

“A gross error of judgement on my part.”

She snorts. “You don’t regret it, do you?”

“Not quite.”

The driver straightens his shoulders into the nonchalant posture of someone pretending not to eavesdrop and starts the engine.

The car glides into the evening. Sydney’s CBD glistens in the darkness, dewy in the summer humidity. Orange lights flash by intermittently as they slide into the heart of the city.

The traffic thickens. The car crawls to a stop on Bridge Street. “Sorry,” the driver explains politely. “Everyone’s out this evening. It’s Valentines’ Day.”

“I know,” Alice and Scott say in unison.

They stare at each other.

Then glance away quickly.

Alice stares stubbornly out the window at Darling Harbour, refusing to acknowledge the familiar spark that just flickered between them.

Water beats through the streets of this city like a living organ. People are drawn to the water with a ritualistic magnetism that sings to the souls of tourists and locals alike. In the darkness of the evening, the water hums with a mystical glamour. This is where big things happen. Liquid dreams, some call it. You could try to bottle it, sell it, and God knows many wannabe-millionaires have tried.

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” Scott interrupts her reverie. “Next year we could go to Brazil for your birthday. They don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day there.”

“Next year?” She turns to him and raises her brows. Does he really believe they’ll still be in each other’s lives in twelve months time?

“Or you could go on your own.” He shrugs. “You don’t have to lock yourself away from everyone on a day that’s supposed to be a happy occasion.”

A sharp sting hits the back of her throat. She’s known this man for ten years, but she still hasn’t told him the full story.

She’s never told anyone.

“My birthday isn’t … a happy occasion,” she begins.

“It is for me.”

He says it with such sincere conviction. She doesn’t have the heart to tell him the truth.

At least not tonight.

The car pulls up outside a shiny apartment building nestled between the Opera House and the Botanic Gardens. Scott and Alice slide out of the car, looking like ants against the grandeur of their surroundings. Scott swipes a key card and the double-glazed, gold-rimmed glass doors fold with the dexterity of a much softer material.

A suited concierge stands behind the front desk and nods towards him. “Mr Huxley.”

The room bares closer resemblance to a 19th century ballroom than a lobby. Marbled floors and vaulted ceilings scream excess and extravagance so loudly it echoes across the frescoed walls. Walls adorned with historic art in ornate gold frames. Only to be outshone by a stone fountain of gold-gilded cherubs pouring water between the leaves of living palm trees.

Scott strolls past it all with the same level of disinterested impatience as a commuter walking through Central Station. He leads Alice to a private elevator behind the front desk and holds the door open for her to enter first.

Alice resists the urge to reach her arms wide and spin in a circle. An elevator of this size is clearly built for the kind of residents who need to transport their 8-seater solid mahogany dining table to the 9th floor with every change of the season. She can’t avoid acknowledging the ridiculousness of their surroundings. “This is a nice place you got here.”

“Wait until you see the pool.” Scott’s eyes lighten to an electrifying blue and his face splits into a boyish grin. The old-suit mask falls from his face faster than rain from heaving clouds. “There’s a waterfall which lights up at night.”

“Cool.”

“Very cool.”

An awkward silence eats the air between them. What are you supposed to say in an elevator to your ex-boss who doesn’t approve of your current life choices?

The elevator doors ‘ding’ and slide open, unveiling a breathtaking display of floor space that half the city’s inhabitants could only aspire to inhabit a quarter of. The open-plan penthouse hosts a sparkling kitchen, a suite of leather lounges, a television larger than most people’s mattresses and an ornamental display cabinet bursting with glittering statues and gemmed cufflinks.

Floor to ceiling glass windows lead to a wrap-around balcony, capturing a magnificent view of Sydney Harbour. Rippling indigo-blue water stretches from headlands to horizon. Sparkling white in the moonlight. Broken only by the bridge to the left and the Opera House to the right.

She’s seen a few of Scott’s houses before and she is used to their usual blatant display of opulence, but this place is on an entirely different level. Alice gazes out the window to the lights twinkling over the Harbour Bridge and the only intelligent thing she can manage to push out of her mouth is, “This must be good for the fireworks.”

Scott chuckles and shakes his head. Sincerely, and without an ounce of sarcasm, he agrees, “Best seats in the whole city.” He strides into the kitchen and pulls a first aid kit out of the cabinet. “Come here.”

“You’re being very bossy.” Alice follows him to the counter, careful not to slip on the shiny black marble floors.

He laughs again. A warm, rich sound. He tilts his head to the side and flashes her a wicked grin. “That’s kind of part of my job description.”

It technically isn’t her job to be bossed around by him anymore, but he seems to be enjoying the nostalgia, so she indulges him.

“Give me your arm.”

Alice obliges and watches in open fascination as Scott carefully unwinds the cling wrap.

Scott pulls out his phone and uses the torch to examine the wound on her hand. He glides a pair of tweezers across her skin, checking for any left-over pieces of glass.

“You’re being very thorough,” she murmurs.

“Would you believe me if I told you this isn’t the first time I’ve played Doctor?” Scott grins at her.

Her eyes widen at his brazenness. A reaction she hides by sniffing her nose up at the ceiling. “With that much practice I would expect you to be a lot better at it.”

He clicks his tongue. “What a rude mouth you have.”

She glances down at him.

He meets her gaze with a smile brighter than the summer sun. Gently, he places his hands on her hips and lifts her onto the counter.

The stone is cool and crisp against her thighs, washing away the summer heat.

Scott runs his fingers down her leg and catches her foot in his hand. His touch sends shivers through her body. She can feel the blood rushing past her ears in a way she knows is caused by so much more than just the alcohol she’s been drinking. His fingers are soft and quiet along her skin. A harsh contrast to his usually bombastic demeanour.

Alice yawns widely.

“You need to sleep.” Scott stands. Their eyes lock for a moment. Then he says in a low voice, “There’s a guest bedroom upstairs.”

Her heartbeat pounds in her chest. causing an internal friction which sparks a completely irrational emotion. “I’m not sleepy.”

His eyes hit the ceiling. “Alice. Please.” Small lines flex in his jaw as his eyes trace some fascinating piece of architecture. His chest rises and falls as he takes slow, deep breaths. “Don’t be difficult.”

Her heart sinks from her chest, through her stomach and lands on the floor, pooling around her feet. Perhaps he wasn’t flirting with her after all. Maybe he really has moved on. It wouldn’t be difficult for him to do so.

He’s gorgeous.

She swallows the ache forming in her throat and speaks with sincere formality. “I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me, but I just don’t feel that tired.”

Scott walks to the staircase next to the elevator entrance, expecting her to follow. “Then lie down quietly.”

Alice follows him up the ornate iron stairs and into a short hallway with three doors.

Scott opens the first one.

The bedroom is beautiful. Dressed in a thick cream carpet that swallows her feet and tickles her ankles. Floor to ceiling glass windows glow with the enigmatic indigo of the Harbour. Purple silk curtains frame the view with a shine and glamour competed only by the moon.

Scott pulls back the duvet on the bed. “Lie down please.” His tone is matter of fact. No flirting. Completely platonic and definitely mocking her.

Alice sighs. How can he turn the tension between them off and on like a faucet? For her, it’s more like a constant roaring in the back of her brain. Threatening to drown her senses if she spends too much time with him.

She lays her jacket on the dresser and undoes her hair tie, letting her hair fall loosely over her shoulders. She pauses and raises an eyebrow at him. “Are you going to watch me get undressed?”

His gaze darkens, but his tone is smooth when he replies, “Of course not. I’ll give you some privacy.” He strides past her and through the open doorway. “Happy birthday,” he murmurs, closing the door behind him with a gentle click.

“Sad birthday,” she corrects him. Alone. Again. Like always.