Page 40 of Smoke and Glitter

"Run it?"

"Yes, Autumn. You know the client better than anyone, you've already built half the relationships we'd need, and you're already doing work at that level. I'm not asking you to interview. I'm telling you the conversation is yours if you want it."

I stare down the hall.

The tour. London. An office I could build instead of inherit from somebody else. A title I wouldn't have to spend years waiting for someone to decide I'd earned.

Usually, Anna wouldn't have finished the offer before I asked when they wanted me on the plane.

"Have coffee," she says. "Call me back after that. Preferably before you talk yourself out of it."

The call ends.

I stay where I am for another minute.

When I go back into the bedroom, Sam is still asleep. He's rolled onto his stomach with one arm stretched across the side of the bed I left.

My side, if the evidence is anything to go by.

I stop at the foot of the bed.

There's a book of mine on his nightstand. My charger is plugged into the wall beneath it. One of my earrings is beside the lamp because I lost the back last night and stopped looking for it.

None of those things got here because we discussed them.

Neither did I.

I climb back into bed, and Sam makes a rough sound into the pillow before reaching for me without opening his eyes. His arm finds my waist and drags me back against him. A few seconds later, his breathing settles again.

Mine doesn't.

Eleven weeks for the tour. Fourteen if press runs long. London after that, if the conversation goes the way Anna clearly thinks it will.

I look at Sam's hand spread over my stomach.

What happens to this if I go?

My things are beside his sink. I spend enough nights here that I know which cabinet holds the coffee and which floorboard will wake him.

But I still don't know what I am to him. Fourteen weeks is a long time for something unnamed. And I don't know if Sam would ask me to stay. I can't leave for London hoping a man who still hasn't told me what I am to him will give me a reason to come back.

Sam shifts behind me and settles closer, his face against my hair.

I reach for my phone.

Anna has already sent a message.

Anna: Call me when you're vertical.

I open my email instead.

The first draft turns into six paragraphs before I realize I'm explaining myself to somebody who didn't ask. I delete it. The second isn't much better.

The third takes three lines.

Me: I'm staying on O'Keefe from Chicago. I won't be taking the London assignment, but I'll make sure whoever does has everything they need from me. Thank you for thinking of me.

I read it once.