~7:00PM, JANUARY 15, 2019~

ALMOST ONE YEAR AGO

After an irresponsibly long hot evening shower, Loki sprawled out on his over-sized couch, tucking one arm behind his head, and letting his eyelids fall closed.  The bone-in, skin-on chicken with bay leaves, sage, onions and fingerling potatoes—his mum’s recipe—that he’d prepared for dinner this morning, so it would be ready to pop in the oven when he got home tonight, was nearly done roasting, and since the only thing left to do was open the bottle of pinot Gris chilling in his fridge, he was happy to just lie here and relax until Sig texted him that she was walking back to his place from her office down on Franklin in Tribeca.

Well, “HAPPY to relax” wasn’t an accurate description of his current emotional situation now.  He was seeing less and less of her lately.  She’d spent all New Year’s Day with him—all over him, actually—and it had been everything he could have wanted in response to giving her the very first copy of his book that day.  But since then, it had been constant work, and it was just…

Depressing.

It was already cold and grey and winter, and now it seemed like his real sun was slipping further and further behind the clouds.  He could take it in stride though…or at least try to.  He could rationalize it as nothing more than the hangover after an unforgettable night of drinking and dancing and deep kissing and fucking with his girl.  It was just a momentary dip in mood, and he’d be back to normal after a bit—after she got a break from the initial first quarter rush of demanding clients.  They’d have more time then.  Even though he hated it, he could handle the distance for a bit longer.

He was working nonstop as well, which was good for a distraction from his darkening mental state. Today had been the official release of Looking for Sunlight in bookstores everywhere.

The release was both domestic and international, so he was exhausted from the several book signings uptown until noon, then meeting Val and his publicist in the village for lunch, and another couple of hours of signing in Brooklyn.  This over the top schedule would continue into February.  He enjoyed meeting his readers, of course, but it was taxing to do so when he was desperate to start his next book.  He needed to write.  It was as vital to his health as proper diet and exercise.

Speaking of exercise…after the Brooklyn signing, rather than come home and attempt to take it easy—to take a breath—he’d gone to his gym for an hour, then he’d finally come home.  If only he could have just skipped the gym for once, but he just couldn’t let this 35 (almost 36) year old body lose its appeal, could he.  His morning jogs around town were great cardio and woke him up better than his favorite coffee, but they didn’t do much for the upper body, and he was way too bloody vain to not have at least some definition in his shoulders and arms.  His back, too.  And chest.  And abs.  Can’t miss leg day either.  Oh, but he had to do it just right—lean, but not bulky.  He’d even paid Sam (his trainer) a generous extra fee to develop an individualized plan just for him.  Because, yes, he was that screwed up in the head, so screwed up, in fact, that he didn’t put up a fight—just gave an exaggerated eyeroll—when Sam labeled his gym sessions the “Starboys Only” program on some fitness app.

“I do NOT want to look like my brother, understood?”

“Lo-man, your big bro OWNS a gym, and trains fuckin’ A-listers.  I HOPE you don’t wanna look like him.  Swear to god, I got ya covered, Starboy.  No crazy shredding.”

Honestly, ever since the release of that first book (he’d pay for the title for the rest of his life) back in 2016, he had developed disturbing new mental problems in his already…tricky…brain.  Too many “entertainment journalists” brought up his physical appearance when his name came up in conversation, saying that he should forget writing and become a leading man on screen instead.  Oh, come off it—as though he had any training for that, or any such desire to do so.  Naturally, he was flattered to some extent, but more than that, it felt so insulting to his actual career.  He was so damn paranoid now that his fans didn’t care about his books—just his looks.  Granted, the lit critics rarely mentioned such things, and most of them had written gushing reviews about both his novels, but still.  He didn’t want to lose readers for any reason, even the fickle ones who cared about that nonsense.  At least he could get away with eating like a horse, which was perhaps his favorite past time.  Well, no.  Being inside Sig topped that list.

By hell, just the thought—now he had quite a situation growing in his joggers.  Running a hand through his loose, still damp towel-dried hair, he grabbed his phone off the coffee table and sent her a text:

Loki:  Are you almost done with work, love?

Sig:  Hey you. My eyes turned into hearts when I saw it was YOU who texted me (thought it was my mum at first and GOD she’s been badgering me about coming there for my birthday, and I do NOT want to.) 

Loki:  I’m glad you burst into hearts over me, but that’s not quite the answer I was looking for. 

Sig:  Easy there, impatient boy. Was just about to text you. Walking out the door now.

Loki:  I'll admit to being a bit impatient. I'm starving.

Sig:  Can't fault you for that. I am too. Worked right through lunch. So what delicious food did you whip up this time? Still can't believe I landed a man who can cook btw 

Loki:  I didn't specify that I was starving for food.

Sig:  Oh fuck me...

Loki:  Uh...I intend to. Hurry up.

Sig:  Yes, sir.

Biting into a smile-“yes, sir” ...god DAMN -Loki left her on read just for the fun of it and opened Twitter to mindlessly scroll through his notifications.  One stood out.  It was so clever, and so true.  It was a tweet from a New York Times lit crit, Miquel Dylan—

Street name: LO’s Forever Dream Girl (LFDG).  100% Pure.  Highly recommend.  Careful.  She’s a helluva drug. #LookingForSunight is out now. @LokisWriting.

Wow, what powerful words.  They reminded him why he could handle the stretching of space and time keeping her from him—why he wanted to stay in this orbit around her, even if it was painful to do sometimes. He tapped the “retweet with comment” option with his thumb, and squinted up at the ceiling, thinking of the best (and equally clever) response. 

It needed to be something Sig would like.  Something that might give her a laugh.  He loved making her laugh.  When he landed on it, he typed quickly.

Hello, my name is Loki, and I am an addict.

Then, he sent his words off into the vapid, self-promoting internet wilderness without a second thought. His eyes blew wide then.

Twenty THOUSAND retweets?  Holy f—

Had all his followers turned on tweet notifications from him?  What had it been, seven seconds?  Head shaking in a bit of shock, he sat up and pulled a hand down his face.  He pushed to his feet and went to the kitchen to pull the wine out so it could warm up just a bit.  Hand on the fridge handle, he heard his phone ding at him, and he leaned over to eye it on the island. 

Forever dream girl herself—@SigNFrey88—had responded to the tweet.  Silly girl…staring down at her phone while walking.  Hopefully, she wouldn’t walk straight into a street sign. Taking the corkscrew out of the drawer, he smiled at his screen as he read her response.

Lovesick fool of a man. #justsayno

So, she was going to use his own words against him?  Alright then.  If she wanted to play this little game with him, then he could play this game, too.  Arching an eyebrow, he smirked as he typed, then hit the “send tweet” button.

Who dis.

He pulled the cork out, the distinct “POP” sound bouncing off the high ceilings, wall to wall windows, hardwood floors and granite counters with an echo akin to an ancient cathedral. His phone dinged at him again just as he turned around to grab two glasses from the top shelf. Once again, she’d responded almost instantaneously.

You did not just-

And once again, he hoped a street sign didn’t jump right in front of her as she walked. He set the glasses down, chuckling at the thought of her turning more than a few heads while bursting into tears from laughing so hard. Tapping out a response with one hand, he filled the glasses with the other. He stopped when he got the notification that his brilliant brother—the aptly named blue check @MyArmIsThor—had apparently decided to join the conversation. Oh, he couldn’t wait to see this. Pursing his lips, he read Thor’s words—

I taught him that. Your welcome

Oh god, they were as moronic as the “who dis” phrase that Loki had indeed learned from the blond oaf a month ago.  After all this time, his brother still didn’t know the difference between “your” and “you’re” or how to use them correctly. He rolled his eyes.  Good god, Thor made it so easy for Loki to mock the hell out of him.  Yes, it was low hanging fruit, but come on.  Shaking his head, he sighed, uninterested in responding maturely.  After all, he was the youngest of the family.  He sent a tweet back—

*You’re (contraction meaning “you are”)

…and literally ten seconds later, he received a response from his brother.

I KNOW WHERE YOU SLEEP

“OH MY GOD,” Loki laughed, his sides splitting so hard that he had to grab the counter so he wouldn’t fall over.

“I… know…where…you…sleep…” Loki wheezed, barely able to spit out his brother’s words.  Oh, he could hear it in his head.  The all caps and that angry red face only added to the absurdity.  Wiping tears from his eyes, he leaned down, setting his elbows on the island counter, and put his forehead in his hands.

“Yes, Thor.  You know where I sleep.  Well done.  Good luck with that.”  This twitter conversation was stupid as hell, but he couldn’t stop responding to this idiot.  One more tweet, and then he would put his phone down, and get back to setting the dinner plates on the table. Without hesitation, Loki published his unfathomably clever reply.

My girl would kill you first, and why are you shouting?

Oh, that wasn’t wise—he’d ended the damn thing with a question mark rather than making a flat statement to end the back and forth.

Whatever.  Is what it is.

Point was, he was about ninety-five percent positive that Sig would stab his brother if he showed up in the middle of the night.  To be fair, it would just be from the shock of waking up to a strange sound and seeing a dark figure in the room, rather than having it out for anyone who tried to attack her boyfriend.  He frowned at the thought, silly though it was to get his feathers ruffled over a hypothetical situation wherein his little lover did not try to physically defend him against a man who weighed probably twice as much as her.  And truly, Thor’s use of all caps was annoying as hell.

Eyes rolling, he set his phone down, and picked up one of the glasses, drinking every drop of it in one go.  It had been a long day.  Then his phone dinged at him again, and he would have ignored it, since it was probably just Thor snapping back at him but resisting curiosity had never been in his nature, so, he picked it up.  His shoulders relaxed when he saw Sig had responded instead.

Do NOT bring me into this shit again, Loki. #loveyouthough

“Thanks for the support, darling,” he said to the empty room, snorting quietly under his breath and refilling his glass as he looked at the screen.  His eyebrows came together when he noticed the time, then he opened his previous text conversation with Sig, and quickly tapped a message.

Loki: It's a twelve-minute walk from your office to my place, and you left twenty minutes ago.  Are you alright?  Where are you?

He heard the front door just then, which was hidden by about ten feet of kitchen wall, opening slowly, keys jingling in the door handle, then the click of heels on the floor.

“Fucking finally,” he mumbled to himself, rubbing his temples.  He’d been on the verge of going out to look for her, which was a bit ridiculous considering she’d just tweeted at him and had seemed perfectly fine.  Protective, scratch that—possessive much?

Her heels stopped after about three steps instead of continuing down the hall, which he assumed meant she was pausing to hang up her coat since he could hear a zipper and a soft shuffle of fabric.  He ran a hand through his hair, wincing a bit at the tangles.  Apparently, he needed to add a haircut to his already cram-packed schedule.  He bent down to search for a hair tie in the catch all drawer on the other side of the kitchen island as he waited for her to come into the room.  Once he found it, he put it between his teeth and finger-combed the too long locks away from his face.

“Sig?” he spoke with the hair tie in his mouth, eyes on the floor as he gathered his hair loosely at the nape of his neck.

She didn’t answer.

“What, are you waiting for me to come pick you up and carry you in here like royalty or something?” he asked, half joking.

Still no answer.

“Sigyn?” he called to her again, frowning at her silence.

He wound the elastic twice and dropped his arm.  Honestly, the lack of sound was getting to his nerves a bit.  She had yet to speak, and now he was conjuring up horrible scenarios where some sick obsessed fan had assaulted his girlfriend in a dark alley then stolen her keys and was now inside his apartment.  On reflex, his fingers grazed the clip of his fully serrated tactical pocketknife that always stayed on his waistband—even joggers while inside his apartment.

He’d been attacked by an absolutely nauseating serial…uh…creep (to put it lightly) in the middle of the day back in England when he was seventeen, and even though he’d successfully muscled his way free without a weapon, he’d kept a blade on him ever since.  Taking private and group combat level 3 Krav Maga classes every Wednesday and Saturday at the Cary Building eleven blocks from his place for a decade now ensured that he damn well knew how and when to use a knife, if the need should ever arise to do so (hopefully not).

He hadn’t been threatened physically in eighteen years, but he still felt naked and horribly vulnerable without the damn thing.  It stayed under his pillow while he slept.  It stayed in a protective dehumidifying case on the windowsill built into the tiles next to him when he showered.  This was one of the reasons he hated flying.  Can’t have a blade on a plane, obviously.  See: tricky brain.

Thank god it didn’t bother Sigyn in the slightest.  More than that, she understood—validated—the reason for it.

“When you’ve truly been traumatized, you do what you must to cope,” she’d told him, “I get it.  It gives the control back to you—the control you NEED.  Don’t ever apologize for that.”

Bloody hell, he adored her.  He really wouldn’t ever get enough of her- just like he’d told the entire goddamn planet on a page inside a book he hoped she would read a thousand times.

His ex on the other hand—a woman he wouldn’t shed a tear for if she ended up six feet under tomorrow (heartless?… more like justified)—had hated it.  Said he was paranoid, and that it scared her.

Yes, well…deal with it, Amora.

For the love, it’s not as though he kept the blade on him just because he felt a bit stabby sometimes.  

That had been the most pathetic relationship of his life.  So pathetic that if she’d said, “either that knife goes, or I go”, he would have told her to make sure the door didn’t hit her ass on the way out.  Wretched woman.  The sex had been the only thing holding them together, and even that had been sub-par.  He hadn’t understood at the time why sleeping with that woman always felt so empty- like he was devoid of all connection to this human being despite literally being connected to her.  How was it possible for him to be inside an attractive woman without a condom, not pull out (the pill plus a clean bill of health had been a bonus), yet not love it—not crave more of it?  Apparently, it was possible.

He’d played with fire, as in screwed around with goddamn heroin more than a few times thanks in most part to her.  Not because she was into that brand of poison and had convinced him to give it a shot (unfunny pun not intended), but because he was just trying to numb the beyond extra pain she’d caused on top of a life that was already in a downward spiral.  He hadn’t become addicted to that death drug, and he couldn’t be more grateful that he’d avoided that specific hell, but it had been a low point, nonetheless.  If it hadn’t been for writing Starboy that year, 2015 would have been a complete waste.

God, please don’t make me use this knife in my own house.  I JUST had the floors waxed.

Looking sideways, he arched an eyebrow.  Of all things that could have popped into his head when his cortisol was spiking, blood pressure rising, heart pumping faster, pushing extra oxygen to every muscle, his body preparing itself for a fight, that’s what his brain came up with?—“But…but what about the hardwood?!”

He couldn’t help but laugh.  Loudly.  It felt like the laugh itself was bursting straight through his sternum.  It was like reading Thor’s hilarious “I KNOW WHERE YOU SLEEP” threat all over again.  He stopped abruptly though when Sigyn finally came around the corner.

“What’s so funny?” she asked, leaning her shoulder against the door frame, her hand on her opposite hip, ankles crossed.

For a split second, all he felt was relief.  It was just Sig.  All safe and sound.  No worries.

Floors spared.

But then his brain processed the information that his retinas were screaming at it, and his jaw nearly fell to the floor.  She was wearing those boots he loved on her—the knee high, four inch-heeled, black suede ones.

And nothing else.

“Fuck me…” he breathed.

“Uh,” she smirked, “I intend to.”

He made a beeline for her and dragged her to his couch.  Then he dropped to his knees, yanked her to the edge of the cushion, and pulled her thighs over his shoulders.

~Two days later, 5:50pm, January 17, 2019~

Sigyn needed a break.  She’d been slumping over this drafting table for a thousand years (8 hours, same thing), making handwritten corrections on the drawing of a new gallery on 6th that Carol had rendered digitally in AutoCAD based off her design.  God, her back was killing her, and her eyes hurt so much.  They’d probably been crossed since lunch.  Sure, her coworker was a talented drafter and architectural illustrator, but she’d dropped the ball on this one.  And since Carol was on vacation through next week, it was up to Sigyn to make the necessary changes for the building contractor to look at on Monday.

Heaven help her, she was so inept with technical drawing.  Sketches were her thing.  She could come up with an aesthetically pleasing, yet practical design overnight.  That’s why they paid her the big bucks.  Okay well…not New York big, but it was good money.  But her knowledge of design software was limited, so here she was, using an archaic compass and T-square like it was still 1970 or something.  She was about to absolutely lose it if she found one more mistake.  What had Carol been thinking?  The dimensions were all kinds of wrong.

She sat back in her seat, took off her reading glasses and rubbed her eyes.  Get up.  Stretch the legs.  Maybe do an impromptu office yoga session.  Or go to the restroom since she’d been ignoring a full bladder for a while now.  After relieving herself quickly, purposefully avoiding her colleagues because she didn’t have the energy to be polite right now, she hurried back into her office, closed the door, and picked her phone up from the table.  She could use a few moments of laughing at the ridiculous twitter conversation she’d had with Darcy (and Loki and Bucky and Thor…unintentionally) to give her overworked mind a chance to regroup.  It had started with Darce replying to the conversation she’d had with Loki and Thor a few days ago, which would have been okay if Darce’s response had been just about anything else.

@DarcyLuvsTasers (REPLYING TO @SIGNFREY88 AND @LOKISWRITING AND @MYARMISTHOR): Read it straight through and GOD DAMN. Does he fuck as deep as he writes? Asking for a friend. #ohgodyes

@SigNFrey88 (REPLYING TO @DARCYLUVSTASERS): DARCY Omg you didn’t untag them

@MyArmIsThor (REPLYING TO @DARCYLUVSTASERS AND @SIGNFREY88 AND @LOKISWRITING): WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU?! #blockedandreported

@SgtBuckyIsntHere (REPLYING TO @DARCYLUVSTASERS AND @SIGNFREY88 AND 2 OTHERS): Doll. What even. #heartbroken

@LokisWriting (REPLYING TO @SGTBUCKYISNTHERE AND @DARCYLUVSTASERS AND 2 OTHERS): Your woman needs professional help, JB. Darcy, this is what TEXTING is for, you thirsty freak. Thor, for the love of god, stop yelling.

@DarcyLuvsTasers (REPLYING TO @SGTBUCKYISNTHERE AND @SIGYNFREY88 AND @LOKISWRITING): So many snowflakes in this chat. Thor legit blocked me AHAHAHA. And Bucky is the only man I’m THIRSTY AF for #bigbrooklynboy

@SgtBuckyIsntHere (REPLYING TO @DARCYLUVSTASERS AND @SIGNFREY88 AND @LOKISWRITING): Uh- Almost fell onto the train tracks at Franklin Ave just now. Put down your phone, doll. Later, guys. PS: Lo, sorry man, I’ll look for head docs for her ASAP.

@SigNFrey88 (REPLYING TO @SGTBUCKYISNTHERE AND @LOKISWRITING AND @DARCYLUVSTASERS): LMFAO ‘Bucky has left the chat’ Hey, Darce, I’ve got a better one for you: #massivemanhattanman

@LokisWriting (REPLYING TO @SIGNFREY88 AND @DARCYLUVSTASERS AND @SGTBUCKYISNTHERE): Christ almighty, Sig. NO COMMENT.

@SigNFrey88 (REPLYING TO @LOKISWRITING): See you after work, #foreverdreamboy.

@LokisWriting (REPLYING TO @SIGNFREY): Dear god, no more twitter for you today. TEXT me, sweetheart. (Apologies, everyone!) #lokisigningoff

“Big Brooklyn Boy…god…poor Bucky…” Sigyn laughed out loud, covering her mouth lest someone- most likely Quill -just invite himself in to ask what the joke was.

Dammit though—scrolling back through the conversation reminded her that she’d nearly responded to Darcy’s original question with “YES HE DOES” before thinking better of it and texting her instead.  And now she was thinking about last night, technically this morning, when she’d awakened in Loki’s bed to his mouth on her neck at 2am.  He’d pulled her on top of him, and—

STOP.  You have work to do.

Sighing heavily, she sank back into her chair, and picked up her pencil, tapping the end of it on the table while trying not to think about how accurate her impromptu “massive Manhattan man” hashtag was.  Ten measly seconds or so later, she heard a knock on her door.  Taking her glasses off again and setting her elbows on the table, she put her head in her hands and shoved her protractor away with her elbow, growling into her palms.

Guaranteed it was her assistant Alison who she’d made accidental eye contact with on her way back into her office.  Sigyn wanted to tell her to save it, whatever it was, for later.  Anything the 21-year old intern needed could be dealt with by one of the other architects here.  She glanced at her watch—NO…5:58pm—tomorrow was coming way too fast.  She despised Friday deadlines.  It was just too much pressure.  She’d be staying late after 6 to get this project done, but she’d already known that as soon as she’d unrolled Carol’s drawing this morning.

Why did January have to be so rushed every year?  It was like clockwork.  Get back from the holiday break and BOOM.  Suddenly the clients needed this and that and they needed it now.  Her third meeting with Marianne of Draper Design House would be tomorrow morning because the woman just had to see a different set of blueprints—the mediocre ones she had given up on and pushed aside earlier today—at an ungodly hour.

“I have a brunch meeting at Bluestone Lane on January 18, Ms. Frey.  You do know where that is, don’t you?  East 89th and 5th?  The park IS a bit out of your way, with you working all the way down there, I suppose.  Anyhow, my niece’s birthday party is after that, and my mother is flying in from Chicago shortly after, so I will have my driver arrive early and fit you in at 7:30 am SHARP.  If that doesn’t work for you, I’m sure Jeff at the firm in Lenox Hill can make it work.”

What kind of witch emails something like that? Oh, how she adored not-so-thinly veiled, passive aggressive threats.  Upper east siders could go fuck themselves with their jagged diamond tiaras for all she cared.  Except she did care.  For a good seventy thousand net reasons, she cared.  Bills in NYC added up fast.

There was an impossibly arrogant air about these blue bloods that made her want to punch every single one of them in the face.  They made Loki’s eleven million net worth look like minimum wage, and they would look down their noses at him as much as they would anyone else.  He wasn’t old money.  He didn’t have over a hundred years of multigenerational wealth like they did.  An Odinson wasn’t akin to a Rockefeller or Vanderbilt.

Yes, he’d started off much higher up the ladder than most of the population as a result of his father’s rapid rise in the Manhattan real estate game, and he was well aware of his privilege—of the fact that he’d spent 6 years at Harvard, earning a BA and an MA and had no student loans to pay off, for instance—but he deserved every bit of success he’d achieved as an author.  He could be strutting around, acting like he was better than everyone else—like his good looks or his top-selling books made him more worthy of the air that every other person needed just to survive.

But he didn’t.

Alright, admittedly, the man was a total clothes horse.  He loved those unnecessarily expensive brand name designer threads.  But oh, he wore them so well, and he did his own laundry, so she could forgive him for it.

And okay fine…so his measly little 8.5 oz bottle of shampoo cost nearly fifty dollars, and he also paid three hundred for his haircuts, both of which were a bit…excessive.  But at the same time, this was a man with a brand new, unbelievably sexy, hundred-thousand-dollar sports car that he almost exclusively drove upstate, rarely taking it for a spin around Manhattan.

“I got an F-type SVR to PLAY with, Sig, not to brag about it,” he’d said once. “I can’t feel this engine do what it wants to do if I’m just idling in city traffic.  If I wanted to show off, I would have bought a Ferrari.”

Riiiiight…as though that impossibly loud 575-horsepower V8 wasn’t made for turning heads, but okay, love.

To his credit though, if he didn’t feel like walking two dozen blocks (understandable) to Fulton Street for an editorial meeting at HarperCollins, he would take the train from Canal to the World Trade Center station like some plebeian.  An unusually well-dressed, well-groomed, gorgeous plebeian.

Now, if she could just sit here in peace with her earbuds in and let the world outside her office disappear, she could be done in time to meet said gorgeous plebeian at Black Tap for dinner at 8:00.  She did not have time for interruptions, and here Ali was, doing exactly that.  She slumped further into her chair when the door opened.

“Please, Ali,” she said, voice muffled behind her hands, “I don’t mean to sound rude, but if you are about to say anything other than ‘I’m heading home, see you tomorrow’ then please just take it to Ben or Quill or someone else.  Alright?” She groaned and dropped her hands to the table, softly banging her forehead into her knuckles.

“Wrong person, love.”

Her head shot up, eyes blown wide as Loki strolled into her office with his hands in his pockets, wearing a crooked little smirk that made her want to push him onto her tufted, blue velvet office sofa, sit on his lap and repeat what had happened at 2 this morning.  Maybe not the wisest use of her time.

“What are you—”

“Stealing you away from this stylishly decorated prison,” he said simply, as though he didn’t have a care in the world.

As though Marianne wouldn’t take her business to stupid Lenox Hill Jeff when she showed up with that mess of a drawing that was rolled up in the corner—that mess that she would not be able to fix before the meeting tomorrow.  As though the meeting on Monday wasn’t going to hell even if she killed herself trying to get this damn thing right all weekend.

She shook her head, giving a sad little chuckle, and gestured to the paper in front of her. “I can’t leave yet, I’m sorry.  I have to present this on Monday, and I am so not ready.”

Walking around the table, he leaned down, set his hands on the arms of her chair, and pressed his mouth firmly to hers for a few dizzying seconds, then he pulled back to look her in the eyes.

“Monday is several days from now,” he tilted her face up, and leaned in to kiss her again—once, twice, three times—then smiled. “You can return to this tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow is already crazy enough without having this hanging over my head,” she said, giving him an apologetic look, “and you and I weren’t going to meet for another two hours anyway, Loki.  It’s not like I’m not breaking any promises here.”

Lips set in a thin line, he blinked at her a few times, then stood upright. “I’ve barely seen you all week.  All month actually.”

“What?” she frowned up at him for a moment, then looked away, not wanting to concede to the truth in his words.

Don’t get defensive.  He’s not looking for a fight.

“Did you hit your head on the pavement on the way here?” she winced as soon as she said it.

Way to go.  Are YOU looking for a fight?

“I spent all Tuesday night with you,” she added quickly, softening her tone. “Then I came over again last night as well.”

She saw his jaw jut out for a second, but he corrected it quickly.

Please don’t be mad at me, Loki.  I’m doing my best.

“You crawled in my bed at, what,” he scratched the back of his neck then dropped his hand, gesturing to the wall clock over her desk, “one in the morning?”

She turned to look at the thing—a black and gold, vintage, deco timepiece—and watched the second hand move steadily around the face, one number to the next.  Constant.  Unstopping.

Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock.

Each second was just one more second of her lifeline being pushed further and further behind her.  One more second that was now part of an ever-increasing past, stolen from her ever decreasing future.

He was right to want to steal her away.  They only had a fraction of time on this planet, and neither knew how long the other had.  How many more seconds, minutes, hours, days, months…years…did they have left in them?

All my new years are yours.

Eyes slamming shut to stop a tear from falling free, she reached up to rub them.  She didn’t want him to see her cry.  She didn’t want him to see her fall apart for the thousandth time.  She didn’t want to be a weepy, neurotic girlfriend who couldn’t handle the stress of everyday life, yet here she was again.  It was so damn embarrassing.   So…unappealing.  He hadn’t fallen for this disaster of a woman standing in front of him.

She’d done everything she could at the start to be only what she saw as the best version of herself for him—funny, driven, sexy, smart, capable—but she could only fight for so long to push away what felt like enough flaws to fill a hundred solar masses before the gravity of simply being human made her collapse in on herself like a dying star.  So much for being his sunlight—soon the only evidence of her existence would be the black hole she left behind in her place.

She could not, for two years, pretend to be 100% in control of her emotions, to keep a stiff upper lip even when the going gets tough, to man up and grow a pair, to never feel unattractive and let it get to her head that he might not want her because of it, to never burst into tears because the hamburger she’d ordered medium rare showed up well done and THAT WAS THE LAST STRAW.

No, far less than two years, she’d shown her hand six measly weeks after they’d met when he’d knocked on her door halfway into February 2017.  When she’d opened it, his hands had been behind his back, saying he had something he wanted to give her.  Then he’d twisted his arm around back in front of him and cradled the cutest little black kitten she’d ever seen against his chest.

She’d absolutely lost it, ugly crying so hard that he’d stepped inside, closed her door, set the poor kitten down on her couch, and offered to keep it for himself.  He’d apologized all over himself, swearing that he hadn’t meant to put that much pressure on her, that he should have thought better of giving her something that she would have to feed and clean up after when she was so busy already.  God, she’d hated that he was seeing that side of her so early into the wonderful thing they had going.  He would know that her moods were more than often confusing and mentally exhausting to interpret, and he would leave.  Surely a kitten would have delighted her, right?  She’d only mentioned how much she wanted a kitten a hundred times within the six weeks he’d known her!

But the crying in front of him that day wasn’t remotely related to the adorable little ball of fur rolling around on her couch.  It had been because her 55-year old married boss had come into her office, closed the door, and said he wanted to take her out for drinks after work.  The man had…not taken it well…when she’d refused.  He’d pushed back, flirted even harder, saying she shouldn’t dress in tight skirts like that then play hard to get, and he’d only left her alone after she’d told him that she had a boyfriend.

“Well, far be it for me to encroach on another man’s territory.  See you Monday.  Wear something less distracting”

As though she were already a different man’s property, and that was the only thing that would stop him from trying to fuck her.

And after that shitty day, the man who already owned her had come over, acting like the sweetest, sexiest, most thoughtful human being ever, and her first thought had been that he was trying to trap her.  She had felt so unbelievably pathetic for thinking it.  Thus, the tears.  She’d explained everything, then he’d said all the right things to make her feel safe and secure and genuinely cared for. He’d hugged her so tightly, so protectively, and uttered the best phrase ever into her hair—

“Would you be mad at me if I hit that piece of shit with my car?” 

They’d laughed for five minutes straight, then he’d forced her to name her kitten before she started crying again.

She should explain her tears to him now, just as she’d explained her tears that night, just as she’d explained thousands of tears since then.  She shouldn’t make him guess what was wrong.  She should open her mouth and tell him that she was crying because he’d thrown her off her guard by showing up at her office unexpectedly, and she felt like he was backing her into a corner.  She was already panicking about losing a client, about losing credibility in the industry, and now she felt like he was accusing her of ignoring his needs.

If he so upset with her busy work schedule, why couldn’t he just offer to grab some take-out, bring it back here, and eat here with her just to be with her?  She really was giving him every second she could.  She’d given up precious seconds of her already lacking sleep last night because she’d wanted to give those seconds, which had turned into twenty minutes, to him instead.

“Yes, it was late when I got to your place,” she nodded, slowly turning away from the clock to face him again, “but then we had sex shortly after that, so—”

“So what?” he spoke over her, his voice tight and eyes narrowed. “So, you met your sex quota with me for the day, and I should just run along because that must be all I’m good for?”

Her mouth fell open, and she pushed up from her chair. “Of course not.  I didn’t say that at all.  Don’t put words in my mouth.”

How could he think that’s what she thought of him?  That he was just some sex object?  Had he lost his mind?  No, that’s not what he believed.  He was just being defensive.  Just like she was.  They both needed to back off each other.  One of them should apologize.  Soon.  Guaranteed, she was going to be the one stuck doing it.  Again.

Loki released a bit of the tension in his jaw, looking over every part of her face. “Then don’t pull away from me.”

She scoffed quietly.  There it was.  She knew this would happen.  He would somehow manage to spin this into something that was her fault.  It wasn’t fair.  He wasn’t being fair to her at all.

“Did you come to my office intent on trying to guilt me into abandoning my job for you?”

Couldn’t he understand she was in over her head here?  Couldn’t he just trust her enough to know she wasn’t brushing him off?  She would do anything for him.  Anything in her power at least.  She didn’t want only New Year’s Day.  She wanted every day.

Then TELL HIM that!  Don’t get mad at him for not being a fucking mind reader!  He just needs to hear you say it.  You don’t say it enough.  HE tells you how much he wants you ALL THE TIME.  Two years into a relationship, even with all the breakdowns he’s seen, this man standing right here in front of you still craves you as much as he did at the start—LO’s Forever Dream Girl.  A helluva drug.

“Abandoning your job?” he repeated her words back at her, giving her a look. “Come on, Sig, I’m just asking you to pack it up for the day, since it’s after closing, and everyone else has already gone home except for you.  It would be nice to see you before I’m already passed out in bed for once.”

She chewed her lip, trying to stop it from quivering.  Damn it.  Stop.  Crying.

“You’re acting like I’ve forgotten you exist,” she said shakily, her body trembling with a miserable combination of guilt and hurt feelings. “Like you think I’ve chosen not to be around you.  I’d give anything to have the luxury of just doing whatever the hell I want, when I want, and throwing down my credit card for everything I want without a care for whether or not I’ll be able to pay it off in full or be stuck in the endless cycle of minimum payments just so I can make rent—”

“Sig, love,” he stopped her, his eyes wide and lips parted, “that is not something you need to worry about.  Just tell me how much, and I’ll—”

“I don’t need your money, Loki,” she said, shaking her head quickly.

Nothing would feel so humiliating as asking him to loan her some cash.  More like lots of cash.  Shit, that was an entirely different insecurity that she had not meant to bring up.

He tilted his head sideways, eyeing her carefully. “You just said you’re worried about making rent, or did I mishear you?”

“I’m not worried about it,” she corrected herself, feeling so small next to him. As small as her dwindling bank account. “That’s not what I meant.  I can pay my own bills.  I just need to be more cautious of my spending.”

“Okay, well,” he ran a hand through his hair, then reached up to her face, running his thumb across her cheekbone, “you don’t need to be cautious at all because I can take care of you, love.  Anything you need or want; I want you to have it.  All of it.  Any of it.  However much.”

“I told you I don’t need your money,” she tugged on his wrist a little, enough to get him to let go.

The hand on her cheek in combination with the concerned look in his eyes was too protective.  But wasn’t that a ridiculous thing to be bothered by?  The man she loved wanted to keep her safe—wanted to take care of her.  How had her generation (her parents’ generation actually) managed to take that concept, flip it over on its head, and get away with labeling it as toxic? 

What exactly was so wrong with it?  It didn’t mean she’d been bought and paid for just like his car.  She wasn’t his toy.  He’d never treated her like that.  Ever.  And she would do the exact same for Loki if their roles were reversed.  She wanted to give him the world too.  She just didn’t have the funds to do it right now.  And that made her feel like the most useless person in the universe.

She met his eyes again, but this time, they didn’t look protective.  He just looked annoyed.  Offended, maybe.

“How does me telling you that I want to give you everything equate to me saying that you need my money?  Those are two entirely different things.”

His tone left something to be desired.  What was the word?

Patronizing.

This absurdly handsome, highly intelligent, critically acclaimed multimillionaire with a master’s degree from Harvard, a hundred thousand fans, and a goddamn penthouse in Manhattan was belittling her comprehension skills.  Maybe in another timeline, in an alternate universe somewhere in an unknown dimension, a different version of Sigyn Frey could take Loki Odinson’s words and re-frame them into something positive.  That Sigyn would do well to do so because Loki had asked a simple question—asked for clarification of something that ought to be reconsidered.

But there would be no quiet self-reflection here in this office on Franklin Street in Manhattan, NYC on January 17, 2019.  This Sigyn was going to, without a second’s hesitation, snap cruelly at the man for whom she was head over heels all because she didn’t care for his tone.

“Unlike starboys who can just sit back and enjoy the ride, I have to actually work to pay the bills.  I mean, I’m down here every day working my tail off, yet I only make pennies compared to you!  What have you done that’s so amazing and makes the world fawn all over you?”

The last word fell from her lips like a precariously placed bottle of acid on a table spilling over the edge, burning a hole through the floor that was supposed to keep them from falling straight to the volatile, molten mess at the center of the planet.  She put her face in her hands.

Oh shit.  Oh no no no no no…

The silence was deafening.  It hurt her ears.  It burned her eyes.  It kicked her in the stomach.  It reached right inside her chest and clawed at her heart, though every word she’d spat at him made it sound as though she didn’t have one.

She didn’t want to look up at his face.  She didn’t want to see the pain written all over it.  She didn’t want to see his beautiful eyes brimming with fresh tears.  She didn’t know what to say to make this better.  “I didn’t mean it…I’m just tired and frustrated and nervous about Monday” wasn’t good enough.  Not even close.  What a miserable and pathetic excuse.

He finally broke the silence, his voice shaking and strained, and she hated that she was the reason it sounded so broken.

“I wrote a goddamn book for you, Sig.”

She cried silently behind her hands, her shoulders shaking.

Don’t leave me, Loki.  I know I don’t deserve you at all, but dear god…

PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME.

“Guess that wasn’t enough for the girl I’d die for in a heartbeat.”

He walked out the door without another word, leaving a pile of too fragile, shattered glass that used to be that girl he would die for behind him.

Maybe it was because she was exhausted.  Maybe it was because she didn’t feel like she had all her parts—like there were too many fragments of vital organs missing.  But rather than run after him, she fell into her chair and cried harder, swearing to herself that she would go to his place and make things right with him as soon as she finished this stupid project.  However, five minutes after picking the pencil back up, she scribbled “DO NOT SCALE OFF DIMENSIONS” at the bottom of the page, then threw the pencil across the room.

“Fuck this,” she said to the empty room, forcefully pushing her chair back from the table.

Grabbing her bag and coat, she ran out the door, grateful she’d worn flats.  When she got to his building, she shouted “hey, Mr. Henry!” to his doorman and blew right by the elevators because they were too damn slow, then ran up the eight flights of stairs to the top floor instead.  Breathing hard, she jammed the key he’d given to her over a year ago into the lock and nearly fell into his apartment from pushing the door so hard.

“Loki?!” she called for him, slamming the door and turning the lock again.  Her fingers were on the third dead bolt when suddenly he was right behind her back, his breath hitching quietly, his arms coming around her.

“I’m so so so so SO sorry,” she croaked, spinning in his hold to throw her arms around his shoulders and buried her face in his neck.

“I adore the book.  You can’t imagine how much.  It was so beautiful, and it was more than enough.  Writing that book was work.  Harder work than anything I’ve ever…” she trailed off, needing to pause because her voice was shaking so much that it was verging on unintelligible rambling.

Catching her breath, she leaned her head back to look him in the eyes. “I know it was so painful to write it, but you did it.  God…Loki…you are so much more than just a starboy.  I hate myself for saying that to you because it could not be more untrue.  You are everything, and you deserve every bit of praise that all those fans and critics are giving you.”

Please believe me.

She kept her eyes on his, hoping he could see that she meant it.  These were her true words— unlike that absolute trash she’d rattled off in her office.

“And don’t you dare think, even for a second,” she slid both of her freezing cold, glove-less hands from his neck to his face, “that I wouldn’t die for you, too.”

They spent most of that night clinging to each other—her legs around his hips, his hands in her hair—and it felt as incredible as ever.  More than ever, to be honest.  But far more than a mind-blowing orgasm (or three), she just wanted to be close to him.  She wasn’t looking for physical euphoria.  She just wanted to love him.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.

And, dying stars above, if only she’d known that in ten months he would be gone, she would have held him so much closer.