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Raleigh is by no means a genius or some sort of rare and incredible intellect.
And so he doesn’t go to university after he’s finally released, accompanied by a certificate of good mental health and a bag of prescription meds—he moves to Philly, in an apartment just a few hours from the facility and settles in for the long haul. They had helped him apply to universities, of course. And he let them, because he doesn’t want them to feel like they have to shelter him anymore, but he “forgets” to send in his high school records and deletes emails pushing him to finish his paperwork. He has no intention of getting a job or doing anything with the rest of his life.
Of course, his therapist had warned him about this—as had his psychiatrist and his psychologist and his neurologist and his physical therapist. They had all told him that he should definitely keep busy, that he shouldn’t ignore his emotions but that he should try to keep moving forward. He doesn’t understand that—moving forward. It’s not like he has much place to go. He’s an ex-soldier with no rank and nothing much to show for his service besides a dead arm and a pension check.
And he plans to make terrible use of the pension check and to try and avoid fucking the arm up any more.
And so he moves into his grungy apartment, carrying only a duffle bag and his wallet in his back pocket. (He never puts anything on his left side, which feels weird after years of trying to center himself in a world that’s always felt somehow backward.) It features a moldering kitchen, a dingy bathroom that reminds him of cheap motel rooms back in Alaska and a living room-bedroom combo with stained carpeting and wallpaper that makes him feel like he’s in the children’s section of a library.
That first night, he drops his bag in the kitchen and rips up all the shitty carpeting, trying to avoid banging his left shoulder against the walls. Beneath is some ugly linoleum that reminds him of his childhood in Anchorage, but at least it’ll clean easier.
He goes out and buys two six packs and a carton of cigarettes. And the next day he goes out and finds a cheap-ass couch, a portable DVD player and about twenty of the one-dollar DVDs they’re selling at the drug store because he hates watching movies on his tablet.
It takes him about two weeks to get sick of wallowing in self-pity and what-ifs (maybe it’s that he no longer has the crutch of about five different doctors and so he can feel how gross his own self-pity is, how much he hates the idea of wasting away the rest of his life and it seems to jolt him back into the person he used to be before everything happened) and that’s when he calls up Tendo.
He and Yancy met Tendo shortly after they enlisted, when Raleigh was still fresh out of high school and Yancy had just given up on community college. Tendo was an administrator who wore his hair like he’s John Travolta in Grease—it was their mom’s favorite movie—and buttoned his shirts up to his neck. He teased the pair of them a little during their downtime between training and, eventually, they all went out for drinks. Raleigh wasn’t legal yet, but the bar was a total dive and no one cared when he orders something shitty and half-watered down. (He develops a taste for darker beers and it was the big thing he and Yancy always disagreed on.)
They talked and laughed until about two in the morning and Raleigh, who still drank like an uppity teenager, was drunk off his ass. He still sort of remembers Tendo and Yancy hauling him into a cab, their laughter too loud because they were a little tipsy themselves. Tendo started off on some story about his latest girl—because in the few weeks they’d known him, he’d mentioned more than eight. Raleigh can never remember when they got back to the base, but he remembers the following morning, when he woke to a splitting headache and Yancy passed out across his legs.
Tendo is, really, probably about the only friend Raleigh has left after the army, because he was always just too young for the other guys in their platoon. He was Yancy’s little brother and, yeah, it was too bad he fucked up his shoulder, but Yancy—
“Tendo Choi. Who’s this?”
“It’s Raleigh,” he says and he can hear the smile enter Tendo’s voice.
“Hey man! Where are you now? They put you up in Philly last I heard.”
“Still there. I thought you moved around here.”
“Suburbs, man. I’ve got a wife and kids. Want to get a drink sometime?”
“Definitely.”
They go out to a bar that’s got some of the features of a dive, but it’s cleaner and the music isn’t so shitty. Raleigh finds himself appreciating this. He kind of feels like if he were meeting Tendo at a lousy bar, he’d just end up right where he’d been the day he left the facility and he can’t afford that kind of negativity.
He can’t afford to let his life go to shit. Again. He’s decided as much. He’s going to meet up with Tendo tonight and tomorrow morning he’s going to finish the email he’d started to his sister, Jazmine, who’s now at law school (she was always the smart one), describing in detail his move from the facility to his apartment. He’s pulling himself together again, on his own. It’s not like he could ever waste his whole life. He wasn’t made for that.
Tendo walks in, dressed like a Jimmy Cagney movie, his hair as greased up as it had been ten years before. Raleigh stands up in the booth and Tendo makes a bee-line for him, grinning wildly.
They hug awkwardly—not because they feel uncomfortable, but because the corner of the booth is pressing into Raleigh’s crotch and because his left arm is strapped in its sling between them. Raleigh slaps Tendo on the back, laughing a little, as they break apart.
“Give me just a second to grab a drink,” Tendo says, still beaming.
When he gets back, he reaches into his pants pocket (he’s wearing wool pants, what the fuck) and pulls out a smartphone.
“Wanna see the kids?” he asks and Raleigh nods. He’s met Tendo’s wife, Alison, and their kids before (they were much smaller then) and he’s seen the photos on Alison’s Facebook, but he wants to hear Tendo talk about them, because they’ve not actually spoken face to face since Yancy and Raleigh’s sure that there are a lot of stories that Alison hasn’t been spreading over the internet.
They stay there talking until past midnight. Tendo occasionally brings up Yancy and Raleigh feels like there’s something very heavy on top of his chest, but it passes eventually. And finally Tendo drives him home and Raleigh crashes on his nasty old couch and falls asleep easily.
Thinking back on it later, he shouldn’t be too surprised by the phone call he gets a week later.
“Hello?”
“Is this Raleigh Becket?”
Raleigh nearly drops his phone, which would’ve seriously sucked because it would’ve fallen right into the still-warm pizza which is sitting in box beside him. “Lieutenant?”
There’s a sort of snorting laugh, closer to a sigh. “I tend to just go by Mister Pentecost now, but I appreciate the nostalgia. Choi gave me your number.”
“’Course he did!” Raleigh says, laughing as well. Tendo said that night that he was working with Stacker Pentecost, their old lieutenant via the officer exchange program. “What’s going on?”
“He said you were looking for work and I was wondering if you remembered our old conversations about business?”
Raleigh’s stomach twists. He finds his gaze being drawn back to the television and the repeating menu montage, like he’s trying to avoid his own mental image of Pentecost’s steady but piercing gaze. “Yeah, of course. When you heard me and Yancy talking about school.” He feels embarrassed because Pentecost had been hell-bent on trying to get Raleigh to go to university, but he just kept signing back up and he knows now that... he knows that he’s just not really built for the whole thing. He could never sit still. He was smart enough—or that’s what everyone told him—but he hated school and he’s never been focused enough on his goals to really make a decision like what he would study even if he did go to university.
And if Pentecost thinks he’s actually intended on going to business school, Raleigh really doesn’t want to have to tell him otherwise.
“Well, as I’m sure Tendo’s mentioned, he’s working for me now—” Pentecost sounds like he’s smiling a little, “And that I finally got Hansen-Pentecost up and running. So, I’m in a position to offer you a job.”
“I really appreciate that,” Raleigh says, his throat tight. He’s been crying a lot since his discharge, not just at the facility, but just sort of everywhere. It’s not like he’s crying all the time now. Just a little bit, sometimes. He cries more than he did before, anyway. His shrink says it’s a side effect of the medicine.
“I’ve got a receptionist position open. I can’t give you anything higher because you’ve not got a university degree, but the salary is good and I think you’d be well-suited. You want to give it a try?”
That stings. And it shouldn’t because at least Raleigh’s been spared an awkward conversation. “Yeah, definitely, of course.”
He can hear Pentecost laugh a little. “Well, normally I’d have you meet with HR, but you already know Tendo and you already know me so...” There’s a sound of flipping pages. “It would be best to have you start next Monday and we’ll just train you up, sort your paperwork and get you started. Does that work for you?”
God, Raleigh’s missed military people.
“Monday is good.”
“I figured. I’ll talk to you then. It’s good to have you on-board, Becket.”
“Thanks, sir.”
“No problem.”
Raleigh ends the call and then realizes he’s going to have to buy some actual business clothes.
If there’s one thing Raleigh learned at the facility, it was how to type one-handed really really fast. Because the doctors were always trying to get him to engage more with his sister, thinking correctly that it would help him handling his losses. The unexpected side effect of this was a near constant use of Skype chat whenever his sister wasn’t in classes. He types quickly and without abbreviations, though he does misspell things on occasion, but that’s nothing new.
The first day he comes in, Tendo greets him at the door and gives him a huge hug. It’s much less awkward than the hug before. Maybe it’s because Tendo knows to account for Raleigh’s arm now. The lack of tables between them is also a big plus.
“So glad you’re here, man!” Tendo says, slapping his shoulder. “Come on. Let me show you around.”
Raleigh had, for some reason, been picturing a very modern, Apple store-like office, full of glass doors and smooth, cool colored wall panels. He’s not sure if he’s disappointed or relieved when he and Tendo walk into a building that’s decorated kind of like a cheap motel—all brown carpeting and cream walls. The security desk actually has legit fake-wood paneling and Raleigh briefly recalls the room he had back in Anchorage when he was younger, with the plastic wood closet doors and the glow-in-the-dark stars over his bed. He resists the urge to glance up at the ceiling. The guard is reading a beat up issue of People magazine and he doesn’t look up as Tendo and Raleigh move toward the elevator.
“That’s Jason,” Tendo explains. “Building security. We’re up on the fifth floor.”
It’s the top level of the building. Luckily, the elevator runs smoothly—much better than the one at Raleigh’s apartment anyway—but the gray plastic walls make him feel sort of cramped. Tendo is explaining how they got the office space, but Raleigh’s not really listening. This is another reason why he’s never really been one for school: he can only focus for about fifteen minutes at a time and then he’s out.
“...Sales staff are the floor below, but they’ve got a different receptionist, so don’t worry about them. You’ll see them… rarely.”
The elevator doors open to more cream-colored walls, but the carpet is a sort of calico gray up here. At the end of the hall, there’s another fake wood desk, which makes Raleigh laugh a little again because he really hates fake wood.
“This here is your desk,” Tendo says, slapping his hand against the surface. “You’ve got a complicated phone-a-ma-jig that I think someone who's not me will be teaching you how to use. You’ve got a computer which someone else will also be showing you how to use. I think Mako is the one that does all that. You’ve got about a million post-it notes and a shit-ton of pens and paperclips. You’ve got our fax machine as we are, obviously, living in the future and your own printer and if you’ll follow me down here...”
They move into a wide corridor with three doors on each side and one at the end. Tendo touches each of the doors as they walk through. “Stacker’s office, Mako’s, mine, Gottlieb’s and Hansen Junior—he’s the illiterate lawyer—Hansen junior’s right in here with his dog and here is the break room. This—” He taps the door at the end of the hall, “is the conference room, where he have all sorts of painfully boring meetings about suppliers and about any of the reports Geiszler’s passed on to us—he’s our researcher.” He tucks his hands into his pockets and hums for a moment. “That’s about it. Our research team is off-site and you might have to run errands down there on occasion. It’s about half an hour away by car. You can still drive, right?”
“’Course.”
They move back to Raleigh’s desk and discover it’s been covered by colored post-it notes, all marked with perfect, medium-sized handwriting, all with arrows pointing to different parts of the screen and different buttons on the phone.
Raleigh wonders when someone could’ve done this and how they did it so quickly.
Tendo laughs loudly. “Well, I guess Mako’s been here! Here, let’s set you up.”
Nothing much happens his first day. Tendo hovers by his desk a lot, telling him how to do things. He’s impressed by how fast Raleigh types now, recalling the time he and Yancy timed him and he could only type five to ten words a minute. (Raleigh’s chest feels tight at the mention of Yancy’s name, but he doesn’t say anything, just laughs with Tendo at the end of the story and explains about he and Jazmine and Skype.)
He has to bring in a couple faxes to Pentecost, who shakes his hand and smiles a little, his shoulders still held straight and his hair still sheared in a buzz cut. He’s got a moustache now and it doesn’t look too bad on him. And maybe he’s lost a little weight, but so has Raleigh since the army. But other than the mustache Pentecost looks almost exactly the same—tall and broad, with a permanent crease in his brow from having to deal with the silliness of soldiers.
He acts exactly the same as he always has: speaking slowly and deliberately, not afraid to drop occasional bits of sharp sarcasm. Basically, he’s as cool as ever.
Though there is a sort of odd moment where he just points to Raleigh’s left arm, bent at the elbow and pressed to his mid-section by his sling. It’s a lot thinner (not enough that it looks as dead as it is—his muscles haven’t, like, completely atrophied) than it was the last time he and Pentecost saw each other face-to-face, but Raleigh had sort of thought that his button up shirt wasn’t emphasizing it or anything. Also his sling sits under his clothes, so it’s not too obvious, unless you can see the little shelf that his hand sits on.
“I forgot to ask before,” Pentecost says, his voice calm but not too serious, “do you need a special keyboard?”
Raleigh feels kind of relieved. “Oh... No, I couldn’t get used to the one-handed ones.” He really couldn’t. They tried to get him to use on at the facility, but by that point, he’d already been spending so much time with the QWERTY keyboards that the tiny one-handed thing felt annoying and time-consuming.
Pentecost nods. “Good to know.”
Raleigh will admit too that the little Mako notes, as he starts calling them in his head, are really quite helpful. He spends Tuesday practicing making spreadsheets and adding events to the company calendar (without saving anything, obviously), following the neatly written instructions stuck around his screen.
By Wednesday, he’s blowing most of his time playing solitaire on the computer because there is literally nothing to do. On occasion, he has to pick up a phone call and transfer them to a certain office, but no one seems to even notice that there is a receptionist. He’s pretty sure the invisible Mako comes in a couple hours before him each morning and he’s never caught a glimpse of her or “Hansen junior”
(his name is Chuck, according to the phone on Raleigh’s desk), but Hansen never gets any calls so, as far as Raleigh knows, he might not exist at all.
Hermann Gottlieb—who, Raleigh learns, is the company accountant—comes in every morning at ten and no one seems to notice, which is weird. He dresses like he’s a frumpy old school teacher, but when Raleigh sees his face up close at one point, he realizes that Gottlieb can’t be any older than forty. He’s got a stiff leg and a cane and seems to spend a lot of time muttering to himself with an English accent that Raleigh can’t help but think of as snooty. He doesn’t say hello and when he leaves work at three, he doesn’t say goodbye, just limps out and talks to himself.
And, as it turns out, he’s seriously annoying, because he’ll just stand by the elevator, drop papers from his arms and from his unlatched briefcase and curse. One time, Raleigh rushed over to help him and Gottlieb hit him with his cane and told him to fuck off. It was weird. And it hurt.
When Raleigh mentions this later to Tendo, he laughs. “Oh yeah. Gottlieb is... well he’s something. ‘Course, I’m pretty sure he’s just sore from his divorce about a couple years ago. I mean, he and his wife had been separated for a while, but... yeah. Also... yeah, I think he’s just sort of one of those people the entire universe decided to take a giant dump on.” And, yeah, Raleigh can sympathize with that. The guy clearly has a messed up leg and really shaky hands and is an accountant. A divorce on top of all that would just suck balls.
Most of Raleigh’s interactions with people in the office are when he calls them up to tell them they’ve got a call coming in and all anyone really says in response to that is, “Hm,” “Yeah,” “Thanks,” and so on.
On Thursday, Geiszler, head of the research division, comes in and, though Raleigh doesn’t know it at the time, it’s the beginning of a really weird friendship.
He’s not a very impressive-looking man or the most academic-looking man—a little on the short side, with a roundish face and the sort of stubble that Raleigh recognizes as the kind that will only disappear for the first hour after shaving. There’s something expensive looking about all his clothes, even though he’s dressed a little younger than Raleigh is pretty sure he is—all skinny jeans, black suit coats, thick-rimmed glasses and a skinny necktie that reminds Raleigh somehow of a lot of the anime he used to watch as a kid. He grins when he sees Raleigh, walks over to the desk and says, in the voice that sounds somehow like he’s shouting at a regular speaking level:
“We finally got a receptionist up here? Fucking A, man!”
Raleigh laughs despite himself as the guy drops his overcoat on the counter above Raleigh’s work station and sticks out a hand.
“I’m Dr. Newton Geiszler,” the guy says. “But, seriously, call me Newt.” He’s wearing a couple of rings and Raleigh can see a patch of color from a tattoo just beyond the cuff of his shirt.
“Raleigh Becket,” he says. “You’re the researcher, right?”
The handshake is weird. It’s like the guy can’t stop moving. He keeps drumming the fingers of his other hand on the counter and looking around the room and sort of jumping. Raleigh wonders if the guy is nervous or if he just can’t fucking stand still.
Newt laughs. “Good work, kid! You’ll go far here. Hey—is Hermann Gottlieb in his office? I just want to drag him to lunch.” His cheeks have gone a little pink and he seems to have stopped blinking.
Oh. Well, Raleigh supposes that explains why he seems so fucking nervous. And maybe a little of why Gottlieb is such a dick. The thing is that Raleigh has really good gaydar. Like, flawless. And he had kind of a feeling about Newt before—just something about the way he smiled at Raleigh when he reached the counter—but the way Newt talks about Gottlieb is pretty much all the confirmation he needs. Not that he really needs confirmation of anything, because it doesn’t really matter. Raleigh’s not really got any problem with gay guys—or girls—but he knows that saying that will make Newt more uncomfortable, so he just says: “Let me just call him real quick.” Raleigh props the phone on right shoulder and presses the button for Gottlieb’s extension.
“Hello?” The voice at the other end sounds tight and annoyed. Raleigh resists the urge to sigh.
“Dr. Geiszler from research wants to come by your office. Is that—”
“Tell him to get out,” Gottlieb snaps, and the line goes dead.
“Well...” Raleigh hangs up the phone and looks at Newt. “He’s busy, I think. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
Newt sighs a little, taps out a quick little rhythm on the counter and nods. “Thanks anyway.”
He moves dejectedly towards the elevator and Raleigh watches him, considering.
And then the elevator doors open and a petite woman in a black trench coat comes in, slipping a closed umbrella into her briefcase. She’s wearing dark gray slacks and black boots. The hand still holding the handle of the umbrella is pale with dark, polished finger nails. Her hair is cut in a sleek bob and there’s a small streak of blue just brushing her cheek. The streak is pushed flush to her skin by the scarf wrapped around her neck. Her mouth is curved like a cat’s and her eyes are dark and highlighted by that sort of make-up Raleigh’s never understood how girls manage to do. She looks Asian and her lips are the exact same color as the flowers in his parents’ wedding pictures. Her eyes lock with Raleigh’s and her mouth falls open for a moment, as though she’s shocked to see him there.
She recovers from her surprise, smiles and moves gracefully towards him.
“Raleigh Becket?” she says.
“Yeah,” he says, feeling suddenly like his shirt is probably wrinkled and that lips are too big for his face. “Can I help you with anything?”
“Not at all.” She smiles again. Her accent is soft and careful and well-practiced. She sounds Japanese and her name would make sense for Japan, but Raleigh doesn’t want to be offensive if he’s wrong, so he just smiles back, feeling his cheeks burn. “I just didn’t realize you would be here when I got back. I’m Mako Mori, Mr. Pentecost’s assistant.”
“Oh! You’re the post-it note lady!” he says and then realizes how stupid the words sound. She scrunches up her face a little, as though she’s got a weird taste in her mouth, but she’s smiling still.
“I hope they’ve been helpful. I’ve been trying to help Mr. Pentecost prepare for the meeting next Tuesday or I would’ve introduced myself sooner.”
“They have been,” Raleigh says. Why can’t he figure out anything to say? “You sure are quick putting them up. I don’t think I’ve actually seen you properly until just now!”
She ducks her head and when she brings it back up she looks a little... distant. Raleigh worries he’s said the wrong thing. “I’ve been trying to coordinate with our head of sales. I’ve only been able to come up here from time to time.”
“You’re a very busy lady.”
“Yes,” she says. “Yes, I am.”
Something in Raleigh bristles at this. He looks down at his desk, glances at the game of solitaire still open on his computer. “Want me to tell Mr. Pentecost you’re in?”
He looks up at her again and sees she looks a little worried, a little apologetic. “No, I will tell him myself.” She unwraps her scarf, allowing her shiny dark hair to fall once more around her face. “Thank you, Mr. Becket.”
Mr. Becket. Okay, so Raleigh is aware that he’s childish, but the name sounds so odd, so much older than what he should be. It makes him feel a little proud and a little silly. He smiles at her.
“You’re welcome, Ms. Mori.”
Friday is so terrible, Raleigh sort of can’t believe it actually happens. He gets in at nine to a stack of papers on his desk which all need to be faxed to various numbers. The notes on top of each set of papers are definitely not Mako’s work. The handwriting is equally good, through a bit more cursive-y, but the fax machine is such a piece of shit that it takes him almost an hour to get it to even accept one sheet of paper, which promptly makes it begin flashing little lights of mysterious meaning or purpose and making some sort of terrible beeping sound. He wrenches the power chord out from the wall and ends up using the machine in Tendo’s office instead, but it’s still stressful and annoying. And one of the numbers isn’t accepting anything at first and Raleigh is so done and it’s only eleven thirty.
Around twelve, he goes to the bathroom and comes back to find an envelope with two ten dollars bills tucked inside with a piece of orange note paper which says:
PLEASE GET FROM MCDONALD’S:
-Big Mac w/ fries + diet coke
-Chicken wrap + a root beer
Thank you v much.
-Ms. M. Mori
It’s not the first time he’s been sent out for lunches, but today it takes him about an hour to get the order together because of the lunch rush and a series of screw ups of his order, plus twenty minutes for the walk to the McDonald’s a block over and back. Mako opens the door to Pentecost’s office when he knocks. She’s wearing a black turtle neck under a navy blue close-fitting dress. She takes the order from him and says, in a quiet whisper, “Mr. Pentecost is in a conference call right now, which you were not at the front desk to receive and transfer.”
It’s only years of military training that keep his voice even when he says, “I was getting your lunches.”
She raises an eyebrow and purses her lips. “For an hour?”
“It’s the lunch rush,” he says, leaning closer because he can see Pentecost glancing up at them. “And they fucked up—” His skin suddenly feels very hot. Mako’s expression has become even more disapproving. “I mean—there was—”
Her expression cools and she glances down for a moment, looking somehow conflicted. Raleigh just feels like he’s about to catch fire from embarrassment. “I’m sure there were a number of delays. Next time you know you will be gone for more than an hour, please phone my office so I can ensure that the phones are actually answered.” She runs a hand down the door frame and then locks eyes with him again. “Please return to your desk.”
Raleigh fumes at his desk for about ten minutes, before remembering that he’s still got to grab lunch for himself. Normally he’d have packed something, but he’d thought he’d have time to buy one today. He winds up getting a bunch of candy bars in the break room and then goes back to his desk, glaring at his computer screen.
When Gottlieb goes to leave around three, he’s on a cellphone, leaving a trail of papers behind him. He doesn’t seem to notice them as he jabs the button for the elevator and Raleigh debates for a moment just leaving them there before he decides that would probably be too mean, so he gets up and quietly begins picking them up. It’s only about ten or so sheets, but when he hands them to Gottlieb, the accountant looks so gloriously affronted. He sputters for a few moments before jamming his thumb against the ‘end call’ button of his phone.
“Just what I need in my life! Another stupid American busybody!” He snatches the papers from Raleigh’s hand. “They’re all—all crinkled, you twit!”
“I’m just trying to help out, Mr. Gottlieb,” Raleigh says, feeling annoyed.
“Dr. Gottlieb, man. Doctor. Ten bloody years of being a doctor. And what are you?” He gesticulates at Raleigh. “A bloody... A bloody secretary! Now, get away!”
The elevator doors open and Raleigh turns back to his desk. Two more hours and then he’s going to get a drink, because he’s had it up to here with this shit.
He only really sits at his desk for about ten minutes before he goes into the bathroom. He relieved that he’s not crying, because that would just be... too terrible. He splashes water over his face and pushes back his hair before walking back to his desk.
There’s a dog sitting next to it. It’s a bulldog and a kind of overweight bulldog at that—though, seriously, he’s not even sure if anyone can make that call with bulldogs. It’s just sitting there, staring at him, panting a little. Strings of drool hang from its jowls. Its shaky breathing causes its tags to jingle every so often.
Raleigh hesitates. It’s not that he’s scared of dogs. It’s more that he’s seen every episode of Twilight Zone ever produced and this sort of seems like how one could open. A male receptionist has a terrible day at work and begins to hallucinate random animals around his office.
Then, a voice calls from the corridor—loudly, harshly:
“MAX!”
The dog gets up and waddles off, skin folds flapping as it trots away. Raleigh really just wants to get the fuck out of this office.
At around four, Mako walks past his desk, her hair shining. She’s carrying a briefcase and a clipboard as she walks over to the elevator. She doesn’t say anything to him.
Tendo drops by his desk around four thirty and, if he knows anything about the lunch debacle or why Gottlieb has such a stick up his ass, he doesn’t say anything. Just reminds Raleigh that there’s a board meeting on Tuesday.
“You aren’t coming to the meeting, obviously, but on Monday, me or Mako are going to make sure you’ve got all the names and stuff on the other board members so you’ll greet them properly. Especially the Russians. Such a pain in my ass.”
Raleigh gets back to his apartment at around five thirty and he just ends up lying on the floor for about an hour or so, smoking and examining the ceiling, before he starts crying and he really really is pissed about today. Because Gottlieb is right: Raleigh’s a dumbass and he thinks Mako is beautiful but she doesn’t give a fuck about him and he’s knows it’s just infatuation because he doesn’t really know Mako at all, but it’d be nice to have a chance to get to know her. He’s incompetent and uncontrollable and he almost started crying at work because of nothing and he wishes he’d been shot in the fucking head instead of the shoulder. That he’d been shot like Yancy, bent over his brother before a bullet cracked through his skull and came driving out the other side. Dead in seconds. And Raleigh had been left out in the sun for hours, had had to drag himself under the skeleton of a car to avoid getting run over, had had to survive for days on a single canteen and a pack of smokes.
It takes a few moments for him to remember to open his eyes, even if it just feels like he’s just going to be seeing the underside of the car, seeing Yancy fall over and over. He knows when he’s not in reality. That’s the thing Raleigh always felt really proud of. He was never too far gone that he didn’t know what was or wasn’t happening to him. He knows what he needs to do right now.
And so he takes a long drag on the cigarette, trying to focus on the way the smoke tastes in his mouth, and lets it out through his nose. Then he opens his eyes and just lies there, blinking the rest of the tears out of his eyes.
And the ceiling above him is stained and chipped but it’s just regular white plaster. There’s no engine oil filling his nostrils. There’s no danger. Slowly, he forces himself to his feet and goes into the bathroom to try and throw up. He does, after a while, and then he brushes his teeth and tries the number for his psychologist at the facility.
She’s not in her office. The receptionist asks if it’s an emergency and he hesitates for a few moments before saying:
“Yeah.”
“Well, do you mind speaking to one of the other doctors here?”
“Yeah, um, is Dr. Kaminsky there?”
“She sure is. Would you like me to forward Dr. O’Brien’s files on you before you speak to her?”
“Yeah, that’d be good.”
He might engage in some mild Facebook stalking that weekend, against his sister’s explicit orders not to. He finds Mako Mori’s account. It’s mostly locked, but he can see her profile picture of her drinking at a Starbucks and her cover photo of a group of people sitting in a booth. She’s sitting between a pretty girl with dark skin and curly hair and a guy with red hair and the sort of face that screams “douchebag”. His hair is rumpled, a little wavy and definitely thinning toward the front. (His sister argues him on this last point, saying he’s just projecting his own view of the guy as “competition” and imagining him to be less attractive than he actually is.) His arm is around her shoulders. Judging by the ice cream monstrosity sitting on the table in front of her, it’s from a birthday party. She’s wearing a black t-shirt and a cardigan with little autumn leaves on it, which must be how she dresses casually. There are a couple other people sitting in the round booth, all smiling and laughing, but Raleigh keeps looking back at the guy with his arm around her. She’s leaning against him a little as well—her hair shining in the artificial light—and maybe Raleigh is imagining the tiny flush in her cheeks, but she’s laughing in the picture.
He tells Jazmine his discoveries and she yells at him for a little while before asking him to send her a screenshot of Mako’s profile page. They spend a couple hours dissecting every detail of the cover photo. Jazmine insists she can’t be dating, but Raleigh counters with the way she’s leaning into his chest.
“Sorry, but if that chest were near me, it’d take a God damn apocalypse to stop me rubbing my body all over it.”
The thing is that Jazmine might well do this and it wouldn’t really surprise him, just because Jazmine tends to be very physically demonstrative. But Mako seems to be sort of shy with her body—strictly professional even outside professional settings. Now he thinks about it, he’s not even sure that he’s even touched her hand and he feels a very stupid rush of jealousy that he has absolutely no right to feel.
He also finds Newton Geiszler’s page and basically uncovers a boiling cesspit of unprofessionalism, starting with his profile picture which seems to be of Newt doing body shots off a very tan, very waxed abs. His whole profile is unlocked and after about five minutes Raleigh sort of feels like he already knows way too much about Newt. In his pictures are album upon album of photos of drunken parties, pictures that seem distressing just post-sex with a remarkable variety of guys one of whom Raleigh is pretty sure he’s seen entering the apartment just below his and a lot photos that seem to be of Newt in various stages of childhood and adolescence.
The most recent album is labelled “hermann <3 <3 <3” and features one picture—of Newt and Dr. Gottlieb standing together in front of a light window. It has a photographer’s watermark in the corner and seems to be the only posed picture in Newt’s account. In the picture, Newt has his arm around Gottlieb’s waist and the kind of grin Raleigh always associates with Tendo rushing into Yancy and Raleigh’s barracks, yelling, “She said yes!” Gottlieb’s expression is much more restrained, but his chin is raised in such a way that makes Raleigh smile a little to himself until he remembers what Tendo said about Gottlieb’s divorce and then the whole image feels weird—because is it Newt and Gottlieb who are divorced or someone else—until he looks to the right side of the screen and nearly aspirates beer.
The picture description is “yes!!!!!!! fucking hitched motherfuckers!!! y’all can suck my dick!!! (jk you can’t lol that’s hermann’s job.”
Raleigh sends a screencap of this to his sister and there’s about a five second period before he gets the reply:
“What the fuck just happened.”
On Monday, he comes into work at nine o’clock to find Mako standing by his desk, wearing gray wool trousers and a black button up shirt sewn with gold-colored thread. She has a white cloth scarf wrapped around her neck and Raleigh remembers, for a terrible moment, the way her hair fell around her face on Wednesday, all thick and sleek and shining.
She turns as he comes in and smiles and Raleigh wishes he could die. Or at least not be such a teenager. He’s twenty-eight, God damn it. He should be beyond falling for women he barely knows, but she’s got that little blue streak and he’s just so fucking sold. He smiles back, but he’s pretty sure it looks more like a grimace. He wishes he had a nicer coat, so he starts tugging his off the moment he reaches his desk.
“Good morning, Mr. Becket,” she says, as he reaches the desk. “I hope you had a nice weekend?”
“Yeah, it was good,” he says. His left arm gets caught in his coat sleeve and he really, really wishes he could be anywhere but here. She’s too pretty and she doesn’t give a fuck about him, which makes her even hotter and it’s just all really terrible. “Yours?” he asks and untangles the sleeve from his dead arm.
She smiles almost to herself. “It was good. I was…” She pauses for a moment, lips pressed together. “I wanted to apologize for the way I spoke to you on Friday. You should have called in, but I don’t think you had been told that yet and I’m very sorry if your day was made at all unpleasant by what happened.” She looks at his eyes and he can see the shimmer of gloss on her lips. “I’m very sorry.”
Raleigh wonders if she can somehow see in his eyes the image of him from Friday evening, lying on the floor of his apartment, smoking and crying, and looks away. “Nah, it was fine. I made the mistake, so...”
“But so did I,” she says, her head tilted a little, her lips tilted in a smile. “So…” She drags the end of the word, imitating him and he finds himself smiling too.
“Well, I also cursed at you. In the office. And that was… not okay.”
She shrugs. “I heard from Tendo that Dr. Gottlieb started yelling at you.” Ooh... Tendo is a sneaky bastard, but Raleigh is distracted from analyzing Tendo’s motivations by the thought of Gottlieb.
“Yeah, what is it with that guy?” he asks before he can think better of it. There’s a flash of nervousness where he remembers that, like in the army, he’s basically got no rank. He can’t go ragging on anyone. Ever. Even if they are sort of a giant dick.
But Mako just smiles wider. “He is so rude!” she says in a conspiratorial whisper, as though it’s some sort of secret. Raleigh finds himself laughing too, just because she’s being so sweet and it’s such an understatement it’s hilarious.
“He hit me in the head with his cane!” he whispers. “Because I tried to help him with his papers. And Friday, he’s, like, ragging on me for not being a doctor. Like what the f—what the hell?”
“Oh God, the papers…”
Raleigh laughs and then remembers something. “Hey, do you have the names of the people that’ll be coming tomorrow? Tendo said either you or he would give me a list or something today so I don’t, like, embarrass the company or something.”
She grins. “Yes. They’re right here.” And he notices the stack of papers that she’s been fiddling with on the counter. “You just have to greet them. They all know where the conference room is. It’s just… ah… formality, you know?”
“Yeah.” He smiles at her. “Thanks.”
She walks back to her office, walking perfectly in her high heels. Raleigh remembers his sister trying to learn to walk in heels for her junior prom, how she made him help her practice during his entire leave, walking with her, dancing with her in the shitty living room of their cousins’ house while the little kids were running around and screaming upstairs with Yancy. He’s impressed, partially because Jazmine never really mastered the skill. Mako moves easily in her heels, the ends of her scarf swaying with her as she walks.
When Raleigh comes in on Tuesday, there’s an envelope on his desk, containing forty dollars and a blue piece of paper which says:
COFFEE ORDER (all talls) —PLEASE BRING INTO BOARD ROOM AT 12 NOON.
-Regular coffee 2 sugar no cream (Pentecost)
-Caramel Mocha w/ SOY (Hansen)
-Black coffee no sugar no cream (Gottlieb)
-Chai NOT A LATTE 1 cream 4 sugar x2 (Kaidonovskys)
-Hot chocolate w/ whipped cream (Geiszler)
Thank you.
-Ms. M. Mori
There’s a Starbucks down the block from the office building, in the opposite direction from the McDonald’s. It’s colder out on Tuesday that it had been the past couple days and Raleigh has to drag his coat back on forty-five minutes after he’s sat down, just to make sure the coffees are all there on time and he can greet the visiting board members as they arrive. He’s just entering the main lobby of the building when Gottlieb enters, muttering to himself about the cold, probably, and shaking out his scarf. It all makes him look like some sort of vulture, but Raleigh raises a hand anyway in a wave. In response, Gottlieb fucking glares at him and shoves past Raleigh, bashing into his right shoulder.
Well, whatever.
It takes a while to get the whole drinks order together and Raleigh is thankful he left early. He’s back at the office by ten thirty. He’s pretty psyched to see Mako today. He went out Monday afternoon after work and bought a new coat. It was expensive as fuck and the sleeves are bit too narrow to fit his left arm (he just leaves that sleeve empty, which probably makes him look a bit like a freak), but it’s dark green wool and he feels awesomely classy as he walks back into work, coffees balanced in his right hand. He also wearing his crispest, whitest button up and he’s even got on a tie today (he bought it at the same time as the coat, though it was much cheaper). He knows that Mako is not really going to notice, especially as his coat is just hanging on the hook behind his desk, but at least he’ll be able to look at her without feeling like a schlub.
“The Russians”, as Tendo calls them, arrive at ten fifty. Alexis and Sasha Kaidonovsky—they’re both crazy tall, with perfect posture that makes Raleigh feel like the last sane man in a world that is now only populated by Olympic athletes. Alexis is built like a tank, with a huge chest and broad shoulders. He’s got a black beard, but the rest of his hair is bleach blond, the same color as his wife’s, which is so weird. She’s also strong-looking, but more like a video game assassin than Alexis. She pulls off her coat as she approaches and drops it with her gloves on the counter.
“We’re here for the meeting,” she says, accent thick. “Where is it?”
“Just through here, at the end of the hall,” Raleigh says and feels sort of proud of himself, which is stupid, because he isn’t doing anything at all, really. “It’s a pleasure to have you here, Mr. and Mrs. Kaidonovsky.”
She nods and just leaves her coat there and Alexis follows suit. Ah well. There are worse things. Raleigh hangs up the coats, tucking Sasha’s gloves into her pocket so they don’t get lost, and returns to his desk. He’s supposed to wait until eleven to bring in the coffees and so now he’s just waiting for Dr. Geiszler, he thinks, because the other four board members—the three Chinese brothers and Herc Hansen, who Raleigh assumes is related to the lawyer—aren’t coming to this meeting. The head of sales was also supposed to come, but something came up in between and apparently they’re just going to be going over some report he’s emailing Pentecost.
Not that Raleigh really cares. He just needs to know how many people he’s waiting for.
It reaches eleven and Dr. Geiszler’s not arrived yet, so Raleigh decides to bring in the drinks really quick and then return to the desk. He gets up and lifts the drink holder in his right hand. It’s pretty precarious, but at least all the drinks have tops, so he shouldn’t have too much trouble. He’s just turned the corner when he hears the elevator doors open. He turns back around, ready to go and greet Dr. Geiszler. He’s not even around the corner when he collides with something and suddenly he’s on his ass, covered in coffee. It takes him a couple minutes to realize someone has walked into his right arm and that, out of instinct to stop himself landing on his left, he’d sort of flung the coffees into the air and twisted before hitting the ground.
“Watch where the fuck you’re going, shithead!”
He turns to his right and sees the dog from Friday. It’s licking the puddles that are fast soaking into the carpet. Raleigh stares at it for a moment and then realizes there’s a pair of shiny, black men’s shoes just behind the dog, the sort of shoes the officers wore with their dress uniforms. He looks up, gazing first at the man’s black trousers, which are flecked with cream and coffee; then at the man’s crisp blue shirt and red tie and the black, somehow perfectly fit suit coat; and then a face which Raleigh recognizes from Mako’s cover photo. The boyfriend guy. Only he’s definitely not smiling even like a douche. His face is red as he stamps his shoe on the ground, like he’s trying to shake off the bits of milk.
“The fuck are you doing, you fucking bogan? Trying to pour coffee on me and my fucking dog?”
Raleigh blinks, the shock of being on the floor slowly fading as he registers what the Facebook guy, who’s got a nasty case of the Steve Irwin as far as accents are concerned, is yelling about. “What?”
“Are you high? Get the fuck off the floor!” And he actually aims at kick at Raleigh’s right arm, but Raleigh scrambles back and on to his feet, his cuffs dripping with coffee, his tie looking like a make-shift noose. The guy snorts and shoves Raleigh lightly, a thermos in his hand. “Why don’t you go do whatever the fuck you do and clean up this fucking mess, right? We’ve got a board meeting today.”
He walks off, but the dog keeps cheerfully licking at the carpet.
Raleigh hopes he isn’t crying as the coffee and chocolate and whatever else cools rapidly on his shirt, which had been so perfectly white a few moments before. Slowly, he takes off his tie and drops it on the ground before wandering over to his desk. There’s a roll of paper towels underneath that he’s never gotten a chance to use until now. He unrolls about eighty and drops them on the floor before going down on his knees and pressing them into the carpet. They’re all soaking in about ten seconds, so he mashes them into a big wad, throws it in the waste paper basket beside his desk and unrolls some more. The dog trots after the old paper towels, as though Raleigh’s trying to play a game with him. He considers for a moment how fat the dog is and the way its skin flaps jiggle like jello.
Of course, that’s when the elevator doors open again. Raleigh sits up and sees Newt walk in. He freezes when he catches sight of Raleigh in his coffee-soaked shirt. His gaze shifts to the big stain on the carpet and the remains of the Starbucks cups and then back to Raleigh’s face.
“Oh my God,” he says and his voice is so fucking loud Raleigh almost does cry. “What happened?”
“I just spilled the coffees,” Raleigh says, his throat tight and why the fuck did they put him on this medication? It is just the worst. “I’ll run out and get more, don’t worry.”
“How did—” He starts coughing and then looks around the room like he’s searching for something. “Oh my God, why is that dog here?”
Raleigh glances away from the carpet for a minute to look at the dog. “I think it came in with, um, with Mr. Hansen.”
Newt looks from the dog to Raleigh, his eyes wide. “Is it Chuck Hansen that did this?”
Raleigh hesitates. “I don’t think it was on purpose—”
“Oh my God, I am going to murder that stupid—” Newt interrupts himself with a second bout of coughing. “That fucking dog,” he mutters, reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out an inhaler.
“MAX!” Well, now Raleigh knows whose voice that is.
The dog trots off, fat flaps bouncing. Newt glares at it as it goes, inhaler still in his mouth. Raleigh drops the paper towels to the ground and gets up.
“Do you need any water or tea or anything?” he asks because he knows how the asthma story goes. Newt shakes his head, lips pressed together.
“God damn dog,” he whispers, tucking the inhaler away again. He blinks a couple times, then looks straight at Raleigh’s face. “Here,” he says, pulling a wallet out of another pocket. “Go and get a second thing of drinks. I’ll tell them I fucked you up or something.”
Raleigh almost starts to object and then puts together the other possible outcomes, if he’s the one to explain what happened. “Thanks, man,” he says, tucking the money in his trouser pocket.
“No problem, dude. Fucking Chuck Hansen, am I right?”
Raleigh sort of speeds through getting the coffees and they’re not as perfect as the first batch, but they’re there. He’s standing in line, looking at the order, which was still folded up in his back pocket and realizes there’s no coffee order for Mako. He adds a green tea latte to the order, because it seems like the sort of thing she would drink and figures that if she doesn’t want it, he’ll pay back the cost and keep it for himself.
It takes him about half an hour, because he half-runs back to the office, trying to keep the drinks steady as he goes. He makes it up to the top floor and immediately veers towards the corridor.
Ha. They’ve not even dripped. Good job him.
So he ends up entering the conference room looking pretty fucking stupid, because he’s still wearing his overcoat with the one loose sleeve and his coffee-covered shirt. Pentecost nods as he enters and he sets the coffees down at the conference table. He turns to Mako, who’s wearing white blouse and black pants and a delicate-looking gold necklace, and picks up the green tea latte.
“You didn’t have a drink order,” he says, “so I grabbed you a green tea latte.”
She takes the drink and he notices that her nails are painted gold. Her mouth is half-open and there’s a slight flush in her cheeks. “Thank you, Mr. Becket,” she says carefully, catching his eye for a moment before looking back at her notes.
He quickly passes out the rest of the drinks—Geiszler gives him a pat on the elbow when he hands him the hot chocolate and Chuck Hansen looks like he might just rip out Raleigh’s throat—and then heads back to his desk. He can’t hear much of the conversation in the other room, only the occasional sound of raised voices. He catches the sound of Pentecost, Geiszler and Hansen, but Raleigh is also pretty sure that they’re some of the loudest people he’s ever met.
His shirt keeps sticking to his skin as he sits at the desk, stiffening in places and scratching his skin. At around one, he finally gives up, goes to the bathroom and tries to rinse the milk and coffee and chocolate out of his shirt. It sort of helps. The shirt is stained forever, but at least it doesn’t reek as much and it doesn’t crack when he bends his elbow. Of course, now he’s wearing a wet shirt, which is also unpleasant, but it’s water-wet, so that’s okay.
Around two, the Russians appear again from the corridor and Raleigh has to get their coats for them. They keep talking to him for about half an hour and at the end, Sasha Kaidonovsky slips a ten dollar bill in the right pocket of his trousers and winks at him. Raleigh is pretty sure he doesn’t ever want to know what just happened.
He sits back down at his desk and is just checking his email when a hand slaps the counter above his desk. He jumps and looks up and sees Chuck Hansen glaring down at him. He’s scowling and vaguely savage looking, but Raleigh takes advantage of the proximity and lack of threat of being kicked to get a better look at Chuck Hansen.
He’s definitely a red head, even if it’s sort of a blondish red, and he’s got a frighteningly steady gaze. It’s not made any less frightening by the paleness of his eyes and the pinkness of the skin which surrounds them. His features are largely pointed, but his face is round and he keeps tensing up around his mouth and... And Raleigh isn’t quite sure how Chuck manages it, but he keeps settling his mouth into less and less believable positions. If Raleigh wasn’t certain this was real life with real people, he would’ve suspected Scooby Doo-style shitty artwork.
Also his hairline is totally fucking receding.
“Ray,” Chuck says, his cheeks blotchy, the buttons of his shirt pulling a little across his chest, because Raleigh isn’t a little guy but Chuck is sort of nearing human tank territory. Still not as big as Aleksis Kaidonovsky though.
And then it hits him that Chuck thinks he’s addressing Raleigh and that this isn’t just some opportunity for Raleigh to size up Mako’s boyfriend. And he realizes that he’s going to have to respond, despite the fact that Chuck Hansen hasn’t even bothered with his name before talking to him.
“Um... Can I help you?”
“Yeah.”
Raleigh waits and then finally says, “What can I help you with?”
Chuck leans over the counter, bringing his face much closer than Raleigh necessarily feels comfortable with. “Listen, I hope I didn’t upset you earlier when I knocked into you,” he says, voice hushed. Raleigh stares. “Just... You weren’t holding those drinks properly and I felt that you needed to see that.”
Raleigh blinks and lets these words sink in. “Excuse me?”
Chuck scoffs. “You heard me,” he hisses. “You use two fucking hands when you’re carrying that much and you aren’t going to last here long if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“What?”
“Don’t act stupid, Ray,” Chuck says, leaning back and tossing his head like he’s a fucking race horse or something. “You managed to fax something which only took you, what, two hours? And Mako told me you fucked up her and Stacker’s lunches. You better start learning quick.” He purses his lips and looks like a duck. “Or you won’t last long.”
“Okay...” Raleigh rises from his chair. He knows that he has an impressive body, even with his left arm. He looks directly at Chuck’s face and thinks about Mako’s cover photo. Chuck’s nostrils flare as Raleigh looks at him. “I just want to re-hash this, just to make sure I’ve understood everything: you shoved me because you think I’m bad at my job and you wanted to teach me a lesson. Am I getting this straight?”
It’s like some sort of terrible calm before the storm—like Raleigh’s just chucked a rock at a hive and the bees are pouring out, ready to swarm. There’s something in Chuck’s creepy pale eyes that reminds Raleigh of something he might’ve seen in the face of wounded animal and he’s just about to start backpedaling when—
“Maybe you wouldn’t have had to be shoved if you were fucking doing your job!” Chuck shouts. Raleigh almost flinches except the whole situation is just too weird and Chuck is making literally no sense. He looks almost rabid now and Raleigh wonders if he should be worried about getting punched. Chuck’s clearly out of control and angry and the situation has really rapidly gone from weird and hilarious to terrifying because Chuck glances around him for a moment and then leans so close, their noses are almost touching, like it’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid—only if the Sundance Kid just fucking shot Butch out of fucking nowhere. There’s something really fucked up about Chuck Hansen and Raleigh almost just throws the argument when Chuck hisses, “Listen, Ray, why don’t you just fuck off? Alright?”
“What is your problem?” Raleigh asks, because he’s so done with this shit today. He’s especially done with Chuck’s shit, because he’s never even met the guy before and, yeah, okay, maybe Raleigh would’ve had a little grudge against him no matter what, because he’s Mako’s boyfriend. And Raleigh knows he has no right to Mako, but he can still be angry at this fucking crazy douche that she’s dating.
“I think you’re incompetent and I don’t like people who can’t even carry a tray of drinks trying to hit on Mako, alright?” Chuck snaps, eyes wide and wild. “And if you try fucking anything with her, I will fucking kill you. Got it?”
He shoves Raleigh back so he stumbles into the wall and then stalks off to his office, his hands still balled into fists, just as Gottlieb rounds the corner, Newt following at his heels. Newt glances back at Chuck and then gives Raleigh a questioning look.
“How are you doing, Raleigh?” he asks and Gottlieb mutters something. Newt rounds on him. “Oh my God, Hermann! I am just trying to talk to another human being! What the fuck!”
“I will not have this argument in public!” Gottlieb snaps, papers clutched to his chest.
Newt rolls his eyes and then turns back to Raleigh. “We should do lunch sometime,” he says, even as Gottlieb drags him to the elevator.
“Sounds good!” Raleigh says, but Newt and Gottlieb are arguing again and Raleigh isn’t sure his response is totally heard.
Raleigh spends the next couple hours at his desk, just thinking about of the growing itchiness of his shirt, glancing constantly toward the corridor, waiting for Chuck Hansen to run back out and kill him. But nothing really happens. He ends up running out the clock by reorganizing his multi-colored post-its that he’s not really gotten much of a chance to use and taping all the Mako notes to a couple pages of copier paper so they don’t go missing. He slips the page in his top drawer, which is still largely empty. He’s really not properly moved into his office yet. He knows Tendo has a lot of family pictures around his desk, but Raleigh doesn’t really have much in his apartment that he can move in.
Mako comes by at four forty-five, pulling on her coat, briefcase in hand. She turns when she sees Raleigh and smiles at him, her lips curved and beautiful.
And because Raleigh is completely fucked, because he’s either going to be killed by Mako’s loveliness or Chuck Hansen’s terrifying fury—because he’s the sort of idiot that falls in love too quickly and too fully (Yancy used to tease him about it, said that Raleigh was allergic to one-night stands, just because of how upset Raleigh would be by his lack of any “real relationships”—called him The Constant Groom, which was stupid and barely funny at all).
Because Mako is condescending and kind and infuriating and perfect, Raleigh smiles back.
“Are you heading out, Ms. Mori?” he asks, somehow forgetting that he’s still wearing his coffee-covered shirt when she nods, hair swinging.
“Mr. Pentecost has let me off early,” she says, her voice soft. She pauses, as though thinking something over, and then approaches the desk. “You know... the green tea...” She hesitates again. “It’s my favorite drink.” She squints a little like she’s trying to figure him out. “Did you just guess it?”
“Yeah,” Raleigh says and it sort of feels like he’s swallowed sunshine. “Yeah, I did.” He laughs a little and, suddenly, perfectly, she dissolves into giggles, arms folded on the counter above his desk, face bowed.
She recovers after a couple moments, her eyes still shining.
“Goodnight, Mr. Becket,” she says, running a hand across the counter as she turns to leave. Her gold nail polish flashes as she goes. “I hope you have a lovely evening.”
Raleigh smiles, even though she can’t see him. “You too, Ms. Mori.”
She turns back around when she steps into the elevator and gives him a little wave as the doors slide shut and, at that moment, Raleigh makes an announcement to himself.
Chuck Hansen can go suck a dick.