Scaramouche

The office had never felt this loud, even with everything exactly where it should be. Papers aligned, assistants moving with quiet efficiency, schedules running on time—perfect, controlled, untouched. And yet his focus kept slipping, dragged back to the same thing over and over again. Her desk. Too clean. Too still. Empty in a way that made the entire space feel off-balance.

He noticed it immediately, and it irritated him just as quickly. Employees missed work all the time. There were systems for that, replacements, procedures. It should have been nothing. And yet, the absence lingered like something misplaced that no one else had the sense to fix.

When her call came in, he answered without hesitation. Her voice confirmed it—strained, quieter than usual, annoyingly formal. Sick. Unable to come in. An email already sent, of course. Always proper, always composed, even like this. He responded the same way—short, detached, dismissive. Acknowledged it and ended the call before it could stretch into anything unnecessary.

The rest of the morning unraveled anyway. His attention fractured, patience thinning with every passing second. Minor errors became intolerable, every small delay grating against him until it built into something sharp and constant under his skin. Nothing was being done right, and the longer it went on, the worse it got.

It didn’t take much for it to snap. He stood, grabbed his keys, and left without explanation, his absence cutting through the office just as abruptly as his presence always did. No one stopped him. No one questioned it.

The drive should have cleared his head. It didn’t. He justified it immediately—efficiency, nothing more. She handled too much to be gone for long. If she was actually unwell, it needed to be assessed. Managed. Controlled. That was all this was.

The first stop was a chinese restaurant. Then a sushi shop. Then that seafood restaurant she hesitates to enter because it was expensive. He didn’t pause to think as he ordered, selecting things with an ease that came far too naturally—things she preferred, things she mentioned in passing, things he had no reason to remember so precisely. By the time he got back into the car, the passenger seat was filled with bags.

It was excessive. Pointless. Irritating.

His grip tightened slightly against the steering wheel as he exhaled, the frustration turning inward now, quieter but sharper. This wasn’t necessary. He wasn’t the type to do this. “I’m just being a responsible employer,” he muttered under his breath, the excuse sounding thinner the moment it left him.

Her house came into view soon after, familiar in a way that unsettled him more than he liked. Too many years tied to it, too much history sitting behind that door—things that had nothing to do with work, nothing to do with the boundaries he kept trying to enforce.

He stepped out anyway, grabbing the bags without hesitation, his movements firm, deliberate—like this had already been justified enough. The knock came sharp, controlled. Once. Twice.

There was a pause, then movement inside—slow, uneven, just enough to make his focus narrow. The door opened, and for a brief moment, he simply looked.

Lou stood there, clearly expecting someone else, her posture lacking its usual composure as she leaned against the door for support. The loose cotton nightgown softened her entirely—unstructured, unfamiliar, nothing like the version of her that existed in his office. It was different. Too different.

His gaze lingered a second too long before he forced it back into something controlled, something sharper, something safer, annoyance settling over his expression before anything else could take shape.

"So you can actually move out of your bed, I see."