The Apology

It's a normal Saturday. Coffee, cereal, the game on mute. Then three knocks, confident and familiar, like she owns your door. You open it and time folds in half. Red hair. Freckles. Curves that fight a losing war against a white tank top and denim shorts. It's Jade. Your Jade, except she was never yours—she was your tormentor, back when you were twenty-two and green and she was the girl who ran the office floor and made your life a running joke for two years. "Hey," she says. "You gonna stare, or you gonna let me in?"

You step aside because your brain hasn't caught up. She walks past you into your apartment like she's been here before, like she's checking it against a mental file.

"Nice place. Cleaner than I expected." She turns, hands on her hips. "You were always the guy with the organized desk. Post-its color-coded. God, I used to want to set them on fire."

"Jade. Why are you here?" "Direct. Good. I hated that about you." She grins. "Okay. I'm here because I owe you an apology, and I've spent three years trying to figure out how to say it without sounding like an ass. Turns out there's no way, so: I'm sorry. I was an ass. A huge one. The biggest."

You sit across from her, arms crossed, and you don't make it easy. You shouldn't. She called you "Post-it" for two years. She told the whole floor you cried in the bathroom once, which you had, because of her. "That's it? 'Sorry I was an ass'?"

"No, that's the headline. There's a body to the article." She leans forward, elbows on her knees, and for the first time she looks nervous. "I was awful to you because I liked you. Which is the dumbest sentence I've ever said out loud, and I've said 'I liked you so I was cruel'—"

"That's not an excuse, Jade." "I know. It's not an excuse. It's a confession." She holds your eyes. "You were the nicest guy in that building and I made you dread coming to work. There's no fixing it. There's just saying it."

The apology goes badly. You tell her about the bathroom thing. You tell her about the Christmas party, when she announced to the whole room that you'd brought your mom as your date. She winces at each one like you're throwing darts. "The Christmas party," she groans, hiding her face. "God. I want to travel back and tackle myself."

"You'd be tackling yourself on my behalf. That's new." "Look—" She drops her hands. "I got fired from that place two years after you left. New manager. Younger, meaner, did to me exactly what I did to you. I lasted eight months. You lasted two years with me. You were tougher than I ever gave you credit for."

You laugh before you can stop yourself. Her whole face lights up like she's won something. "There he is," she says quietly.

She stands and wanders your apartment, touching things—the bookshelf, the frame with you and your mom at her retirement. She stops at your kitchen wall.

"Is that a pull-up bar? You work out now?" "Some." "Show me." "No."

"Post-it," she says, and it's a test, and you know it. You do ten pull-ups because your pride is a stupid animal, and when you drop down she's very close, looking at your arms in a way she isn't even pretending to hide. "Huh," she says. "Bullies create their own punishment, apparently."

You make coffee because you need something to do with your hands. She leans on the counter beside you, close enough that you catch coconut and something warmer underneath.

"I'm not here to be forgiven, you know," she says. "I mean, I am, but. I looked you up. Took me a month to get brave. I drove past this building twice and chickened out." "So the third time's the charm." "The third time I told myself, Jade, you made this man's life hell, the least you can do is let him slam a door in your face." Her eyes come up to yours. "You didn't slam it."

"No." "Why not?" You hold her gaze. "You know why not."

She sets her mug down with a click that sounds louder than it should.

"Okay. I'm going to say the thing, and if you want me to leave, I'll leave, and I'll never bother you again." A breath. "I haven't stopped thinking about you since you quit. Not guilt—okay, some guilt—but mostly just you. The way you'd smile at the receptionist even when I'd been a bitch all day. The way you never once snapped back. I used to go home and be so mad at myself, and then I'd think about your stupid kind face, and—" She stops. "I'm doing this badly."

"You're doing it fine." "Can I kiss you? Because I've wanted to for about four years and I've earned exactly zero right to ask."

You answer by kissing her. She makes a sound against your mouth—surprise, relief, hunger, all at once—and her hands come up to your jaw like she's afraid you'll evaporate. She kisses like she apologizes: too much, all at once, no technique to it, just need.

"Okay," she breathes when you break apart, forehead against yours. "Okay. Wow. I had a whole speech about taking it slow." "Rip it up."

"Don't tell me twice." She grabs your hand and puts it flat on her breast, over her tank top, her heartbeat hammering under your palm. "I've been dying to feel your hands on me since the day you fixed the copier and your sleeves were rolled up. Tell me I'm not the only one who's been dying." "You're not the only one."

You pull her tank top up and off, and her breasts spill free—full, heavy, pale with freckles across the tops, her nipples already hard and pink. She watches your face while you look, and what she sees there makes her smile go soft and filthy at the same time. "Four years of wondering what your face would do," she says. "Worth it."

You take one nipple into your mouth and she hisses, fingers plunging into your hair, back arching. "Oh, fuck—okay, yes, that, more of that—" You switch to the other breast, squeezing the wet one with your hand, and she's already grinding against your thigh like she can't help it, like her body's been waiting as long as she says it has.

She shoves your shorts down and wraps her hand around your cock, and her breath catches like she's unwrapping a present. "Post-it," she murmurs, stroking you slow, "you've been holding out on this entire city." "Stop calling me that."

"Make me." She drops to her knees on your kitchen floor and takes you into her mouth, hot and eager, no hesitation, her green eyes pinned up on yours. She works you with her hand and her tongue together, moaning around you like it's for her, like your cock in her mouth is something she's fantasized about specifically—and the way she's acting, it is.

You pull her up before you finish and she whines in protest, then understands, and the whine becomes a growl. She shoves her shorts down, steps out of them, plants her hands on the back of your couch and looks back over her shoulder. "Like this. First time, I want you to see all of me. Deal?"

You press into her pussy from behind, one long slow stroke, and she drops her head and groans like she's been carrying something heavy for years and finally set it down. "Oh my God. Fuck. I missed— I never even had you and I missed you." You find your rhythm and she meets every thrust, her ass shaking against you, her moans getting rougher, dirtier, all that old meanness gone, replaced by "yes, there, right there, don't stop, don't you dare stop—"

You flip her onto her back on the couch and her legs lock around you, heels against your ass, pulling you deeper on every stroke. Her red hair is everywhere, her breasts bouncing, and she's talking nonstop now—filthy and honest and undone. "You feel so good, I can't—I'm gonna come, are you close? Come with me, please, I want to feel it, I want—" Her words shatter. Her pussy clamps down on you, her whole body arching, and she sobs out her orgasm against your neck.

Two more strokes and you bury yourself deep and come inside her, groaning, her arms and legs tightening around you like she's keeping you.

Afterward she lies half on top of you, your heartbeat under her ear, her fingers drawing lazy circles on your chest. She's quiet for a long time, which for Jade is a miracle. "So," she says finally. "That apology. On a scale of one to ten." "Seven." "Seven?!" She props up on her elbow, outraged, hair wrecked, lips swollen, magnificent. "I made you come so hard you forgot my name for a second. I saw your eyes roll." "I don't remember a seven including the Christmas party story." "That's it. I'm doing remedial apologies. Weekly. Minimum." She flops back down onto your chest and settles in like she lives there now. "You're stuck with me, Post-it. I've got years of meanness to make up for, and I take my debts seriously." You laugh, and you don't argue, and you don't want to.