I check the message, and my breathing stops.
Luke sent me a selfiein the shower. Caption: needed one of these too.
It cuts off right above his crotch, but the picture still shows all the important parts: water running down his skin, the top of his neatly trimmed bush, just enough to hint at what lies outside the frame, and that smirk. That damn smoldering smirk. The selfie is in our text history, too.
It’s there for me to revisit whenever I want.
Because I’m one to return a favor, I unzip my hoodie and snap my own suggestive shot from above, my thumb hooking the waistband of my sweatpants. It’s nowhere near as good as thephoto he sent, but Luke still returns a string of fire emojis after I send it off.
“Fuck, Luke,”I think to myself.“What have you done to me?”
I can’t come back from this, but I want it anyway.
13
LUKE
DECEMBER
The last square is aligned, the numbers are triple-checked, and I’ve managed to get rid of every single spelling error. At long last, I’m ready to send the last deck to Ajay. He’ll probably return it with thirty-seven revisions stemming from organizational changes that nobody told me about, but this is my best attempt.
Sent. Now I wait. It’s almost 1 p.m., and Alvik is about to start a game against a team called Uppsala, so I open up the SHL+ app on my TV. There’s some pre-game coverage going on, and I can’t understand any of it since it’s in Swedish, but the vibes don’t need translation.
Maybe I should start learning—I know there’s an app for that.
I get through most of the first period before my laptop pings with a message from Ajay, and I mute the game before returning to my office to give him a call. He picks up, we exchange the usual corporate greetings, and then we get down to business.
“Okay Luke,” Ajay says. “The deck looks great, but?—”
Of course there’s a but.
“—we received instructions this morning that going forward, we will be reporting Australian results under the Europe category, not Asia-Pacific.”
My mouth moves to speak before I can stop myself, which hasn’t happened to me since starting this job. “Has anyone at this company evenlookedat a map? Why the—” I cut myself off and regroup momentarily. “Whyon earthare we including Australian results in Europe? What are we, Eurovision?”
“I totally get it, and I had the exact same reaction when I found out.”
“Right.”
“I’ll forward you the email now so we can make the revisions.”
My inbox refreshes and I open the email that would have been a lot more useful if I had received itmyselfin the first place. I scan it, fixating on one tiny, almost illegible line.
As of January of the next fiscal year, internal results from Australia and New Zealand will be reported under the Europe group due to corporate restructuring.
No amount of restructuring, short of shifting the layouts of entire continents, could ever make this change appear logical. At least not to me.
“Okay, the email says that the change only applies next year. Can we just make a note on the slides and call it a day?”
Ajay squints at the screen, and I get a close-up view of his hair brushing against the camera.
“You’re right,” he says. “Your proposal checks out. If anyone has an issue with it, I can tell them to communicate any future nonsensical changes further in advance.”
“Thanks, that’s a relief. I’ll make the changes now.”
“Oh, Luke, I remembered something else.”
“Yes?”
