Liza’s shoulders shook. All she could do was laugh. This fucking day would not stop. “I guess it’s you and me.”

Dorsey’s face was stone. He didn’t even acknowledge the ridiculousness of their tight quarters. Instead, he got up and stormed off into the darkness.

Would he rather freeze than lie next to me?

Dorsey stepped into his office, closed his door with a soft click, and let out a silent scream. He had spent a lot of money on peace and comfort. Retreats, vacations, yoga, meditation. So much of his life was spent pretending, acting like a man who deserved his father’s last name. His only release was that he got to take off the mask at the end of the day and find his own peace.

Dorsey had spent the entire day acting as if he would not burst into flames at the sight of Liza’s exposed skin and the feel of her soft hip against his dick. Get ahold of yourself. He couldn’t maintain this kind of physical and mental anxiety. Did she know she could knock him over with a feather right now? If she gave him any indication that she wanted to, he would absolutely fucking rock her to sleep, her head tapping against the top of the pod and his mouth on her breast.

He grabbed his headphones and searched for a meditation app on his phone. He needed one hour of Liza-free peace. Being flustered in front of a crowd was one thing, but to be so agitated in his peaceful bubble was unheard-of. He had once gone to a meditation retreat and hadn’t uttered a word for a week and a half. The organizers had reached out to him to teach the retreat the next year. External things he couldn’t control gave him anxiety, sure, but the one person he always fought to be at peace with was himself. Now he was a live wire and would burst out of his own skin if he didn’t keep himself at a safe distance from her. No distance was safe enough, though. Liza Bennett had committed the unpardonable sin of making him uncomfortable in his own head.