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Enhancing Synergy Through Workplace Optimization

Alfred hunched over his keyboard, head in hands. He stared at his monitors, the spreadsheets and their lists of numbers blurring into a gray mess. It was only nine and already he couldn’t focus anymore. Not even the two cups of coffee had helped. Neither did the angry muttering in the cube next to his. He glanced behind him at the dark office, the door closed and blinds drawn.

She still wasn’t in.

He turned back to his monitors. Why wasn’t she in yet? The company president had told everyone that she would be in the first thing today. Was her lateness a good thing or a bad thing? Did it mean she would be lenient or uncaring?

He dropped his head to the desk and closed his eyes. He was too tired for this shit.

“Whoa,” said John, a cube-mate. “You don’t look good at all, man. You doing alright?”

Alfred looked up at the bear anthro, the brown-muzzled face awash with concern. “How do you think I feel?” he said. “There’s been mutterings of layoffs for months now after the acquisition and that announcement yesterday all but confirmed it.”

John plastered an easy smile on his face and leaned over the cubicle wall. It creaked under his weight. “That’s what’s got you so worked up? That ain’t nothing but some consultant lady here to tell manglement they need to stop spending so much money on farming out reports to consultants.”

Fingering a threadbare cuff, Alfred glanced back at the dark office. “I wish. I’m so fucked.”

“Aw man, don’t say things like that. You’ll be fine. You’re like, half the reason that our department finishes any projects at all.”

Alfred chuckled weakly, and rubbed at the loose skin under his eyes. “I’ve just got a bad feeling about this, John. Our entire department is technically redundant from the merger—hell, OpCo has three divisions that are entirely dedicated to the work our department does. They don’t need us.”

John frowned, and reached over to push Alfred’s shoulder. “What’d I say about talking like that? It ain’t going to help none and it’s just going to keep you in this funk.”

Alfred stared John in the eyes. “I have bills to pay, John. I can’t afford to lose this job right now.” He clenched his fists, pressing them into the table. John stared at him for a moment.

“It’ll work out,” John said. “You’ll see.”

“You don’t understand, I—”

“I said, it’ll work out.” John crossed his bulky arms, looking down at Alfred with a stern gaze.

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

“How could you possibly know that I won’t get fired and be safe from total bankruptcy?”

“I never said that. I said that it’ll all work out.”

A muscle in Alfred’s jaw twitched. “That doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“That’s a you problem,” John said, nodding to himself. “What you need is to learn to let go sometimes. These things are out of your control, so you should stop worrying about them.”

“That’s not going to help me pay the bills.”

“Maybe, maybe not. It all works out in the end.”

“You keep saying that and I’m going to stab you with a pen.”

John’s eyes twitched up to focus on something moving and he straightened. Alfred turned around and found the company president leading a short female mouse anthro towards the darkened office. She was wearing a black suit and skirt, with dark stockings that stopped just above the knee and a white button-up that was parted at the top to show a generous amount of cleavage. She carried a hefty-looking bag over one shoulder that banged against her wide hips, a thin hairless tail raised in the air behind her. She had to hustle to keep up with the stout pig anthro that was the president, pushing up her round glasses that framed her green eyes rather nicely, in Alfred’s opinion, along with light strawberry-blonde hair that barely reached the bottom of her chin. She couldn’t have been more than four-and-a-half feet tall to the top of her head, though her ears easily added another half-foot.

The president let the mouse lady into the office and closed the door behind them, light flickering on to illuminate the blinds. John gave a low whistle, and leaned over to slap Alfred on the shoulder.

“You got this in the bag,” John said, that dumb smile returning to his face. “Just turn on those lady-killer moves of yours and she’ll be all over you like white on rice.”

“Shut up,” said Alfred.

“Come on, did you see those piercings in her ears? The open shirt? She’s a desperate woman, I can tell you that.”

Alfred put his head in his hands. “This conversation is getting uncomfortable and I don’t want any part of it.”

“Don’t be like that, I bet she’s your type. She seemed a little stuck up. Like she has a stick up her ass.”

“John, this is a professional environment. We are at work right now. I’m not going to try hitting on the person that’s deciding which of us to fire.”

John raised an eyebrow. “You know, you really are a prude sometimes.”

Alfred rubbed his face, groaning. “Not this again.”

“Common man, you gotta loosen up sometime. Live a little.”

“That’s because I’m trying to get work done.”

John shook his head. “Life’s too short for that, man.” He scratched his snout, staring at the closed office door. “You know what you should do? You should go in there, play up your sob story, and then start laying it on thick. She’ll be eating out of your hand in no time at all.”

There was a banging of a keyboard from the cube on the other side. The angry muttering grew louder.

Alfred looked up at John. “Why are you telling me to do this? I’m not looking to get written up for sexual harassment. I want to keep my job, thank you very much.”

“It’s just a job, you know?” John said, looking back down at Alfred. “Personally, if you ask me I think you would be better off if you took a break for a bit. If you have to get fired for that to happen, then hey—” John shrugged.

Alfred let his mouth part, unable to come up with a single witty retort. “I need this job,” he said in a tone that sounded like a pathetic whine even to his own ears. The two stared at each other.

Nancy from the next cube over stood up, gold eyes widened and strands of black hair escaping the bun between her two triangle-shaped ears. She gave Alfred a strained smile before locking eyes on John.

“Are you two done talking yet?” she asked, voice shaking ever so slightly.

“Do you need help with something?” John said, turning to her.

“Yes please.” She twitched. “The damn computer isn’t opening the spreadsheet that I’m supposed to be submitting today and I’ve been at it for the past half-hour. Can you please help?”

“Well, you heard the lady,” John said to Alfred, reaching over to slap him on the shoulder again. “I’m needed elsewhere. Can’t keep chatting all day long, I’m afraid.”

“Heaven forbid that I get any actual work done,” Alfred mumbled.

“Hey,” John said, voice becoming serious and resting his meaty handpaw on Alfred’s shoulder. He felt a little intimidated by the sheer weight of the thing, though the look in John’s eyes was all concern. “Don’t worry so much, you hear? It’s not good for you.”

Alfred didn’t know what to say. He had never seen John look so serious before.

“Besides,” John said, a soft smile spreading across his muzzle. “It’ll all work out in the end.” He patted Alfred’s shoulder and walked back out of his cube and into Nancy’s.

“Now, what was it that you said you needed help with?” he said, voice muffled.

Alfred let his head flop onto his desk, clenched a fist, and pounded the flimsy particleboard. His keyboard and mouse jumped, clattering over the depressingly-gray surface. Fucking John.

Nancy mumbled something inaudible.

He picked up his head and moused over to his email client, checking his calendar. The meeting time with the consultant hadn’t changed since the last time he had looked twenty minutes ago—it still read quarter to five. He couldn’t imagine how he would get through the day knowing that meeting was at the end. Then again, he couldn’t imagine what it would be like if he had the meeting first thing in the morning and had to spend the rest of the day worrying about how it went.

Either way he wasn’t going to get anything done.

Alfred leaned back in his chair and stared up at the tiles in the drop ceiling. The image of John’s soft smile came back into his head and Alfred wondered if maybe John was right about things just “working out.” It had certainly worked out for the bear—at times Alfred wasn’t sure how John even kept his job here. Alfred wasn’t sure if he even wanted to know.

The door to the office behind him opened, and he tried to appear like he wasn’t turning around to stare at the company president stepping out and saying that if the mouse needed any help she could give him a call. He winked and then flinched when a sharp voice gave him a terse response. It was too short and far away for Alfred to catch any of the words, but it sounded disparaging enough from where he was sitting.

The president shut the door and walked off. Alfred quickly turned around to pretend that he was working. He stared at his monitors and the too-small numbers on them, his brain feeling like mush. He closed his eyes, feeling dead inside.

***

Somehow the morning had flown by and it was the afternoon already, and Alfred’s meeting was fast approaching. He didn’t know where the time had gone. Normally days where he had nothing to do took forever, and he certainly had done nothing productive all day.

John was back to leaning on the cubicle wall between them,

“She listened to me for half a minute,” he was saying, “and then threw me out. I think you two would be perfect for each other—assuming that you can pull the sticks out of each other’s ass.”

“That’s nice,” Alfred said, glancing at the clock on his main monitor. Frankly, he wasn’t listening at all. There was somehow only five more minutes left until his own meeting with the consultant.

“I’m being serious here. I was pretty surprised myself—I know that she was meeting with everyone in the department, but we don’t have that many people here. She could give me more than half a minute.”

Alfred gave a surreptitious glance towards the office behind him.

“Alfred?” John asked.

“What?” Alfred said, turning around to look up at John’s puzzled face.

“Are you listening to me?”

“I’m not.” Alfred checked his clock again. Four minutes, now. He should get up and go stand by the door so he wouldn’t be late.

“Oh,” John said, the look on his face so openly disappointed that it made Alfred pause.

“I’m sorry, John, I don’t mean it like that. You know I’ve been stressing out about this meeting all day—it’s the only thing I’ve been able to think about.”

John brightened somewhat. “I’ll say. You didn’t even want to come have lunch with us.”

Alfred pursed his lips. He wanted to say that he never had lunch with the others, but didn’t want to risk ruining John’s mood again.

The office door opened and he turned around to see Nancy hurry out, ears laid back and a distressed look on her face. She made her way over to Alfred’s cube and stopped to lean up against the outside wall, letting out a big breath.

“Hey there, Nancy,” John said. “You doing alright? You’re looking as tense as Alfred.” He gave the cat a smile, and she responded with an appreciative one of her own.

“I’m fine,” she said, throwing a glance back at the office door and shuddering. “Or I’ll be fine. That lady—I thought I was the mouse and she was the cat.” She turned back around and closed her eyes, the fur on the back of her neck poofing up. She sucked in a deep breath and held it for a moment before blowing it out through her nose and slumping over the top of cubicle wall.

“I told you that there was something strange about her.”

“I didn’t know that she would be that strange,” Nancy said, turning her head to look questioningly at Alfred. “Now I’m curious to see what your meeting will be like.”

“They’ll probably immediately get along,” John said jokingly, letting out a chuckle. “Maybe they’ll be able to swap tips on those sticks they keep up their butts.”

“Aw, don’t be so mean to Alfred, John.” Nancy gave Alfred an apologetic smile. “The stick in your butt is very nice.”

Alfred rolled his eyes. The two went back and forth more, but he tuned their chattering out. None of this was making him feel any better about his meeting. His stomach was doing flips and there was a tingling in his fingertips. He checked the time again. Two minutes.

He stood, absentmindedly brushing the front of his shirt. Should he go over there now and be early? Should he wait instead?

“He just hasn’t found the one,” Nancy was saying, “I have friends that are the same as him—quiet, awkward, and couldn’t carry a conversation to save their lives. But as soon as they found their soulmate—bless them, you couldn’t get a single piece of paper between the two after that.”

“Maybe,” John said, stroking his snout and looking over Alfred.

Alfred started walking over to the office. He didn’t need to hear the rest of their discussion.

“Don’t forget, it’ll all work out in the end,” John called out. Alfred grumbled under his breath and paused a moment in front of the cracked door. He couldn’t hear anything from the other side, so he raised a hand and knocked on the door frame.

“Come in,” said a sharp voice. He did so, sliding into the room with his best impression of a friendly smile on his face. “Shut the door, please.”

He did and stood awkwardly, watching her shuffle a stack of papers and place them neatly next to an open laptop. She looked up at him, a frown on her face.

“Sit, please,” she said, gesturing at a chair in front of the desk. He pulled the chair back and folded himself into the hard plastic seat, which was more of a stool with a backrest since it had to accommodate such a wide range of body types.

The mouse leaned forward, pushing her glasses up her small muzzle and looked over him with those big green eyes of hers. He watched them glint in the cold white light and was taken back with how warm they appeared, compared to how stiff the rest of her was.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Newman,” she said in a tone so dry that for a second he thought it had been a recording. “I’m Heather Finley.”

She dropped her strangely soft eyes to the desk and pulled a sheet of paper from her pile, clicking a ballpoint pen that had magically appeared in her hand and writing a line of neat text that was too small for him to make out.

“Tell me about yourself,” she said

Alfred took a deep breath. This was it. Time to sell himself. No pressure—it wasn’t like he was behind on rent and would likely be evicted if he lost this job.

“I’ve been working here as a project manager for six years now. I’ve led multiple—”

Heather cleared her throat and he cut himself off. “Cut the bullshit,” she said.

“Excuse me?” Alfred said, shocked by the profanity.

“You look like a zombie, but you’re talking like you’re desperate to keep this job. That means one of two things—either you’re a misguided brown-nosing pushover or you’ve got debt coming out of your ears.”

Alfred blinked at her. She put her pen down, adjusted her glasses, and leaned forwards.

“Which one are you?” she asked him.

He opened his mouth but found he had no words to say.

She gave him a smile that was both predatory and kind at the same time. “We’re all alone in here. I don’t really work for either your old company or the one that’s taking over—I’m just a consultant. You can say whatever you want to say, you’re not going to insult me.”

“But,” he began, struggling to put the words together in his head. For all his worrying about how the meeting would go, being asked so casually to spill his true feelings was not somehting that he had thought about.

“But what?”

“You’re interviewing us to see which positions are redundant.”

She chuckled and her smile widened, and he couldn’t help but feel a small bit of relief despite the circumstances.

“Is that what you think this is?” she asked.

“That’s what we were told,” he said, shifting in his seat. His butt was already going numb. “More or less.”

“I’m only here to map out the structure of your department.”

“Oh.” Alfred slumped in his seat, more relief washing over him. It was extremely welcome. “You’re not here to figure out which of us to can?”

“I’m not,” she said. “Now, after I give my report to management they might decide that one or two of you are costing them more money then you make, but that decision’s not up to me and I won’t be pointing any fingers myself.”

Alfred’s stomach clenched and he felt nauseous. “Oh.”

She picked up her pen and scribbled out another couple of words.

“You still haven’t told me which one you are,” she said. “Ass-kisser or debit-drowner?”

He stared at the piece of paper on the desk, desperately wishing that he could read whatever she had written on it. But he was also fine with not knowing, considering the fact that she had figured him out so fast. He met her eyes, those wonderfully green eyes, and all of the thoughts flew from his grasp. Even his stomach unknotted a little. He didn’t understand how she could have eyes that kind and work in this kind of business. They were too kind and understanding. Maybe that was her secret—it was certainly having an effect on him.

She set her pen down with a sharp clack. “Your answer, please? We don’t have all day here.”

“Sorry, it’s been a long day and your eyes are really nice.” Alfred clamped his mouth shut and turned to stare at the wall, face reddening. Why did he say that? It was those damn eyes, they made him feel like he could say anything and he wouldn’t be judged for it.

Heather raised an eyebrow at him. “So does that mean you’re the ass-kisser type?”

“No, no,” he said, turning back to her and raising his hands in defense.

“Really? Because it sounded like you were going to make a pass on me.”

Alfred found himself once again enraptured by those eyes. “It’s not like that,” he said, trailing off. It wasn’t, right? It was the first thing that came to his mind and he probably should have known better, but there really was something about those eyes.

“Then what is is like?” She placed her elbows on the desk and cradled her chin in her hands, a knowing smile on her face.

Alfred was at a loss for words. This meeting had gone in a completely different direction than he had thought, and he had no backup plan. What was he supposed to do? Be completely straight with her? That would be risking his job for sure, but she would see right though him if tried avoiding her question.

What would be the harm if he told her how he really felt about the job? From somewhere inside his head Alfred could hear John saying, it’ll work out in the end. He twitched, eyes losing focus.

“I’m waiting,” Heather said in a playful voice, tilting her head. Her hair shifted, shimmering in the light. He looked into those green eyes of hers and made up his mind.

“Drowning,” he said, and a voice in his head added in your eyes. He leaned forward, propping himself up on his knees, and switched to staring at the desk. It was much nicer than his—the top surface was actual wood, even if it was just a veneer.

“I mean, the debit one,” he added.

“Was that so hard?” she asked.

He shook his head slowly. It had felt good, even. Liberating. He had intentionally kept the fact he was so far underwater to himself because it was embarrassing, but he couldn’t deny the sheer amount of relief that washed over him in that moment.

“I’ve been paying back the same fucking loan for over six years now and it doesn’t feel like I’ve made any progress at all,” he said, clenching his hands. Now that he had started the words wouldn’t stop. “I’m stuck in this dead-end job and I’m barely keeping myself afloat. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve worked my ass off and I’m still in the same damn position. It’s always ‘we’ll take a look into it’ or ‘ask me later’ and it never goes anywhere.”

He placed his head in his hands. He was entering dangerous territory now but he didn’t care anymore. It would all work out in the end, right? “I haven’t been able to buy anything but food for the past two years,” he said, screwing his eyes shut against the hot tears that welled up from the corners. “Sometimes not even that, between utilities and rent increasing, on top of student loans. I haven’t taken a single day off my entire time here and when I’m at home I don’t know what to do with myself.”

Alfred sat up and wiped his eyes. “Fuck,” he said, voice shaking. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—that was very unprofessional of me.”

Heather was looking on with sympathy, and the great sensation of relief he felt earlier faded away. Now he only felt scummy from unloading all of his shit in this supposedly professional meeting. This had been an especially poor idea and he didn’t know what he was thinking.

“If you were free of all that,” Heather said nonchalantly, “what would you do?” Her eyes glittered and he knew with absolutely certainty that she was being sincere.

He looked down at the desk and neat stack of papers next to her laptop. He knew that he had embarrassed himself enough and yet the childhood memory of a vacation to the beach came rushing back to him. He smelled the salt in the air again, felt the crisp breeze from the ocean. The waves crashed on the sand to one side, and on the other was a line of buildings. His mother dragged him into one that had a painting of a cartoon flower on the front glass. A bell tinkled above his head and the door closed behind him, shutting out the soft murmur of the sea. He was surrounded by more flowers than he had ever seen before, all different colors and shapes and smells. The salt was still there in the air, but muted by all the scents of the flowers around him vying for his attention. He stood still, trying to figure out what the fizzing feeling in his chest was. He turned around in an attempt to catch his breath and instead found himself transfixed by the sight of the ocean through the front window, stretching out to meet the sky all the way out at forever. White puffy clouds hung impossibly weightless above the shimmering sea. He took a deep breath through his nose. He didn’t know what the feeling in his chest was yet but he wanted to feel it for the rest of his life.

Alfred blinked. His eyes were hot again, and he rubbed at them. It all works out in the end, John’s voice said.

“I would open a flower shop by the beach,” Alfred said, meeting Heather’s gaze. Her mouth parted, eyes widening. “I got a business degree and everything, but it turns out that you need to have money to start something like that.” He shrugged and gave her a wry smile. “I suppose that I should have planned that out a little better—like being born rich. That would have helped a lot.”

She let out a soft “ha,” green eyes wide in disbelief. The endless stare made him self-conscious and he looked down at her pen frozen in mid-air above the paper. He reminded himself that she was just some random person that he would probably never meet again, so it didn’t really matter if he looked like a fool to her.

The silence stretched out and he glanced around the room surreptitiously, looking for a clock. There was none to be found, and his eyes ended up falling back on Heather. She was still staring at him with those green eyes, and the tips of her ears had reddened.

He turned and cleared his throat. “So, yeah,” he said. “Are those all the questions you had for this interview?”

She jerked. “What? Oh,” she said, looking down at the sheet of paper in front of her and making a face like it was written in a different language. Setting her pen down, she gave him a large smile that looked like it was meant as much a distraction to herself as it was to him.

“Yes, I’m all set,” she said. “It was very nice meeting you, Alfred—Mr. Newman.” She thrust an arm out over the desk, having to lay over the wood to reach the other side.

Alfred took her hand. It felt oddly human compared to the other anthros, and warm. A shiver shot up his arm and down his spine. Surprised flashed across Heather’s face and he let go, apologizing as if he had done something wrong. Her face fell for a moment but she quickly schooled it into a neutral position.

“It was nice meeting you as well,” he said, standing up and trying not to look like he wanted to leave immediately. They stared at each other in silence for another couple of seconds. She was still laying over the desk and her cleavage was pressed up against the surface, bulging out of her suit jacket and over her button-up.

He forced a smile to his face and mechanically spun around, marching out of the room. He paused to close the door softly behind him, catching one last glimpse of Heather’s green eyes framed by the gold circular frame of her glasses and that tingle shot down his spine again.

Walking back to his desk in a daze, he slumped into his chair and stared through his blank monitors.

“Earth to Alfred, Earth to Alfred,” said John.

Alfred had to grab his desk to stop himself from falling out of his chair. He looked up at John, not sure if the bear was actually there leaning on the cubicle wall.

“You’re looking really out of it, man,” John said. “She didn’t lay into you too hard, did she? I think you were in there for the entire fifteen minutes.”

“No, I’m okay,” Alfred said, checking the time. It was after five, and he stared at the taskbar clock in disbelief. He hadn’t been in there for that long, had he?

“If you say so.” John eyed him disbelievingly. “Anyways, me and the rest of the boys are gonna head down to the bar. Bit of a last dinner kind of thing, yeah? You wanna come?”

“No, that’s alright.” Alfred thought about the single digit currently in his bank account and pursed his lips. “There’s a couple more things I want to get done before heading out.”

“You serious? Come on, forget about work.” John reached over and pushed Alfred’s shoulder. “It’s a Friday—you can’t stay late on a Friday.”

“I’ll think about it.”

John shifted and the cubicle wall creaked.

“Okay,” he said with false cheer. “I’ll see you at the pub, then. That Irish one by the furniture store downtown—what’s its name, Donohue’s?”

Alfred was scanning through his inbox, and nodded absentmindedly. “Sure,” he said, opening a meeting invite for the upcoming Monday. It was a generic all-hands meeting for their department, the location set as the stand-up area in the center of the floor. “You see that meeting notice that just came in for Monday?” he asked John.

“It’s the weekend, buddy, stop worrying about things like that.” John rolled his small eyes. “It’s not healthy. If you don’t want to come to the pub with us, fine, but at least go home and do whatever it is you do for fun. Life isn’t all working.”

Alfred paused in the middle of typing out an email response. He thought about the empty planters that he had bought forever ago, collecting dust on his table next to all his bills.

“I really need to get these emails sent,” he said, pushing the image from his mind and continuing to type.

“Can’t say that I didn’t try,” John said, shrugging and turning away. He threw a massive jacket over a shoulder, glancing back at Alfred. “Don’t stay too late, you hear?”

Alfred waved him off.

***

Alfred rubbed his eyes and checked the clock. It was half past six and he was still in the middle of putting together the presentation for a status report. He had spent the past hour finding and collating all of the data he needed—of course Nancy hadn’t put it all in the folder that he had asked her to, but at least she had stored everything on the network drive. Last time she hadn’t.

A door opened and closed behind him. He didn’t pay it any mind—it was most likely the president leaving. Ms. Finley had gone over to his office to deliver her report shortly after John had left. Alfred had glanced over and she had met his eyes. She had seemed distracted, and turned away without further acknowledgement of his existence.

“Mr. Newman,” the sharp voice of a disappointed woman pierced him from behind and he jumped. “What do you think you’re still doing here?”

His chair was spun around and he found himself staring down a frowning Ms. Finley. She crossed her arms and tapped an elbow with a finger.

“Well?” she asked. She raised an eyebrow.

“Excuse me?” Alfred said, having found his voice. His heart thudded away in his chest and he raised an arm protectively.

She glanced around the office. “There’s no one else here but you.”

“I’m working on a presentation for next week,” he said defensively. “Is this a question that you forgot to ask during the interview?”

She rolled her eyes and pushed him out of the way, saving the open file and then closing the window.

“Hey,” he said, batting at her hands. “What do you think you’re doing? That’s confidential information!”

She let him push her away from the keyboard, glaring at him. “Your company is currently going through a merger and you’re still trying to get work done? You probably won’t have a job next week and you’re here putting in hours that are costing you money.”

“What?” Alfred said, a lead brick dropping into his stomach. The irritation faded from her face and she glanced behind her.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, “I didn’t mean to say it like that. I’ve just seen a lot of these situations, okay? It doesn’t look good, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

“I can’t lose my job.” He was looking at her, but not seeing her. The Monday meeting popped into his head. That was too much of a coincidence for that to not be what he thought it was—a layoff announcement. His mind was racing, trying to figure out how the hell he was going to pay rent. Or his student loans. Or even buy food for next week—there was still his last paycheck, right? And severance? How long would he be able to make that last? Maybe unemployment?

“Don’t worry about that right now.” She put a hand on his shoulder and it was just as warm as he remembered it being. He sucked in a shuddering breath and felt the ground under him stabilize. A thoughtful expression came to her face.

“You know what,” she said, “come have dinner with me.”

Alfred snapped back to reality. “I can’t do that,” he said automatically.

“I already gave my report—it’s not going to be a conflict of interest. Technically I’m not even working for either of your companies anymore.”

“No,” he said, turning his head away, “I mean I can’t afford to do that.”

“It’ll be my treat.”

“I can’t—”

“You can pay me back by telling me more about your plan for that flower shop.”

She gave him a soft smile. There was a small glimmer of nervousness in her green eyes and he found that he couldn’t say no. He nodded and her face brightened.

“Okay, is Burg fine?”

“Sure,” he said. Was that even the name of a restaurant? He had lost track of anything that wasn’t a large chain on account of not being able to afford to eat out.

“Come on then, pack up your things and let’s get out of here.”

He spun around in his chair, glancing over his paper-covered desk. Reaching out, he locked his computer and stood up, reaching under his desk to grab his backpack. A thought popped into his mind and he paused, dreading what would come next.

“Are you ready?” she asked, looking up at him and adjusting her messenger bag.

“Yes,” he said, slowly shouldering his backpack.

“There’s a ‘but’ coming, isn’t there?”

He fingered a loose thread coming from the corner of his pants pocket and looked at the carpet that looked dirty when brand-new under his feet.

“Do you want to go somewhere else?” she asked. “I don’t care, as long as they make a big burger I don’t care.”

“No, it’s just that I take the bus to work and—”

“Yes, I can drive you there. I can drive you home, too.” She slipped her hand into his and dragged him out of his cubicle with a surprising amount of strength. “If that’s it then let’s go already. I’m starving.”

She let go of his hand when they got to the door to the stairs and a part of him was deeply disappointed. His hand felt cold without hers to hold.

Then they were outside in the warm light of the sun. Alfred walked a couple steps in the direction towards the bus stop at the other side of the parking lot before he realized his mistake and hurried to catch up to Ms. Finley. Even though she was a fast walker, his legs were nearly twice the length of hers despite him being perfectly average in height. He looked down at her out of the corner of his eye, marveling in her self-assured stride and the way her thin tail bounced in the air behind her. He wondered how much effort it took to keep it in the air like that.

Her tail eventually drew his attention to her wide rear—how could it not? They were attached to each other. He forced his eyes back up. That was a dangerous place to be looking.

Ms. Finley led him to a large SUV parked in a visitor’s spot. It was white and spotless, chrome grill at the front boasting a ridiculously large badge. He paused in front—the thing was larger than his head. There were two beeps and the turn signals blinked on and off. She pulled open the rear door and shoved her bag into the back, ducking under the strap. She closed the door and turned to see him standing in front of the vehicle.

“Are you coming or not?” she asked, reaching up to pull the driver’s door open. She raised an eyebrow at him and he shuffled around to the passenger side. He pulled open the door and was met with cream leather seats that looked too nice for him to sit on. She looked at him from the driver’s seat with an expression that told him to hurry up and get in the damn vehicle already. He did so as gently as possible, buckling up and placing his backpack on his lap while trying to keep his hands off anything that looked expensive. That was difficult, since the SUV looked like it cost the same as a house.

She started it with a barely perceptible rumble and backed out of the parking spot. A part of him didn’t believe that this was happening and that he had actually fallen asleep at his desk, dreaming.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said after they turned out of the parking lot and he could no longer pretend that he was face-down on his desk, asleep. Not even in his wildest dreams was there a shortstack mouse woman driving him to a fast food chain in an SUV that cost more than he earned in an entire year. There was a faint scent of flowers in the air and the glare off the other cars on the road made him squint his eyes in discomfort.

“Ugh, don’t call me that,” she said, throwing him a hurt glance. “Ma’am makes me feel old. We’re probably even the same age. My name is Heather.”

“Sure,” he said, anxiety creeping in at already starting to ruin whatever this was. “Sorry.”

Heather looked at him for far longer than he was comfortable with. He stared out the windscreen in the hopes that she would get the hint and return to looking at where they were going.

A loud guitar riff followed by someone wailing on a drum set tore her eyes away from him and to the center screen, which wasn’t all that much better. At least they were still in the commercial park so there wasn’t too much to hit other than other cars and some shrubs.

She stabbed at the screen with a finger and after a couple seconds the angry drummer was silenced. She gave him an apologetic smile and then finally turned back to the road. He looked out his window in a daze, realizing that he was going on the closest thing to a date than he had in years. Did she see it in the same way or did she just feel bad for him?

He did his best to push those thoughts from his mind. Those thoughts wouldn’t be helpful.

They pulled into the parking lot of the Burg after a quiet trip. Heather seemed to be thinking about something, or perhaps she didn’t care to talk. Either one was fine with him.

He looked around. The parking lot was rather empty for a Friday night. There were a couple cars scattered around, though some seemed to be here for the other stores in the small plaza. Heather shut the SUV off and pushed open her door, hopping out. He followed suit, cradling his backpack in an arm.

“You can leave that in the footwell,” she said, watching him step out with the backpack. He looked between it and the footwell, and then to her. “It’ll be fine. We can sit at the window if you’re worried about it.”

Alfred placed his backpack awkwardly in the footwell. The carpet looked like it had just been put into the vehicle on the assembly line. He mentally shook himself—she said it would be fine. He closed the door and met her at the back of the SUV where she gave him an awkward smile.

“I know it’s not anything fancy,” she said, walking towards the front door of the restaurant, “but sometimes you just want to eat something to make you hate yourself, right?”

“It’s fine,” he said. It was more than fine—he didn’t know what he would have done if she had suggested going to an actual sit-down restaurant and not a fast casual like Burg. Probably have a quiet panic attack.

She opened the door for him and ushered him inside. The smell of grease and meat filled his nose and he trailed Heather to the registers.

“What can I get for you two?” asked the suspiciously chipper man at the register. He looked at Alfred expectantly, who looked up at the menu. There wasn’t much other than burgers and fries, and all of the prices seemed to be quite a bit higher than he was expecting. He had never been to a Burg, but he thought they were somewhat similar in price to a regular fast food chain.

“Can I get a double bacon with extra cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes?” Heather asked. “And a large fries?”

The cashier repeated her order and then turned back to Alfred.

“You can get whatever you want,” Heather said, digging in her purse to pull out her wallet. Alfred was distracted for a moment wondering where that purse had come from before pulling himself away.

“I’ll just have a single burger, please,” he said to the cashier.

“You want anything else on that?” The cashier raised an eyebrow, though his pleasant smile never dimmed.

“Whatever normally comes on it.” Alfred had looked up at the menu for the toppings and his head was spinning at the list.

“You’ll want the Burg classic, then. Anything else for you, sir?”

“That’s it.”

“Okay. Drinks?”

“Two, please,” Heather said.

The cashier read off the price—which Alfred internally balked at—and Heather handed over a credit card. A couple seconds later and they were heading over to the soda fountains with cups in hand. She placed her cup in one of the machines and reached up to poke at the screen. Several awkward seconds later and Dr. Pepper was flowing into her cup.

He put his in after and stared at the screen. He hadn’t had soda in what felt like years and he didn’t feel like getting anything but she had already paid for it so he didn’t want to just get water and waste her money.

He ended up picking the same as her because he didn’t know what else to get.

She had already sat at a table—one by the window like she had promised. He sat down across from her and set his cup to the side, looking out the window at the lengthening shadows.

“So,” Heather said after taking a pull from her soda straw, “tell me about your flower shop by the sea. Where is it?”

Any attempt at a coherent response fled his brain when he turned and saw her expectant smile. No one had shown that much interest in his silly little dream. Of course, he had to tell them about it first and he usually didn’t do that.

“The cape,” he said at length. He couldn’t think of anywhere else other than where he had originally come across that one shop. “I don’t have an exact location or anything—I haven’t really thought any of this through.” That was a half-truth. Occasionally he would find himself checking out properties—until the prices became too much to bear.

“That’s a nice area,” Heather said. “My parents have a summer house there.”

He looked back out the window at her expensive SUV. “I bet they do,” he mumbled.

“What kind of flowers were you thinking of selling? Would it be just flowers?”

“The usual fare, I guess. Roses, tulips, whatever people that go to flower stores to buy usually get.”

“Have you thought about who you customers would be? Tourists, obviously, but who specifically? What would your average customer be looking to buy flowers for? And the locals?”

“I said I really haven’t put that much thought into all of this.” He pulled one of the napkins out of the table dispenser and played with it. “It’s just a dream,” he said softly, crumpling the napkin between his hands.

Heather dipped her head and brushed a lock of hair back. “Sorry,” she said, “force of habit. Sometimes it’s hard to turn the consultant off, you know?” She took another sip of her drink and looked around the restaurant. “Where did you get the idea?”

He smoothed out the napkin against the table. Sunlight was falling over his arms like it had that one day and he glanced out the window, half-expecting to see the ocean. All he got was the main road leading towards the business district and on the other side, a shopping plaza. It was all grays and blacks, the only colors coming from the shop names. The sky overhead wasn’t even the right shade of blue—like the color had been drained out of it.

“My parents dragged me out to the beach,” he said, “all the way out to the Cape. My father was so excited because he had been there once with his own father, and he had loved everything about it. I didn’t want to go because I didn’t like the beach—we were only ever able to go to the Sound, since we lived somewhat nearby. It always smelled like someone was smoking right next to you, and more often than not that was because they were.

“But my father had finally gotten a couple of days off from work and so had my mother. We were going to the Cape come hell or high water and nothing was going to stop him, especially not my bad attitude.”

Heather was completely absorbed by his words, green eyes wide and attentive. Her soda sat forgotten, condensation forming beads that ran down the clear plastic.

“We finally got to the Cape after the longest, most boring car ride I have ever been on,” Alfred continued, dropping his gaze back down to his napkin. “And then we stopped at a motel. At first I thought he had been lying to us that we were going to the Cape, since it was just some ratty Motel 8 that I had seen dozens of times on the way to the Sound, but when we opened the doors I could smell the ocean—it was a different smell than I was used to. The same salty air, but cleaner. The breeze was stronger, too.”

He folded a corner of his napkin. He had never recounted anything like this before, and especially never to one so invested in the story. That was what put him off the most—why would she care about some terrible vacation that he had went on as a child? Her parents had a summer house there. She had probably spent every single summer of her childhood there.

“And then what?” she prompted. He glanced up at her, then went back to his napkin.

“We walked around a bit, had dinner, and went to sleep,” he said.

“That can’t be all that you did. You didn’t even get to the beach. Where does the flower shop even come into play?”

“That was the last day.” He folded another corner. It was too late to get cold feet now, he had come this far and it would all work out, right? The corners of his mouth twitched up into a wry smile. “We were walking down one of the boardwalks, my mother saw a flower shop and she dragged my sunburnt ass inside.”

“That’s it?” Heather asked, face falling.

“I guess?” Alfred wasn’t certain himself how to put the feelings he had in that shop into words, even with the benefit of having over a decade to think about it. “Everything about it felt right, in a way. Like you hearing your favorite song for the first time—it’s beautiful and overwhelming at the same time, and you can’t put your feelings for it into words.”

Heather frowned, looking down at her hands resting on the table. He could see the thoughts whirling around behind those green eyes, and felt like he could reach out across the table and snatch one of them from thin air.

“Were you expecting something else?” he asked, feeling his heart speed up.

“No, no,” she said. “I’m just thinking. Do you remember what the shop was called? I might know the place.”

“I don’t. It had a painting of a flower on the front window, if that helps.”

Heather stared down at the table, drumming a finger against the plastic surface.

An employee placed two metal trays on their table, telling them to enjoy their meal. The tray in front of Alfred was overflowing with fries and had one of the biggest burgers he had ever seen oozing grease into its surroundings. Heather thanked the employee, and then when he was gone she switched the trays. She shoveled a couple handfuls of fries onto Alfred’s actual tray, the lone burger smaller than hers but still larger than he was expecting.

“That’s big,” he said, eyeing the sandwich in front of her.

“I told you I wanted to eat something that would make me hate myself,” she said, taking a napkin of her own from the dispenser and scrubbing her hands with it. She pulled a couple more free and placed them next to their trays.

“Are you even going to be able to finish that?”

She picked up her burger and narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you implying that I can’t because I’m a girl or because I’m short?”

“That’s not what I meant,” he said, warmth flooding his face. “It’s just that I’ve never seen one that big before.”

A smirk came to her face. “Oh? Well, you know what they say about mice.”

She winked at him. He had no idea what she was talking about and assumed that it was a joke that he wasn’t getting.

“I don’t,” he said in an innocent-as-possible tone. “What do they say about mice?”

“They like stuffing big things in their mouth,” she said, taking a massive bite out of her burger. His eyes widened at the sheer size of her bulging cheeks—they were nearly the same size as her eyes. Those same eyes were watering at her labored chewing.

“Are you going to be okay?” He was afraid that she was going to choke. It took her almost a full minute to swallow her entire bite. She gulped in air and flashed him a smile, though her eyes had a faraway look to them.

“Please don’t do that again,” he said, feeling his own heart race. “I don’t think I could handle it.”

“Ha,” Heather wheezed. “None of you ever expect that.”

“For good reason, I think. You looked like you were choking.”

“But I didn’t, did I?”

“You didn’t,” he conceded, taking a bite of his own burger. He forced himself to chew slowly. It was delicious and he didn’t want to inhale his meal and appear just as bad as her. He swallowed. It was hard. The last time he had a burger that wasn’t microwaved was years ago.

The rest of the meal passed without much in the way of words. Sometimes he would look up and catch her eyes, and there was a certain amount of comfort in that. He had missed eating with someone else. His meals were always in front of his computer when he was at work, and they were in front of his TV when he was at home.

He looked down at his tray and the grease stain his burger had left behind, surrounded by several fry stragglers that he didn’t have the energy to pick up, let alone eat. He couldn’t remember the last time he was this full—his stomach actually hurt. He hoped that was just because it was full and not a sign of painful things to come later that night on the toilet.

Pulling himself away from those thoughts, he glanced up and caught Heather’s eyes. She had finished her own burger as well as most of the fries. He wasn’t going to lie—it was impressive. She gave him a smile. He smiled back, but couldn’t help but feel it was all so undeserved.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the dinner,” Alfred said, “but why?”

Heather turned to stare out the window. At first he thought that she wasn’t going to answer, or he would only get a shrug.

“Owning a flower shop by the sea is my dream, too,” she said, barely audible over the sound of the griddle in the back of the restaurant being scraped clean.

“Really?” he asked. The sounds from the kitchen seemed to dull, fading away into muffled clinks and clatters.

“Yes,” she said, turning to him. In those green eyes of hers he could see something new, something that he could only describe as hope. They sparkled in the light from the setting sun, and he could tell that it really was her dream. Was that what he had looked like back in that office to her, radiance and energy pouring out in an endless stream?

Small wonder that she had decided to try and find out more. He would have done the same if the roles were reversed.

After that moment he felt like they didn’t need words to communicate anymore—an implicit understanding had passed between them and he felt like he knew her, despite the massive gulf in their respective lifestyles.

“Thank you,” he said. It was the most sincere thank you that he had ever remembered saying. He could see it in her eyes that she understood the depth of that statement and his chest clenched. The previous lump of grease that had been weighing down his stomach vanished and a tingling rolled up his spine and down to his hands. He desperately wanted to reach out and hold one of her hands like he had back in the office but couldn’t find a reasonable excuse.

A phone rang, pulling him out of his trance. Heather scowled and dug through her purse to pull out a smartphone that looked more like a tablet in her small hands. She stared at the screen, lips pursed. The phone continued playing a soft chime and vibrating.

“Sorry,” she said, looking up at him. “I have to take this.”

“It’s no problem,” he said, giving her a reassuring smile. He was no stranger to the concept of work calls after-hours—assuming that it was work-related.

She replied with a smile of her own and answered the call, hopping out of her chair and stepping away from the table. “What’s going on?” she asked the person on the other end of the line, pushing open the door to the restaurant and walking outside. She listened intently, pitching in a couple words here and there before pacing up and down the sidewalk in front of the building. He could see her grow more and more stiff with each passing second. The hope and enthusiasm drained from her face, and her eyes were once again dulled to a flinty hardness.

“I’m really sorry,” she said to Alfred when she stepped back inside. She slid her phone into her purse and brushed a couple of used napkins onto her tray. Picking it up, she said, “Your company president had some additional questions about the presentation I gave, and he’s trying to set up a quick phone call to go over them. I told him that I was eating, but he wants to talk as soon as possible.”

“I understand,” he said, tidying his own side of the table and picking up his tray to join her at the garbage. He wanted to say something else to reassure her, but what? He doubted he would ever see her again. He supposed that he could ask for her number, but how would that make him look?

Soon they were walking out to her SUV, his mind still whirling. She had to ask him several times where he lived before his mind made sense of her words. He told her, and then they were off.

The drive back to his place was a quiet affair. He clutched his backpack as though it would somehow tell him what to do. It was a poor substitute for Heather’s hand.

She turned into the apartment complex parking lot and he shrunk in his seat, shooting her a glance. He had made it quite clear that he didn’t have the best financial standing, but that didn’t mean that he wanted her to see the dump that he lived in. At least she wouldn’t be coming up to his messy apartment.

He pointed out the building he was in, then got out when she pulled up to the curb. He stepped out onto lumpy and cracked asphalt.

“Thanks,” he said, hiking up his backpack onto a shoulder and meeting those green eyes for what he assumed was the last time. He did his best to burn them into his brain—how the gold of her glasses frames matched them perfectly and the way her short hair fell around them. His heart skipped a beat and he had to turn away.

“Wait,” she said. He stopped, hopeful but unsure of what. She opened the armrest in the center console and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and a pen. Scribbling out a number, her mouth parted slightly and she pressed her tongue up against the back of her incisors. She leaned as far as she could over the passenger seat and thrust the paper at him with that look of hope on her face again.

He reached out and took it, the tips of his fingers brushing hers. Goosebumps spread up his arms and he looked down at the neatly written number on the back of a creased business card.

“That’s my personal number,” she said. “Shoot me a text when you can so I can get yours. We never finished talking about that flower shop of yours.”

He looked back up at her. Her eyes were doing that sparkling thing again and her smile made his heart pound in his chest. She shifted, and his eyes were drawn to her chest for a moment before he wrenched them away. He could feel the blood rushing to his face, images of her breasts straining to be free bouncing in his head.

He nodded at her, and croaked, “See you later.” Closing the door and turning around, he floated over to his building entrance in a daze. He checked to see if she was still there before entering. She waved at him, a happy smile on her face. He raised a hand in response, and then made the climb through the dirty carpeted stairs to his apartment door. He let himself inside and then went over to the kitchen table and collapsed on a creaky chair.

Placing the business card down on the table with her scrawled number facing up, he cradled his head in his hands and stared at it like it was the timer on a pipe bomb.

Some time later, after the sun had set and he was sitting in darkness, he pulled out his phone and sent her a message. She replied less than a minute later to acknowledge him, and he let out a breath.

He smiled to himself. He had something to look forward to for the first time in years.

***

John walked past Alfred’s cubicle on Monday morning and stopped. He took a couple steps back and leaned on the short wall facing the aisle. It creaked under his weight.

“You sure look like you’re having a good Monday,” John said without a hint of irony.

Alfred turned around. “Do I?”

John narrowed his eyes playfully. “You look like you finally took my advice and found yourself a nice girl to have some fun with.”

Alfred turned red and turned back to his monitors. “What?” he said, the image of Heather’s smiling face popping into his mind and refusing to leave. “Why would that be the first thing you think of to ask?”

“You have,” John said, with an air of finality.

“Am I hearing what I think I’m hearing?” Nancy said, head sliding into view above the cubicle wall. “Did our little Alfred finally find someone?”

“Cut it out,” Alfred said, glaring up at her. She gave him a wide smile, fangs peeking out over her lower lip.

“I bet it was that little mouse lady,” she said, eyes narrowing in laughter. “You were the only one that managed to fill the entire interview slot.”

“It’s not like that, we were just talking.”

“I’m sure you were ‘just talking,’” John said.

“You two are intolerable,” Alfred said, placing his head in his hands. He couldn’t stop the smile from forming on his face at the ridiculous nature of the situation. How could they have possibly seen this coming? It was improbable, and yet it seemed as though they had willed whatever was between him and Heather into existence by simple speculation. It boggled his mind.

“So it’s true, then?” Nancy asked in the sing-song voice of an older sister that knew she was pressing a button and was reveling in the reaction.

“I’m not answering any more of your questions. I have work to do.”

“Oh my gosh, it’s totally true. What was it like? Did you two bond over having to deal with the rest of us lowly peasants all the time?”

“I bet they traded sticks,” John said, chuckling.

“Can you guys just drop it?” Alfred asked, face hotter than a leather chair sitting in the sun.

“Our favorite workaholic robot is showing human emotions for the first time, you can’t blame us for getting excited.” John slapped Alfred on the back. “Tell us when you figure out what love is.”

Alfred stared resolutely at his monitors and the open windows of spreadsheets that were snapped next to each other. As far as he was concerned the conversation was over. He had work to do and he definitely wasn’t thinking about messaging Heather after work to set up an actual date. They had talked more over the weekend, but she had said to wait until Monday after work since she didn’t know what her schedule for the week would look like until then.

“I told you it would all work out,” John said, and for once Alfred didn’t have an immediate visceral reaction to slap the bear.

“Maybe,” Alfred said.

A reminder popped up in the corner of his main monitor. He glanced at it, then went back to his spreadsheets. It was that mysterious standup for the entire floor. His mood soured and he stood, locking his computer.

“Time for that meeting,” he told the other two.

“Already?” John asked. “I just got in.”

“You’re always late, so yes.”

Alfred led the two to the center of the floor, which wasn’t all that far. They weren’t that big of a department—only seventeen people. Standing by the whiteboard was the company president wearing his usual ill-fitting suit and a human woman wearing a business casual blouse and skirt. Her brown hair was tied back in a tight bun and she had a tight smile on her face. Alfred’s stomach sank—she was the head of HR.

He stopped and John bumped into his back.

“Careful there, buddy,” John said, resting a large handpaw on Alfred’s shoulder to steady him.

Alfred wanted to turn around and walk right back to his desk. He wanted to forget that this meeting ever existed and go back to being ribbed by John and Nancy. The head of HR glanced at him, and he could tell by the distant look in her eyes that the meeting was going to be exactly what he feared.

He turned to stare at the whiteboard, where labels of upcoming projects and tasks were scattered all over a timeline marked out with black tape. Notes written with fading dry-erase markers were underneath and he strained his eyes to read them, desperate for something to distract his mind with. He shouldn’t have bothered showing up early. Now he would have to wait for the rest of the team to show up and he really didn’t want to wait any longer.

The next couple of minutes were agony. He felt like he was waiting to be executed and he would be handed a blindfold in a couple of seconds.

Then the entire department was gathered around him and the head of HR was clearing her throat.

“Hello all,” she said, looking around at the circle of employees. “I’m Marissa Belvedere, head of HR at OpCo. I have some important information to share with you all regarding the merger, but first I think Mike would like to say a couple words.” She took a step back and Mike took her place, clasping his hands in front of his rotund belly. He made a point of looking each one of his employees in the eye.

“Good morning, team,” he said. “It’s been such a pleasure working with you all for however long you’ve been here…”

Alfred switched his attention back to the whiteboard. He was involved with most of those projects and tasks, and now they would never get finished. The corners of his mouth twitched upwards into a sarcastic smile. He was in the process of getting fired and he was worrying about what would happen to the projects he was on? He had much larger things to worry about. Rent, for one. Food, too.

Marissa stepped forward again, the atmosphere in the room having gone cold. She said some pleasantries about the work the department had done, then went on to add that unfortunately it wasn’t financial viable to keep their entire department on—not when they had several redundant operational groups. She said that they had went over all the options but there was really no way that they could keep all of them on or transfer to the other departments.

The rest of the announcement flew by and he found himself trudging back to his desk with a blank expression. He felt that he should be feeling something but there was nothing at all. In his chest there was an empty void and he couldn’t think of anything at all.

He stopped in the entrance to his cubicle, looking around at the mess of papers and other little bits of office supplies. Reaching under his desk to grab his backpack, he set it on his chair and went through his drawers. There was only the accumulated gruff of odds and ends—rubber bands, packs of staples, scissors that were sharp. Nothing was his. He went through the cabinet bolted to the inside wall of the cubicle.

He didn’t know why he was going through all of this shit. There was nothing other than his backpack that he owned. Was he going through his workspace because that was what you were supposed to do after being let go? He closed the cabinet door on its binders of old reports and project notes.

He picked up his backpack.

“Hey, uh, you need a ride home?” John asked. Alfred paused, strap in hand. He hadn’t thought about that. When would the next bus come?

John studied Alfred thoughtfully.

“You know what,” John said, “why don’t we go out to the pub instead? It’s a Monday but I think the occasion calls for it.”

Alfred stared at the strap in his hand. “I don’t know,” he said. “I really can’t afford that right now. It’s also nine-thirty in the morning.”

“We did just get laid off.”

“I can’t.” Alfred shouldered his backpack. It felt like it contained a lead brick instead of his lunchbox. “I’ll just call a cab or something. I think there’s a bus that stops on the main road, too.”

“Nah, you don’t need to do that. I’ll drive you home. Just let me get my stuff packed up.” John walked over to his side of the cubicle and Alfred followed, not having anything better to do. He saw Nancy inspecting a potted plant before sticking it in a cardboard box. She turned to him and smiled, though she looked lost like a tenant being evicted.

“That was a bit surprising, wasn’t it?” she said. She turned back to her desk, tapping her fingers together. “Though I suppose you already guessed.”

“I guess it was,” Alfred said, the void in his chest swallowing all feelings. He knew that he should be feeling something at that moment—anxiety, anger, sadness—but there was absolutely nothing there.

“It doesn’t even seem real.” She picked up a picture of a younger cat anthro that he assumed was her son. She looked at it fondly for a moment and then put it in the box with the rest of her things. She turned to him, glancing at his backpack.

“You know,” she said, “it’s kinda funny that all you have here is that backpack when you work longer hours than all of us.”

Alfred couldn’t even find it in himself to shrug and he turned to John, who was tossing things haphazardly into his box. There were more than just personal effects going into that box, Alfred noticed.

He waited patiently so that he could be taken home and do nothing there.

“Just about done,” John said, rifling through a couple more folders hanging on the wall. “Don’t worry, we’ll have you home faster than you can say ‘you’re fired!’” He chuckled awkwardly.

“Thanks,” said Alfred. He looked around at the other cubicles. He supposed that this would be the last time he would be seeing them all. There was Kevin the sloth, slowly putting a mug into his box. Alfred would never be stuck behind Kevin pouring a cup of coffee again. Susan, the lioness, was in the cubicle next to him. She had her hands on her hips and was staring at her desk as though it was a report that she didn’t want to do. Alfred knew that she would usually try to foist them off onto others, but not this time.

Joe, another human, was walking by carrying his box, heavy forehead creased in confusion. He nodded at Alfred, who forced himself to respond in kind. Joe was quiet. Serial-killer quiet.

Harold, a gray wolf old enough to be Alfred’s grandfather. Some said that Harold had been with the company since he was sixteen. From the amount of stories he could pull out of his ass about any customer, past or present, Alfred believed it.

Kass, the doe intern, who needed to be supervised when doing any task or she would come back with something not quite what was asked for. Once she had painstakingly entered in hundreds of ERP entries into the wrong database, clicking out of the warning pop-up every single time.

Bess, Melanie, and Jessica, the three sheep. They would gossip all day and yet somehow would always be on time with whatever they were tasked with. Alfred never understood how they were able to do that.

He looked around at the office soaking in the harsh white lighting, the faded posters on the walls, and breathing in that sharp printer smell mixed with the slight scent of fur. It seemed that his apathy was being replaced with crushing depression.

“Shit, man, are you okay?” John asked, halfway through placing a notebook in his box. “You’re not looking so hot.”

“No,” Alfred said. “I’m not okay.”

John and Nancy shared a look.

“You sure you don’t want to come out to the pub with us?” John said.

“I’m sure,” Alfred said. “I doubt they’re even open right now.”

“It’s an Irish pub, of course they are. But if you’re sure….”

“I am.”

“Okay,” John said, dragging out the word as though Alfred might change his mind. He didn’t.

John then threw a couple more odds and ends into his box and hoisted it into the air. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, walking out of the cubicle. Alfred followed, his backpack growing heavier and heavier with each step.

“Don’t be a stranger,” Nancy called, rushing to pack up the rest of her personal effects. She hurried after them, mugs clinking together in her box.

It was strange to Alfred, walking out of the building with his coworkers. He couldn’t remember the last time he had done that. Even if he wasn’t the last one out, John and Nancy were certainly long gone.

They made their way down the stairs and out the front doors of the lobby, passing by an atypically alert security guard. The sun outside burned Alfred’s eyes and he raised a hand to shield them. He looked out at a nearly-full parking lot, feeling as though he had stepped out onto the surface of another world.

“I’ll see you guys later,” Nancy said, awkwardly adjusting the box in her arms to wave at them. She pattered off into the lot, tail swaying from side-to-side behind her.

“See you,” John called. “Let’s get you home, buddy,” he said to Alfred.

“Thanks.” Alfred didn’t know what else to say. Nothing he could think of fit the weight of the situation.

They walked out into the morning heat already blazing off the pavement to John’s car, which turned out to be a comically small—for John—hatchback. He threw his box into the back and slapped the hatch shut. Cramming himself into the driver’s seat, he watched Alfred sit in the passenger seat and then started the car.

The ride was absent of talk and Alfred was mildly surprised, but not unpleasantly so. He certainly didn’t feel like talking and was grateful that John seemed to catch on.

Soon John was pulling up to Alfred’s apartment building. He looked up at it through the window, wanting nothing more than to never see it again. He hated it and everything that it stood for in his life.

He opened the door and stepped out of the car.

“Hey,” John said. Alfred wanted to ignore him and shut the door but didn’t. John’s tone was too concerned for Alfred to act like a jerk. “It’ll all work out.”

Alfred wanted to be mad. Instead, he found a small bud of hope peek out from his smothering depression. The thought of having to race against his unpaid bills to find another job buried it again.

“Not this time,” Alfred said, and shut the door. He turned around and walked away, John lowering the window.

“Let me know if you change your mind about the pub,” he called.

Alfred entered through the weathered front door of the building without looking back. He climbed the steps to his apartment in a daze, mind blank. Then he was sliding his key into the sloppy lock on the door and swinging it open. He shrugged his backpack off his shoulders and kicked off his shoes, padding over the crushed carpet to the table. The backpack strap left his hand at some point but he didn’t care where it ended up anymore. He didn’t need it any more.

He sat in a chair that twisted alarmingly under his weight and stared out the window at the rows and rows of apartment buildings with crowded multifamily homes beyond. He was never going to escape this place after all. How could that be, after one of the best weekends in recent memory? Not that it was a high bar to begin with but it had to mean something, didn’t it?

He sat in that chair for the rest of the day, feeling like he should get up and do something but never quite finding that motivating spark.

Soon the sun was on its way back down and the shadows were lengthening, and he was wondering where the day had gone. His roommate had been in and out but had not said anything. That suited Alfred fine.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. It was probably a message about the auto-payment clearing for his phone plan. Then it buzzed twice in quick succession, the vibration patterns overlapping interrupting each other. That wasn’t normal.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket, wincing at the stiffness in his back. It was Heather, asking which apartment was his. He replied without thinking about why she was asking and then stared at the screen, waiting for something to happen.

There was a knock at the door and he looked over at it. He wondered who that could be.

He got up and stumbled over, his butt numb. Unlocking the door—his roommate must have re-locked it after going out—and opened it only to have Heather slip right by him and into the apartment. She stopped in the middle of the living area, spinning around and inspecting the place, looking like someone from the building management company in that suit jacket and skirt. She had skipped the stockings this time around, and he could see that her white fur stopped around her ankles in a similar fashion as it did at her wrists.

“This is about what I expected,” she said, staring at the small flatscreen on a used Ikea stand with a mess of cables and wires below it for the various cable boxes and game consoles. “How many roommates?”

“One,” he said, closing the door. He felt like he should feel embarrassed about her barging into and seeing his pathetic apartment, but he couldn’t muster the energy.

She nodded, and turned to face him. Clasping her hands together, she said, “I have a proposition for you.” She stepped closer, looking up at him with those big green eyes of hers. He was drawn into her eyes yet again and stood there, waiting for her to continue.

“We have a position open on our team for a project manager,” she said. “I think you would be a good fit, and if you send me a resume I’ll make sure to pass it on.”

Alfred blinked. He managed to tear himself away from those eyes and look around the room. He must be dreaming, but he didn’t see anything out of place.

“I don’t need it right away,” she said. “You can think it over for a couple days, if you want. It’ll be pretty similar to what you were doing at your old place, though there’ll be a lot more travel involved.”

“‘Were?’” he asked, his tired brain managing to catch something of an implication behind that word. He frowned. “You knew?”

“Knew what?” she asked, face the picture of innocence.

“That we were all getting canned?”

She rubbed her hands together, looking at the worn sofa next to her. “Not exactly? I told you that I’ve seen this before many times and I can get a pretty good feel of things from the opening meeting with upper management.”

Alfred walked over to the sofa and flopped onto the flaking pleather. His butt sunk straight through the cushion and hit the frame underneath.

After a moment Heather sat next to him.

“That call,” he said. It had been bugging him the entire weekend, always popping up in the back of his head when he was least expecting it. “That was when they decided to let the entire department go, wasn’t it?” He looked over at her.

“Does it really matter if it was?” she said, staring back at him impassively.

“No, I guess it doesn’t.” He turned to the TV. He wanted to turn it on and throw some stupid show on to turn his brain off for a couple of hours, but that felt rather rude with Heather sitting right next to him. “It did ruin that dinner.”

“It did,” she agreed. “Do you want to try again?”

Alfred looked at the reflection of him and Heather in the TV. They looked ridiculous, still wearing their work clothes on a couch that looked like it belonged in some terrible apartment. He looked at the real her. She smiled at him, its warmth enough to creep into the empty void that was his chest.

“I do,” he said.

“Perfect,” she said, hopping up off the sofa. “Let’s get going. I’m starving.”

“Yeah.” He stared up at her. He was rather hungry himself—he hadn’t eaten lunch.

“Well?” she asked, putting her hands on her hips and tilting her head. “I’ll let you pick this time, if you want.”

He stood, worried that if he moved too fast that he would wake up.

“Or are you worried about the money?” she said, tilting her head the other way. “Don’t worry about it. You never got to finish telling me about your flower shop.” She gave him a knowing smile.

“This is turning out to be an expensive story,” he said. She waved a hand at him.

“It’s nothing. You can always pay me back after you start working with me.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t tell me that the position would involve working with you.”

She studied his face until he had to look away from feeling self-conscious. He worried that he had said the wrong thing.

“If I knew that was what got you interested,” she said, “I would have mentioned it earlier.”

He stammered out half a meaningless answer before she cut him off.

“I’m glad that you think so highly of me. You were so serious looking when I first walked in that I was worried you were going to blame me about being let go.”

“No—that’s not—” he said, the words coming out of his mouth before he could order them properly. “It’s been a long day.”

“I bet. Now let’s go!” She grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the door. A bolt of lightning shot up his arm from the contact and coalesced in his chest as a hot coal. She waited impatiently for him to put his shoes back on, refusing to let go of his hand. She led him out of the door, tapped her foot while he locked the door behind him, and pulled him down the stairs and out into the evening sun. The light falling on him was almost as warm as feeling in his chest.

If this was a dream he didn’t want to wake up.

***

Dinner had been at some little hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant that Alfred only knew from them having the cheapest tacos around. It was also within walking distance, a fact that Heather used to order a large margarita, and then another after she drained the first before the food arrived. He had been worried that the food wouldn’t be up to her standards despite the fact that their first date was to a burger shop.

Calling it a date may have been pushing the definition of the word a bit, but he didn’t care. All he wanted was to spend more time with her.

She leaned back against the back of the bench, putting a hand over her unbuttoned suit jacket. “That was really good,” she said. “I think you might have to carry me back to your place.”

“I’m not sure about that,” he said, eyeing the picked clean plate in front of her. She had ordered the enchilada combo, and frankly he had no idea how she finished the entire thing. His own plate still contained an uneaten taco that he was avoiding looking at, lest his stomach try to rebel against him for even thinking of taking another bite.

“Are you calling me fat?” she asked, eyes locking onto his own. After a moment they softened, a cheeky smile tweaking the corners. “Or are you saying that I’m too much for you to handle?”

“That’s not at all what I meant.”

“I seem to recall you saying that before,” she said, leaning over the table and placing her head in her hands. “For a project manager, you haven’t been very good at communicating your intent to me. I think we should work on that back at your place.”

“I’ll have you know that I was one of the best communicators in my department, thank you very much. People would only ask for clarification every other email that I sent out.”

“That just means that they were not telling you they had misinterpreted your emails half of the time.”

He shook his head. “Tell me about it. You tell them that X, Y, and Z needs to happen before the next stage can start, and a week later they come back with M, N, and a Q that’s supposed to be an O.”

“That’s the worst,” she said, nodding. “How do you deal with that when you don’t get to leave and have it become someone else’s problem?”

He shrugged. “I have bills to pay, and you get used to who you need to handhold.”

The waiter dropped off the check and took Heather’s plate and glass. Alfred watched her pull her wallet out of her purse, the feeling of inadequacy reaching up and wrapping its numbing fingers around his mind.

“I can pay for my half this time,” he said.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, picking up the pen and hovering over the tip amount. Her mouth parted and she pressed her tongue up against the back of her incisors, deep in thought. He watched her scribble out an amount and then sign the receipt, placing her card on top to keep it in place.

She looked up at him, brushing a lock of hair back. “It’s nothing,” she added, “and you still haven’t told me about your flower shop.”

“There’s nothing more to say about it,” he said, making the mistake of looking down at the last taco on his plate. His stomach turned angrily. Normally he only ordered three, but she had pressured him into doubling his order because he “looked like a skeleton with skin.”

“Is that because you don’t want to talk about it any more or you’re tired of talking to me?”

“What is there left that you could possibly want to know? I already told you that I haven’t thought through the actual business side of things. It’s just a dream, anyways.”

She frowned. “Don’t say it like that. A dream is something that you should be working towards.”

“It’s hard to work towards something like that when there are so many other things in the way.”

The waiter took the receipt and card, dropping off a takeout box for Alfred. Glad to have something to do with his hands, he took the box and carefully transferred his last taco into it. Heather reached out and dumped the last of the chips on top.

“Hey,” he said, “they’re going to get all soggy if you put them on top like that.”

“Then move them,” she said. He rolled his eyes but did exactly that.

He closed the box and tapped the top with a finger, then looked across the table at her smug face. “Thanks,” he said, not know what else to say. Her face softened and she opened her mouth.

The waiter returned with her card and wished them well before disappearing back into the bar area.

Heather took her card, stuffed it back in her wallet, and hopped out of the booth. “Let’s get going,” she said, glancing back at the bar. “It’s getting noisy in here.”

Alfred picked up his box and stood with difficulty. He felt twenty pounds heavier after that meal. It was the most he had eaten in a single sitting since freshman year of college at the terrible buffet they were forced to eat at. Not that he knew it was terrible at the time, since it was a step above the frozen dinners and junk food he was used to.

“I would have thought you would like the noise,” he said, taking a tentative step forwards.

“What in the world would give you that idea?” asked Heather, looking up at him with an eyebrow quirked.

“Just a guess.” He eyed her ears. “A bad one, now that I think about it.” The edges seemed flushed and the studs caught the light when she tilted her head.

“Well, I don’t,” she said, stalking off through the tables towards the exit. “I get enough people fighting for my attention during the day. The more alone I can get, the better.”

“Really?” Alfred felt a smirk of his own come to his face. “You’ve been rather excited to talk to me about my idea of a flower shop.”

“That’s different,” she said, pushing open the door and walking outside. “I want to talk about that.” He joined her in the golden glow of the setting sun, and they walked up the sidewalk back towards his apartment complex. He worried that he had gone too far when they got to the path that ran across a patch of wetlands between the shopping plaza and the apartments and she still hadn’t said anything else.

She grew closer and closer to him on the path until her shoulder was bumping into his elbow. He gave her some space, and she went right back to bumping up against his side. It wasn’t that cold out, and she was wearing a coat. Granted, it was a suit jacket, but it was still another layer. Maybe it was the skirt? Whatever it was, the path wasn’t wide enough for him to keep moving away so he bared with it.

They reached his apartment building and he stopped at the path to the front door, expecting to see her off. She continued on, making it a couple of steps towards the building before noticing that he wasn’t with her anymore. She turned back to him, a hand on her hip.

“Is there somewhere else that you want to go?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

“No,” he said, staring back at her. “Where are you going?”

“Up to your place, obviously.”

“You were serious about that?”

“Yes, but I’ll let you skip the part where you carry me.” She smirked at him. “You’d probably drop me, anyways.”

“Are you still trying to get more about that flower shop out of me?”

“If I said yes would that make you hurry up and take me back to your place?”

He shook his head. “I’m starting to think that you don’t actually care about the flower shop.” He joined her and they walked up to the front door together. She huffed at him.

“Of course I care about it. I’ve been trying to find someone that has the same idea for years, or at least is open to the possibility. No one I’ve talked to ever takes me seriously.”

“Glad to know that I’m just a way of validating your ideas.”

“You said that it was your dream, too.” She jabbed his hip with an elbow.

“A dream, yeah,” he said, trudging up the stairs and the same shitty carpet that he had looked at for years. A TV blared behind one of the doors they passed.

“A dream that we can make happen,” she said, a nauseating amount of hope in her voice.

“Maybe you could.” He pulled his key out of his pocket and unlocked the door, praying that his roommate was still out or in his room keeping to himself. Alfred didn’t need his roommate getting wasted with a bunch of his friends on the couch, playing video games and yelling at each other. His dingy apartment was embarrassing enough. He pushed open the door and to his relief found it to be empty.

“Come on,” she said, walking past him and patting his butt. He jumped, not sure if that had been intentional or was just a byproduct of her being short. “You just need to work for a place that actually pays what you’re worth and you’ll be debt-free in no time.”

“Let me guess,” he said, stepping inside and closing the door. He watched her remove her shoes and stretch out her toes, the tip of her tail flicking in pleasure. “The position you’re offering me just happens to be paying above market rate for someone of my experience.”

“Do you know what market rate for your job is? I saw the salaries at your place. They were atrocious.”

Alfred raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think you should be telling me that.”

“No one needs to know that I told you,” Heather said, intertwining her fingers and raising her arms in the air. The action made her chest thrust outwards, straining her white button-up. “And it’s not like you didn’t know what they were paying you. That would be pretty fucked up. And impossible.”

He shook his head. “Alright, fine. Can we not talk about that right now? I don’t want to get my hopes up before getting kicked in the balls like I usually am.”

“Okay,” she said, slipping out of her jacket and tossing it at him, then flopping back into the couch. He looked at the jacket in his hands and wondered where he should put it. The closet by the door was full of junk, but he slid back the door anyways. He took one of his winter coats off a hanger and placed it on top of the vacuum cleaner, replacing it with Heather’s.

“Where would you live after opening your flower shop?” she asked. He looked over at her, finding only the tips of her ears visible over the back of the couch. “Would you want it to be a shop that has apartments above it, or would you want to live somewhere else?”

“I think there would be more important things to think of before that,” he said, sliding the door closed behind him and walking over to the couch. “Like what would the business plan be, and who would be the customer base.”

“Ugh, didn’t you just say that you didn’t want to talk about business stuff?”

“I said I didn’t want to talk about money and jobs.”

“Which is what you’re trying to talk about right now.”

Alfred pressed his lips together. She had a point.

“Come and sit down,” she said, patting the cushion next to her. “There’s no need for you to stay standing when you’re already like twice my height.”

He picked up the remote off the TV stand and sat next to her. The TV blared out the voice of some talk show host when he turned it on. He fumbled with the remote, searching for the mute button.

“Do you want to watch something?” he asked lamely, after finding the mute. She shrugged and he put the remote down on the couch arm.

She leaned closer to him. He could smell a hint of rose.

“I would want to live above the shop in an apartment,” she said. “I wouldn’t even care if it was tiny like one of those studios in the city—though I guess it wouldn’t be that small, considering my size. It might be an issue for you, though.”

“I think you’ll find that I’m perfectly okay with living in compromised spaces.”

“Really?” she asked, looking up at him with those big green eyes. He felt his heart beat ever so slightly faster.

“I mean,” he said, glancing around the main room of his apartment and the many signs of his roommate—letters scattered on the table, a half-dead plant in a red plastic cup, and the absolute mess that was the TV stand. His heart beat faster, but for a different reason. He should have cleaned up over the weekend.

“I see. Is it the good company?”

“The what?”

“Your roommate, are they a good person?” She poked him in the stomach.

“He’s okay. Could be worse. I don’t see him all that often.”

“You don’t talk to him?” Heather seemed confused.

“Why do you care about whether I talk to my roommate or not?”

She shrugged. “I never had a roommate. I don’t know what you do with one.”

Alfred stared down at her, emotions boiling away inside his chest. “You’ve never had a roommate?”

“Well I had one first year of college but that doesn’t count.”

“You can’t say that you’ve never had a roommate and then say that you had one in college.”

“I told you it doesn’t count!” She bopped his arm playfully. “I only slept there like half the time. I was usually at my friends’ places.”

“But you were still around other people.”

“Not my roommate.”

Alfred shook his head and leaned back against the too-soft cushions of the couch. He studied the popcorn ceiling, picking out old water stains and strange marks. “But you were still living around other people,” he said.

“Yeah, my friends. So I don’t know what it’s like to live with someone you don’t know.”

“Why are you interested in this?” Alfred asked, picking his head up off the back of the couch. Heather had moved even closer, having turned to face him and placing her hands on her knees. Her eyes glinted in the light from the TV and he could tell that she was genuinely curious. “You’ve done it before.”

“Not like this,” she said, glancing over the back of the couch at the rest of the room. “And college was a long time ago.”

“Don’t remind me,” he said, turning to the TV. “It fucking sucks.”

She shifted. “The time or the living with other people?”

He snorted. “Both.”

“You don’t like living with other people?”

“I don’t like have a roommate. It would be a lot less to worry about without him around.”

“I thought you said he was okay?”

“Okay compared to some of the others I’ve had. Be thankful you haven’t had to deal with ones that decide that anything in the kitchen is fair game, including the rice that you just cooked. Asshole took the entire pot back to his room and I only found out after he dumped what was left of it in the sink the next day.”

“Wow,” she said.

“I’m just glad it was a short lease that time.” He let his head fall back. There was a lot of shit experiences popping back up in his mind that he didn’t particularly want to think about. “Why do you care, anyways? Were you planning on getting a roommate?”

“Not right now.”

“Don’t bother.” He shot her a glance out of the corner of his eye. “Why would you even want to get a roommate in the first place?”

“I was just interested, after seeing your apartment.”

“That should have been your first clue as to why it would be a bad idea.”

She huffed and crossed her arms, pouting. A shiver went through his chest at the sight.

“Why are you even worrying about it?” he asked, reaching over to pat her shoulder before he could think better of it. A moment later he withdrew his hand, worried that he had overstepped his boundaries.

“I’m not,” she said.

Alfred turned to study her face. He felt like he was missing something. He picked up the remote again, going to the TV’s home menu.

“Forget about it,” he said. “We can pick out a movie to watch. You’ve got time, right?”

“It’s not like I’ve got anywhere else to be. And I probably shouldn’t be driving right now.”

“When do you get up for work?”

She shrugged, turning to the TV to look over the list of streaming services. “Around eight. But I work from home most of the time so it can be flexible.”

He glanced at the time displayed in the corner of the screen. It was nearing nine. Where had the time gone? “We could watch a couple episodes of a TV show instead.”

“Just pick something.”

He selected the only streaming service he was half-familiar with and stared at the front page after it loaded. There was nothing he could see that was remotely interesting or stood out to him in any way. A sea of unknown faces stared out at him—serious, grizzled, and accompanied by overly-stylized titles.

He scrolled down, hoping to find something different. The images didn’t change much, and he attributed it to the fact that he was using his roommate’s account. The only thing that man watched was explosions considering the amount of bass rumbling that Alfred had had to listen to over their time together.

“You don’t have any suggestions?” he asked, desperate for some kind of direction. The names on the screen were starting to blur together and he wasn’t sure if he had reached the bottom and circled back around from the top.

“Not really,” she said, leaning towards the TV. “Slow down and let me read the descriptions.”

He did so, though he wondered if there would be anything that would interest her. There wasn’t anything that interested him, that was for sure. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had seen a movie.

They went through a couple films, with her silently reading the description and then motioning at him to go to the next.

She flopped back on the couch and let out a breath. “Forget it,” she said. “It’s too hard to pick something.”

Alfred pretended to go through a couple more before giving up, unsure what to do but glad that the heavy responsibility of picking out something to watch had been lifted from his shoulders.

He sat back, letting his hand holding the remote fall to the couch seat. The back of his hand brushed against Heather’s thigh. He pulled it away and placed it in his lap, only for her to pluck the remote from his hand. Her face looked vaguely troubled, like she was trying to figure out a complex problem. He opened his mouth to ask what was up.

“That interview we had last Friday,” she said. He closed his mouth, waiting for her to continue. She fiddled with the remote. “I’m sorry about being so blunt.”

“That’s okay,” he said automatically. “Really. I’ve honestly had calls with customers that were worse. Way worse.”

She chuckled. “I’m sure.”

He watched her twist the remote around in her hands. She looked up at him with those green eyes that he was addicted to. He wouldn’t say it aloud but he had had dreams about those eyes over the last couple of days.

“You—” she said.

“Heather—” he said at the same time. There was a moment of awkwardness while they sorted out who would talk first.

“You felt it, too, right?” she asked. “When we shook hands at the end of the interview? And the other times, too?”

He looked at the TV. His heart felt like it was about to beat out of his chest.

“Yes,” he said. His mind couldn’t come up with anything else to say.

A warm hand wrapped around his own and it was as if his spine turned into a live wire. The hair on the back of his neck stood up and he melted away into the couch. He gathered up all his courage and turned to her, blood pounding away in his ears and face hot.

She looked up at him, the light from the TV reflecting off her glasses. She stared up at him with those perfect eyes. She leaned forward and a lock of her hair shifted. In the corner of his eye he caught the tip of her tail flicking in the air. Anything beyond that was lost to him, dim blurs of meaningless noise.

She squeezed his hand. He responded in kind.

Leaning closer, she slid one of her hands up his arm. Goosebumps broke out over his entire body. He reached over with his free hand and and placed it over hers on his forearm.

She smiled. He smiled back, feeling as if he was floating away.

Thankfully she slid her hand further up his shoulder to anchor him to the couch.

A thought occurred to him that was so ridiculous that he couldn’t help but get caught up in a mental loop thinking about it.

“This isn’t some kind of trick to make me apply for that position, is it?” he asked.

“No.” She slid her hand up the side of his neck and cupped his chin. Her chest pressed against his “It’s a trick to make you keep dreaming of that flower shop by the sea.”

“Oh,” he said.

She smiled and pulled his head down for a kiss.

Everything had changed after they separated.

“And I want to be part of that dream,” she added.

She pushed herself further into him and they kissed again. The sent of roses was strong in his nose.

***

The waves crashed on the shore, the setting sun big and orange above the horizon.

Alfred was sitting in a chair on the beach. The salt air curled against his face. He had been instructed to go outside and sit on the beach for the day—he had been told that he was stressing out too much lately.

So he sat on the beach, watched the sun set, and felt the sand under his feet. He listened to the water smack into the sand and pull away, only to come rushing back in to repeat the process all over again. He didn’t have to run around and figure out how to put out thee next fire, or fight off the urge to slam his head into his desk while talking with a contractor.

The ocean was filling in for him today on that.

There was something about the repetitiveness that wiped away all thought. It was like focusing on breathing, only it was external and thoughtless.

The breeze reversed for a moment, and he could smell a faint aroma of flowers. The sound of sandals came up behind him.

“Hey,” Heather said. “Are you going to sit out here for the entire sunset?”

Alfred looked up at her. She had a big smirk on her face, those wonderfully green eyes staring down at him through those old round glasses. Her white sundress rippled in the ocean breeze, occasionally outlining her thighs.

“Why not?” he asked, turning back to the water. A smile played across his lips at the thought of the pout she was no doubt currently making. “You put me on vacation. I don’t have anything better to do.”

She huffed in his ear. “Really?”

He couldn’t help himself, and glanced at her. She had crossed her arms and put on an exaggerated pout. When she saw him looking, she deepened her pout and subtly pushed out her chest. She wasn’t wearing a bra.

“Why don’t you sit and watch it with me?” he asked, his grin growing wider and more smug. “You aren’t doing anything either, right?”

She leaned into his face. “I’ve got a special flower that I think you should come take a look at. It’s been on my mind all day but I never had the time to talk to you about it.”

“Oh? What’s so special about it?”

She gave him a quick peck on the lips. He could smell roses over the salt from the ocean.

“You’ll have to come and take a look for yourself,” she said.

“I don’t know,” he said, glancing at the ocean. “I’ve been having a good time doing nothing out here. I don’t get to sit on my ass and stop thinking very often.”

She bopped him on the head. “You’ve sat out here and watched the sun set every single day since we got here.”

“Why wouldn’t I? It’s a really good sunset.”

“You’re getting caught up in the past again, aren’t you?”

He turned to her, smile shrinking. “What? Where are you getting that from?”

“Come on,” she said, placing a hand on his arm. A zing shot up to his brain and then down his spine, just like it always did when they touched. “Let’s go make some new memories.”

She pulled him out of the chair, leading him up the beach and towards the boardwalk where there was a line of small stores. She was heading towards the one that had flowers in the front window.

“I told you, I’m on vacation,” he said, glancing back at his chair. “Wait a second.”

“Forget about your chair,” she said, tugging at his arm. “No one’s going to take it. If they do I’ll buy you another one.”

“You could never replace that chair. I found it in the trash and I’ve never sat in something more comfortable.”

She groaned goodnaturedly. “It’ll be fine.”

Alfred gave his chair one final goodbye before looking away. Maybe he would see it again, maybe he wouldn’t. He was sure that it would work out in the end.

Heather pushed open the door to the flower shop despite the sign stating “closed” and pulled him inside. He stopped and turned to look out the front window at the sunset. It wasn’t quite the same but it was close enough.

Clearing her throat, Heather tugged his arm. “I told you that we were going to make some new memories,” she said.

“I am making new memories,” he replied, looking down at her and squeezing her hand. “I’m holding hands with you in our flower shop watching the sun set over the ocean.”

She stiffened and he watched the tip of her ears redden. Turning around without another word, she tugged him towards the back of the shop. She pushed open a door marked with an “employees only” sign and then they were in the back room. It was mostly boxes and other items required for the running of a store—all of their flowers were kept out front because that was where they had the space. The back room was small, almost a closet, with a single window that looked out at the sand dunes behind the row of shops. There was a small couch up against the wall with the window that had been left by the previous tenets.

Leading him over to the couch, she let go of his hand and struggled out of her sundress. She tossed the white fabric over an arm of the couch and looked up at him, a serious look coming to her face.

“Take off your clothes,” she said, hooking a finger into the waist of his shorts. He smacked her hand away.

“You always want to jump into things right away,” he said, unbuttoning his Hawaiian shirt—flower-print, of course—and sliding it off.

She tutted and tapped a foot, glaring up at him. She crossed her arms under her breasts and hefted them, angling her erect nipples at his face.

“And you insist on making sure that everything is carefully planned out beforehand,” she said, twisting her shoulders from side to side.

He shook his head and folded his shirt, laying it over her dress. Tweaking the dress to make it look less carelessly thrown, he smiled at the sensation of Heather’s fingers digging into his waist and ripping his shorts down. She pulled at his underwear next, freeing his hardening member into the air. A puff of hot air washed over it and blood rushed into it. He waited a moment, still bent over the arm of the couch.

A hand wrapped around his shaft and he shuddered. Within the next couple of heartbeats he was painfully hard and twitching in her hand.

A couple of seconds passed with nothing more happening.

“You know,” he said, stepping out of his shorts, “I thought you wanted me to look at a flower.”

She squeezed him tightly and he brought his knees together. “Shut up for a second.” She pressed her nose into the back of his sack and took a deep breath. He could feel the cold metal of her glasses frames on the back of his legs as she pressed harder. There was a quick flash of a warm wetness from a lick of her tongue and then it turned into a chill exposed to the air. Goosebumps ran down his legs.

She took another deep breath and he could feel the air being sucked past his skin into her nose.

“Not that I don’t enjoy this,” he said, smiling up at the window. “But it’s a little one-sided, don’t you think?”

She wrapped her other hand around his shaft and started a slow stroke, still breathing hard enough for him to feel.

He shook his head and straightened, wincing from her refusing to let go and pulling his penis at an odd angle. He turned around and she finally released her grip. Pouting up at him, she placed her hands on her hips.

“You always take control,” she said, eyes falling back down to his erection. It pointed up at her face, at the same height as her mouth. He placed a hand on her head between her round ears to stop her from leaning in and taking it between her lips.

“Who’s the one that’s always on top?” he asked. “Besides, isn’t it supposed to be my vacation? I want to take it slow.” He slid his hand down to cover her mouth. “Now, where’s this flower I need to inspect?”

He felt her frown and his smile only widened. He slid his hand further down, tracing the side of her neck. He ran a finger over the outside of her shoulder, admiring the silky texture of her fur. She glared up at him, impatience written all over her face and in the the tenseness of her shoulders.

“Relax,” he said, bringing his hand to her chest and massaging her breast. The irritated mask that she was wearing cracked and he caught the edges of her mouth twitching upwards. “Let’s sit down. No sense in coming back here if we aren’t going to use the couch.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’ve been sitting all day,” she said. “You’re not tired of it?”

“Not when I have you on my lap. Plus I’ve had years of practice sitting down.”

She looked away and pushed at his stomach with a hand. “If I’d have known you were this cheesy back then I would have forgotten all about this dream.”

“Aren’t mice supposed to love cheese?”

Heather groaned, but flashed him an exasperated smile. He smiled back at her, then hooked his hands under her arms and hefted her off the ground. Twisting around, he fell more than sat on the couch and she came thumping into his chest.

“Don’t do that,” she said, scowling at him from a couple finger-widths away. She adjusted herself, pushing away from him. He wrapped his arms around her, drawing her back in for a kiss. He felt the stress melt away from her—it had been a long day for her, he was sure. There was always something to do in spite of how small their operation was here, and he felt bad for sitting outside most of the day despite the fact that he was on vacation.

That had been her idea, since he had been running himself absolutely ragged keeping everything running smoothly. Just another habit from his days working as a program manager. She had had enough the day he spent several hours on the phone with a supplier about a missing delivery—missing a planned dinner date in the process—and forced him into taking a vacation.

He loosened his arms and pulled away, breaking off the kiss. He shouldn’t be thinking of those kinds of things—not when he had this amazing woman in his lap. He watched her eyelids flutter, revealing tiny flashes of those green eyes that he loved so much.

She leaned into his chest, nestling her head into the crook of his neck. He felt one of her stiff nipples prod him in the chest, a hard point in the middle of a soft sea of flesh. She shifted her hips and he found his member sandwiched between his stomach and a very warm bit of flesh. He sucked in a breath and felt Heather chuckle.

Falling into a rocking motion, she ground her crotch against his rod. It was quickly covered in her juices and he twitched from the slick sensations.

“You wanted to know what flower I wanted you to inspect,” she said, pulling away from him with a devilish gleam in her eye.

“Yes,” Alfred said, eyes drawn to her breasts which swayed back and forth from her motions. “Is it this one?” He pinched a nipple.

Eyes widening, she froze in place. The moment was short-lived, and she resumed her rocking with an even greater force.

“No,” she said, through clenched teeth. “Try again.”

He hummed and reached up to tweak the edge of her ear.

“Colder,” she said, batting at his hand.

“But you love me playing with your ears,” he said.

She rolled her eyes and he acquiesced.

“Maybe something further down, then?” he asked, hands slipping around to the small of her back. He teased the base of her tail with a finger and she shuddered, but continued with her ministrations.

“You’re getting closer,” she said, lifting her hips off his crotch. A sudden rush of cold air over his penis sent the hair on the back of his neck prickling. “Let me give you another hint.”

With practiced ease, she slid herself down over him. He grabbed onto the thing closest to hand at the sensation—her rear. She let out a soft squeak and he felt her lower muscles clench in response. He smiled. He had quickly learned that her butt was a weak point of hers—from that first night on the couch, even. How could it not be, given its size? It rivaled her chest for sheer mass, and her chest was no slouch. Each cheek easily filled one of his hands past overflowing and was a delight to knead. Not just for the noises she made, but for the feel of her fur flowing under his fingers, covering a meaty chunk of flesh that made the lizard part of his brain extremely happy.

He proceeded to do exactly that, digging his hands into her plush rear. Legs giving out, she sunk even further down his shaft until she had swallowed him completely. He could feel every little movement that she made, and he loved it.

He loved it so much that he had to stop everything and focus on his breathing, shutting out the feeling of tightening in his groin.

She tensed to lift herself up and he dug his fingers into her to keep her in place.

“Wait,” he said, voice strained. “I told you that you’re always jumping into the thick of it right away. If you move right now that’s going to be the end of that.”

She pouted. “Well then, what do you expect me to do?” she said. “Just sit here?”

“Yes.” He leaned in and kissed her before she could reply, massaging her rear cheeks.

“How come you’re allowed to play with my bits,” she said in between breaths, “but I’m not?”

He squeezed a cheek. “Do you not enjoy it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

He smirked and lightly stroked the patch of thin fur under the base of her tail. She shuddered from the touch, muscles contracting around his hilted rod. The sensation wasn’t as overwhelming as it had been at first entrance and he pushed her hips from side to side, grinding their crotches together.

“Sitting here isn’t so bad, is it?” he asked. “I’m sure you’ve been running around all day. Your legs look like they could use a massage.”

His hands stayed planted on her butt, kneading it, separating the cheeks, pulling it in all different directions.

Heather leaned up against him. “I suppose it was a good thing that I ended up with you,” she said. “Everyone always seems to fixate on my chest and that gets boring after a while.”

Alfred tweaked her nipple. She hissed and poked him in the stomach.

“Not funny,” she said, a smile on her face. “Are you ready yet?” She bounced her hips on his lap a couple of times.

“You sure that you don’t want to take it slow, just this once?” he asked. She pulled away from him.

“Are you afraid? Is my fat ass too much for you to handle?”

He gave her cheeks a good squeeze. “Never.”

“Then why are you asking me to take it slow?”

“I want to enjoy it for as long as possible,” he said into her ear. He felt a shudder pass through her at the words. “But if you insist.”

“Butt?” She waggled her eyebrows at him, the tip of her tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth in mirth.

He let go of a cheek and gave it a firm smack. The ripple from the impact seemed to pass through her entire body, eyes going wide and back straightening.

“Butt,” he confirmed. Her eyes refocused on him. They that mischievous spark they got when she was planning something.

She picked herself up off his lap. Slowly. The seconds felt like minutes to him. He didn’t even know it was possible for her to move that slowly. Putting her hands on his shoulders, she smiled down at him. He matched her smile. There was a tingle in his guts, a feeling of nervousness the same as if he was perched on the edge of a cliff looking at the drop to the rocks below.

Pausing at the top, right where he could feel the crown slip into the relatively chilly air, she said, “Big butt.”

He opened his mouth to respond. She let herself fall into his lap, the smack of her furred thighs on his a sign of things to come. He stiffened in more ways than one, feeling like he was going to pop a vessel.

“You like my huge ass, don’t you?” she asked, wiggling her hips from side to side. “Whenever you’re thinking and I’m around, you always stare at it.”

“Yes,” Alfred said, pulling her closer and giving her a squeeze. “I like your huge ass.”

“Show me.”

“This is just a ploy to get me to do what you want, isn’t it?”

Heather smirked at him. “I don’t know, is it?”

He shifted his hands to her hips and tightened his grip. “I think it is.”

“What do I want, then?”

He twisted the pair of them to the side and spun her around so that she was facing the armrest. She gave a noise of complaint and tried to spin back around. He held her firmly in place. The motion had sparked something and he was hungry now. He leaned forwards, pushing her down against the faux leather surface of the couch. She placed her hands on the armrest and did her best to keep herself upright. They collapsed a moment later and then they were laying on the couch, two warm bodies in an embrace that he never wanted to leave.

“You want me to play your ass like a bongo,” he whispered in her ear. She tightened delightfully, and he pulled his hips back to give a little thrust in response. “Is that right?”

He gave her rear another little thrust and she squeaked. “Yes,” she said.

Drawing back even further, he started up a rhythm that sent a plapping of flesh bouncing off the walls of the room. He could feel how wet she was from the way that the fur around her crotch stuck to him—the way it sounded, too. There was a sticky smack in there at the beginning of the impact like a high-hat played over a kick.

She met his thrusts with her own, shoving her ass backwards at him. “Harder,” she said in a wanting groan.

He sucked in a breath and went after it harder. It was tiring work, but then again he had been sitting around all day. He had energy to burn.

Burn that energy he did, with Heather continuously asking for him to increase his pace or the power behind his thrusts. Soon the small room was stifling and sweat ran down the small of his back. The physical exertion had allowed him to stave off his orgasm for some time, but he was reaching the end of his rope regardless.

He was now slamming into her rear with such force that the rebound from the couch was launching her into the air. She had given up on trying to match his thrusts, reduced to an incoherent squeaking mess that was hanging onto the armrest for dear life. At some point her glasses had been knocked askew. her hair as messy as ever. A part of him that was still coherent enjoyed the blissful state of incoherence that she was in. He might prefer taking his time, but there was something to going at it hard and fast—especially when she was asking for more.

Pausing his thrusting for a moment—mainly as an excuse to catch his breath—he gave her rear another firm smack. She gasped at the clap of flesh on flesh and he felt her tense up. It was enough to have him suck in a breath and focus his mind on other things, things that weren’t the warmth of her passage and the lovely squirming that it was doing.

“Again,” she spat out between gasps. He cranked back a hand and smacked her from the other side for good measure. “Fuck me.”

Winded or not, he wasn’t going to ignore a command like that. He started up again, catching his second wind. He found himself enjoying letting loose, oddly enough, though he would never tell her that. He suspected that she already knew that, somehow.

The room was once again filled with the sound of his hips smacking into her rear. The sensation of the two meeting brought such a pleasure to the deepest parts of his brain that it felt like an entirely different person—or perhaps a magnification of himself. He grunted and slaved over her ass, beating it as a blacksmith would hammer an ingot into a rough shape for the part that he was working on.

He was reaching the end of his rope, metaphorically speaking. He held on as best he could against the welling of pleasure from the depths of his loins. Draping himself over her back, he fell into the final crazed thrusting before he fell over the edge.

With one final almighty plap, he shoved himself as deep as he could go and growled her name into her ear. She arched her back, pressing back against him as best she could. He came.

Some tiny presence in his mind that was still able to formulate something approaching a rational thought made him squeeze those cheeks like they were the neck of that supplier that had left him high and dry. She quivered in his grasp, coaxing a final few spasms from him, and then they lay in a tired heap on the couch.

He sucked in the hot, humid air of the little back room and listened to her do the same, feeling his heart pounding away in his chest. He let go of his death grip on her rear and she relaxed ever so slightly. Wrapping his arms around her middle, he hugged her to his chest and found himself with one of her ears in his face. He pinched the edge of it between his lips, then poked at it with his tongue.

Heather wriggled in his grasp, letting out a breathy chuckle. “Stop that,” she said playfully. “I’ll pass out if you make me start laughing now.”

He let go of her ear and she twisted her head around as best she could. They shared an awkward kiss. He pressed his face into the back of her head after breaking off the kiss, taking a deep breath of her rose-scented hair.

“My perfect little flower,” he mumbled. She groaned, though he could hear the smile in her voice.

The two stayed like that for some time until Alfred got up to open the window. Heather went to clean herself off as best she could in the tiny bathroom, and then she asked if he wouldn’t mind continuing back at their home. After getting something to eat, of course.

Shortly after he was locking the front door of the shop. Pulling the key out of the lock, he stared down at it in his palm. It still didn’t feel real, even after all this time. It couldn’t possibly be his key to the flower shop in front of him.

“Something wrong?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No.” He slipped the key into his pocket and smiled down at her. She smiled back and took his hand, leading him away down the boardwalk.

“Then let’s get going! I’m starving.”

He shot a glance back at the shop, then turned back to Heather. Somehow, it had all worked out. She squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back.