The Sinner's Saint

COOPERATE BATMAN

End of April

2 WEEKS LATER
I had one goal today. One single, non-negotiable goal, to do absolutely nothing. No calls, no emails, no people, no decisions about things that other people should be capable of deciding themselves. Just silence and the rare luxury of existing without anyone requiring something from me.

Then Nikolai sent a screenshot of an email from the board of directors and now I'm sitting in a hotel room with seven people in it who all have opinions about my appearance and I genuinely don't know what I did to deserve the people around me but it must have been significant.

They chose Sunday.
For a launch event.

They looked at an entire calendar of available days and chose the one that normal people use to rest.

The room is too full and everyone in it is too comfortable.

Someone is doing something to my hair which I'm tolerating because the alternative is going out looking like I slept in the Cadillac. Two people are holding suits up in sequence like I haven't already decided which one I'm wearing.

Someone else is crouched over shoe options with the focus and dedication of a person defusing something and I genuinely cannot locate the logic in needing assistance with footwear. You put them on your feet. That's the entire process.

Earlier someone walked in and said the word makeup directly to my face like that was going to go well for them. I looked at them for about two seconds. They went back to wherever they came from.

I go through the list of people I'll be working with today while the hair situation resolves itself. It's not as bad as it could be.

Alexandria is on it. She'll be exactly herself about the whole thing which historically means the day becomes either significantly more manageable or considerably more chaotic and I've genuinely lost the ability to predict which one it will be before it happens.

That's new.

I don't particularly like it but I've filed it away with the other things about her that don't behave the way I expect them to.

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An hour later the room is emptier because I removed everyone who wasn't serving an immediate function, picked my own suit and my own shoes because I'm going to a work event and not a production of one, and now I'm looking at myself in the mirror with the particular satisfaction of a man who has reclaimed approximately forty minutes of his own time.

Dark suit but with a tie. Almost the same as the fundraiser last week. I don't think about the fundraiser. Well, I don't want to.

I grab my phone and my keys and take the Cadillac because I might need to drive Alexandria home after. That's a practical decision based on observable facts about her current physical state and has nothing to do with anything else.

⚬⚬⚬
I stop at the office first because there are three things I need before the venue and because the drive gives me twenty minutes of quiet that I intend to use properly.

I'm in the back of the Cadillac going through the calls I missed yesterday when my phone buzzes.

Alex😈 (obviously, she changed her name on my phone)
Its A photo of her eating cereal, sitting on what looks like her kitchen counter, spoon halfway to her mouth, the sun is hitting her face in a way that makes her eyes a mesmerising version of themselves. She looks completely unbothered by anything.

I stare at the photo for longer than I should. Then we end up texting about something that starts with the cereal and goes somewhere else entirely the way conversations with her always do, moving through three unrelated topics before either of us notices.