Chapter 24 I was drunk
Camille glanced up, rubbing at the knot in her neck. How did the chief manage this, sitting here for hours, weekend swallowed by paperwork as though time itself bent to her discipline? God, she hated this. She wanted to go home. Curl up in her bed, sink into the quiet, feel the warmth pressing around her, instead of perching on the edge of her chair, heart hammering, mind racing, not knowing what would happen next with the woman in that office.
Her fingers drummed lightly against the desk, tapping out a rhythm she didn’t even notice, each beat echoing her nerves. She tried to focus on the files in front of her, letting her eyes follow the neat lines of text, but the words blurred, ran together, meaningless compared to the weight of the chief’s presence, the silent command it carried even across the glass.
She bent her head again, forcing herself to work, eyes flicking every few seconds toward her phone on the desk, then sliding over to Holland’s office. The chief was there, posture rigid, hands precise as they turned pages, every movement deliberate. Time passed in a haze, minutes folding into hours before Camille realized it. When she glanced at the clock, it was almost two.
Her stomach twisted, not from hunger, but from nerves. Should she go in? Ask if Holland wanted lunch? The thought felt reckless, bold even, but her hands refused to stay still. They fidgeted on the edge of her desk, twisting pens, shuffling papers, tapping lightly, as if some small motion could summon courage she didn’t know she had.
She paused, taking a slow breath, trying to still her racing pulse. Every instinct screamed for her to stay put, to hide behind the safety of her desk and the office’s low hum. But a sharper pull, one she couldn’t ignore, drew her eyes back to Holland’s office. Her chest jumped as the faint weight of that presence pressed against her, insistent.
Camille stayed frozen like that, heart hammering, gathering the little courage she could summon, willing herself to move but unable to push off the edge. Even the few people she’d seen earlier were gone. The space felt empty. The hum of machines and distant voices thinned to a faint murmur, leaving the office stripped of movement, hollow. Mandy had slipped out long ago, leaving the silence lingering around Camille like a challenge she didn’t know she could meet.
She let her fingers drift to the edge of her chair, gripping lightly. Each tick of the clock sounded sharper than it should, each second stretching longer than the last. Her stomach tightened further, pulse spiking, yet she couldn’t tear her gaze away.
Her eyes drifted again toward Holland’s office, and Camille froze. The chief wasn’t bent over her papers anymore. She was looking at Camille. Directly. Unflinching.
The air stalled in Camille’s lungs. Every sound outside the glass, the hum of the machines, even her own breathing, seemed to fade. For a suspended moment neither moved, neither spoke. Then, almost imperceptibly, Holland lifted her hand. A small, deliberate motion, a quiet summons.
Camille’s body reacted before her mind could catch up. She pushed back her chair, rising slowly at first, every step careful, deliberate, then crossed the floor with sudden urgency, heart pounding at each measured step. She slipped into the office, closing the door behind her with care, though the sound barely muted the roar of her thoughts.
“Ms. Lustrelle, you can leave if you want,” Holland said, eyes fixed on the document in front of her. Her voice remained steady, clipped, precise, carrying the weight of routine, as though her words were protocol rather than conversation. “I still have a lot to do.”
Camille nodded automatically, the motion hollow in the stillness. Her gaze fell to the desk. The three donuts were gone. The mug empty. A small spark flickered in her chest, sharp, sudden. Something about the sight reminded her she had been seen, that her small effort mattered. Without thinking, she reached toward the trash, fingers brushing the edge. A thought sparked, something tangible to hold onto.
“How about we go eat lunch together, Chief?” she blurted, words tumbling out faster than she intended. “We can come back, and you can finish your work. I’ll stay and help. There’s this place I know and it's closeby...”
“Ms. Lustrelle.”
Her name, spoken firmly, stopped her mid-sentence. The sound filled the room, steady, deliberate, unyielding. It lingered between them, settling like weight, pressing against the edges of the moment. Camille felt it sink deep into her chest, making her pulse race, stomach tighten. Every instinct screamed at her to retreat, yet her gaze stayed locked.
“Yes,” Camille finally murmured, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. A nervous habit she couldn’t quite control. The motion was small, timid, but it softened something hard in Holland’s expression. The harsh words on her tongue faltered, dissolved before they could escape.
“Boundaries,” Holland said instead, her voice quieter now, but there was an edge to it, a subtle sharpness that made Camille hesitate.
Camille nodded, but her gaze didn’t drop. She stayed rooted in place, shoulders straight, fingers tightening slightly at her sides. She didn’t flinch, didn’t shift. Bold, defiant, refusing to shrink.
Holland’s eyes lingered on her a fraction longer, just enough for a flicker of something unfamiliar to ripple through her. The words from last night, the ones she hadn’t been able to erase, echoed again in her mind, reckless and raw. And yet here Camille was, standing before her, unafraid, daring Holland to acknowledge the challenge without a word.
“I know,” Camille said softly, her voice steady despite the flutter in her chest. Her eyes held Holland’s, unwavering. “It’s just lunch. And I want to make it up to you, Chief.”
Holland’s gaze tightened, slow and deliberate. Her eyes locked on Camille, unblinking, assessing. “Make up?” Her lips pressed into a thin line, each syllable clipped and measured, carrying a weight Camille hadn’t anticipated. It pressed against her chest, making her stomach twist.
"Yes," Camille breathed out the word.
“Make up?” Holland murmured again, the words softer this time, but still deliberate. “So you’re aware of what you did.”
Camille’s throat constricted. She had dared, foolishly, to hope the night might have been blurred, hazy for Holland as it had been for her. But no. Holland’s memory was sharp, precise, unforgiving. She could feel the gaze, the scrutiny, burning into her.
“I… I…” Camille’s words faltered, trapped somewhere between hesitation and fear.
The scrape of Holland’s chair against the floor broke the silence, startling in the stillness. She rose, moving around the desk with a deliberate, measured rhythm, each step purposeful, every motion precise. Her eyes never left Camille.
“About last night…” Camille started, but her words faltered, catching in her throat. What could she even say, when her memory was fragmented, scattered, unreliable?
“Yes,” Holland said at last, stopping just close enough that the space between them seemed to hum, charged with something neither had named. “Let’s talk about that.”
The air thickened, heavy, humming with the weight of all that remained unspoken. Camille felt it settle against her skin, a quiet tension that made her pulse thud in her ears.
Swallowing hard, she steadied herself, courage teetering on the edge but refusing to fall. “About... about the call… I…” Her voice wavered, caught between apology and explanation.
“Do you have any idea how inappropriate it was?” Holland’s words cut through the room, sharp and precise. Her tone snapped back into control, a blade that made Camille flinch inwardly. “To call me at that hour. To say what you said.”
Camille tilted her head, eyes narrowing slightly, a faint test glinting in her gaze, as though measuring how far she could push. “I... I was drunk.”
“That doesn’t excuse it, Ms. Lustrelle,” Holland threw back, her voice crisp, cold, and each word striking, like it was vibrating in the small, charged space between them. The air seemed heavier, thicker, carrying the weight of every unspoken rule she enforced.
A faint smirk tugged at Camille’s lips, though it quivered under the surface, betraying the nerves she refused to let show. The air between them tightened, charged with something she couldn’t quite name but couldn’t ignore either. Something inside her itched to push, to see how far she could test the woman before the walls finally cracked. Her breath caught once before she forced it out. “So what? Are... are you firing me?”
Holland blinked, taken aback by the audacity, her posture shifting as if grounding herself against the hit Camille had just thrown. The silence thickened, stretching longer than either of them expected, long enough to reveal that the question landed somewhere it wasn’t meant to. Her eyes narrowed slightly, not with anger, but with calculation, as though she were reading Camille line by line and deciding what to do with what she found. “Excuse me?”
“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” Camille pressed, stepping forward, the space between them shrinking until her presence brushed against Holland’s controlled exterior. The subtle tilt of her head lowered her voice just enough to cut deeper, not in volume but in certainty. “Because it’s easier to fire me than admit I got under your skin.”