Monday at The Fit began with an unscheduled appointment.

Sitting at the reception area, just as Sabina and Tristan walk out of the elevator, is a gorgeous brunette with bangs and a white coat. She hears Tristan's sharp intake of breath behind her, but Sabina doesn't break stride; she stops right in front of the doctor, raises an eyebrow and puts a hand on her hip. "Who are you?"

The brunette stands, leaving a paper bag on the sofa, and shoves her hands inside her coat pockets. Her eyes are dead-weight, with dark bags underneath them, and the shape of her mouth is delicate, soft, and pretty, turned down—Sabina has a feeling this woman is (a) not getting enough sleep, or (b) not getting laid. Her bet is on the latter when she says, "Hi, I'm Dr. Ian Bishop."

There's a stab—a pinch of horror, a sickly, sickly burst of tide that Sabina feels when she registers the surname. And then she sees the uncanny resemblance, and her bones—from her cheeks to her jaw, her chest and arms and fingertips, down to her hips and calves and every single toe—ease up.

"And you were just about to leave," Tristan hisses, stepping forward to grab her by the wrist, effectively taking out her hand from her pocket. When he turns to Sabina, his eyes are wild, and there's panic and an edge in his voice when he breathes, "Ms. Kyle, I'm so sorry, security must have buzzed her in—"

"Sister," Sabina mutters, eyes narrowing, going back and forth between the two of them. They have the same eyes, the pretty, delicate shape of their mouths; Tristan's hair is just a bit more blond than Ian's. "What is my secretary's sister doing outside my office?"

The doctor tips her chin up at her brother and yanks away her arm. "He wasn't answering his phone." To Tristan, she snaps, "June is flaking—she has an emergency. And I have emergencies at the hospital, I have a surgery in two fucking hours, Tris, I'm supposed to be doing rounds right now. God, I don't have time for this—"

"Shut up, you don't get to show up at my workplace," Tristan says, grabbing her by the arm once again, and begins leading her away. "Ms. Kyle, I'll be right back. I'm sorry."

Sabina doesn't even get another word in—she watches the pair move farther away from the hallway.

It's none of her business. Sabina rolls her shoulders and heads in to her office, her bag swinging beside her leg as she walks. The editors directly under Elyse stand up from the cubicles in their staff office, as they regularly do, and all collectively greet her with a, "Good morning." 

She passes by them without a word and puts down her coffee on her desk when she gets settled in, and switches on her computer to get started on her work.

When Tristan knocks, just about five minutes later, Sabina crooks a finger to beckon him inside.

He's holding a folder. Silently, he walks up the few steps to Sabina's desk and places it neatly on its surface. "Progress report from the design team," he says quietly. And then, with a deep breath, "Ms. Kyle, I apologize for my sister's unannounced arrival. It won't happen again."

"Is she older or younger?" Sabina mutters, not looking away from her screen. From her expression and voice, she sounds uninterested and uncaring; just a question to show civility between an employer and an employee. But against her own will and consciousness, she finds herself stupidly anticipating his answer.

"Younger," Tristan says.

"Mm. And she's a doctor."

"Surgeon."

"Ah. Smart."

"Yes, I guess so." Her secretary clears his throat.

It's none of her business, but Sabina has never been attuned with her brain-to-mouth filter. She lets herself say whatever she wants—MJ calls it tactlessness, but Sabina calls it curiosity. "Problems with your partner?"

Her eyes stay on the screen when she asks that, but her fingers have stopped moving on the keyboard.

"Why are you so interested in my life, Kyle? I thought rule number three was no complications."

Sabina's teeth gritted together. "We're at work, Bishop. And I'm being a civil employer."

"Don't be."

"Don't be what?"

"Civil by asking me personal and invasive questions. That's against company policy—HR won't be too happy."

She resists the urge to smile. She wants to slap the smug look off his face. "You need the day off?"

The question startles him—he pauses. Sabina looks up and raises an eyebrow, finds Tristan's eyes staring at her. Like he's studying her—doesn't know if she's joking or not. His smugness is gone. Sabina wins. "You can take the day off if you need to. I'm not too booked today. Your partner might freak out."

Tristan's jaw tightens. "It's taken care of, I don't need to go home."

"Alright then. Get to work."

So he does. Takes off his jacket, hangs it on the back of his chair, and sits on his desk outside Sabina's office to get started on his tasks and paperwork—things he needs to do to make Sabina's life easier. When he's concentrating, there's a pinch in between his eyebrows and a hard set to his mouth. Sabina watches him, placing her chin on her palm, tilting her head to the side. She decides she wants the glass separating them to be less frosted.

When he takes a call, his pretty mouth moves delicately. Sabina watches that, too. Thinks of how his lips feel on her skin—each mark as burning and as hungry and as wanting as the one before.

She squirms on her seat and clears her throat, just as her intercom buzzes. "What," she snaps.

"Mr. Kyle is here." Tristan's voice is smooth and low. He's looking at her from across the glass. "Should I send him up?"

"What's with family members visiting today," Sabina mutters, pushing her chair back to look at herself in the full-body mirror. "Yes, please. And make him some coffee—sweet, add four teaspoons of brown sugar. Thanks."

"Got it."

Sabina stares at her reflection. She's beautiful, she knows. She has thick eyebrows, sharp cheekbones, a symmetrical face structure and dark, expressive eyes. She's beautiful, and when she's with her father, she hates that she is. She hates that she looks so much like the woman she's supposed to call Mom.

When Tristan opens the door to her office, a charming smile on his face, her dad steps in, wearing his college sweater and jeans. There's a matching, wide grin on his own lips as he thanks her secretary.

"Dad."

As soon as Tristan is gone, his smile drops. He stalks over to the sitting area and flops down on the couch, giving her a narrowed glance. "Sabina Ahren Kyle."

"Stop. You sound like Trey." She rounds her desk and moves closer, giving him a kiss on the cheek before taking a seat on the couch opposite him. Sabina crosses her legs and clears her throat at the glare her father is giving her. "You gonna tell me why you're here, terrorizing me with that glare, instead of at school? I know you have class at this time."

Like Andy's father, Allan Kyle raised Sabina on his own, and he did it beautifully. He did it with no help, no diploma, no knowledge about how to do hair braids but tried to learn anyway because Sabina wanted damn hair braids. Sabina is Allan's kid. Just his. And she's damn proud to be so.

It feels good to be paying for his tuition and housing loans this time. To be giving back—to watch him pursue that creative writing course he's wanted, to help him get his diploma at the age of fifty-one, to support his dream, to take worries off his shoulders by providing for him. It's Sabina's turn, and it fucking feels good.

"It was cancelled. I'm supposed to turn in my draft for my homework by tonight."

She gives him a sweet smile. "Then what are you doing in my office? Work on your draft."

Allan purses his lips. "Honey. You ignored my calls. You were all over the news and you ignored my calls."

"Dad. Come on. There was nothing to worry about."

"They were calling you a homewrecker, baby."

"And I don't care because I didn't know," Sabina says tightly, as gently as she can manage. "I fixed it with my PR and legal team, and it's died down. Everything is fine, Dad, I promise."

Her father doesn't look convinced, but he knows there's nothing he can say if Sabina insists on it. He sighs and looks down at his hands after staring at her face for too long, and Sabina swallows thickly. Her dad can never look at her face longer than five seconds—he sees the woman who gave birth to her, and it hurts him. After all these years, and it hurts him.

She'll kill that bitch if she ever saw her.

"Alright. I just wanted to see know how you were doing," Allan looks at her again. He's worried. "How's work?"

"Busy. Good. Not overworking my secretary anymore, if that's what you wanted to ask."

He scoffs out a laugh. "That boy is crazy for wanting to work for you, but he's sweet. A nice man. Hardworking and polite. Now, why don't you—"

"Stop right there." Sabina holds up her palm and raises an eyebrow. "Dad, seriously, if you're going to ask me why I'm not married or giving you grandkids yet, don't waste your breath. Tristan is my employee, and I don't want marriage, I don't want kids. I think love is..." Sabina shrugs. "I don't need it."

Allan studies her, mouth pressed into a thin line. "You don't believe in it because of your mother and I."

"She's not my mother," Sabina states coldly. "And I just don't need it to be whole, or—or complete. I think it's bullshit—that you need to depend on another person for your happiness."

Tristan pushes open the door with his body. He holds up two mugs. "Coffee, sir."

"Thank you, son." Her dad smiles at him, taking the mug.

"He's not your son," Sabina says, but both men ignore her.

Tristan sets the other in front of Sabina, meeting her eyes. And then he straightens and leaves, shutting the door quietly.

Sabina takes the drink and sips it. Doesn't mind that it's burning on her tongue. It's coffee the way she likes it—the way she prepares it when she's waiting for Tristan to leave her apartment. It's the coffee he was making when he said he wanted to date her.

"Yes, you don't need it to be whole or complete," her father says gently, blowing on his own drink. "You don't need to be married if you don't want to, honey. Or even have kids if you don't want them. But is that what you think of Andy and MJ? They depend on Rhysand and Adrian for their happiness?"

Sabina sets her jaw and looks out the window. "No. They went through rough shit—both of them. I'm just—I don't need a partner, Dad, okay? Look, this isn't a therapy session, and I have enough work on my plate to worry about my personal life. Can we just talk about you? How's school? What are you working on? How's your novel going along so far?"

Allan doesn't stay long. As soon as he's done with his coffee, he heads out, says he needs to work on his draft, and kisses Sabina on the forehead. He tells her to answer his goddamn calls. Sabina grumbles that she will.

Tristan escorts him down, and Sabina sticks by his desk, eyebrows furrowing at the peculiar, square, orange Tupperware sitting beside his computer. There's a lid in cream next to it, and the paper bag from earlier—the one Ian Bishop was bringing—is folded neatly on the foot of his chair.

The lunchbox has a half-bitten piece of bread with blue jam smeared messily over the fold on one side of the divider. The other contains small, dark blue circles—

"Ms. Kyle."

Sabina jolts at Tristan's voice. He steps closer, hesitantly, from the elevator, keeping his eyes on hers as he rounds his desk. "Oh, uh. Is Stan dropping my dad off at his school?"

"Yes," Tristan says, standing rigidly, hands scrambling to move his orange box thingy out of the way. He clears his throat.

Sabina raises an eyebrow. "You can eat while working. You know that, right? That's not against company policy, so don't worry about HR."

Tristan doesn't even smile. He purses his lips and explains, "It's, um, breakfast. From home. I was running late and didn't have time for it."

Sabina stares at him.

Stupidly, weirdly, irritatingly, her stomach sinks, and she can't control the coldness in her voice when she says, "Your partner's taking good care of you."

"Ah, well." He rubs the nape of his neck. Sabina's nostrils flare—he's not denying it. "Sort of."

Tactlessness. Sabina hears MJ's voice in her head when she asks, "What was that mess, anyway?"

Tristan isn't fazed. He answers, "Blueberries."

Sabina raises an eyebrow. "Blueberries," she repeats flatly.

"The small, blue fruits," Tristan clarifies. He raises an eyebrow, too. "They're also called brain berries. Rich in anthocyanins."

Rich in what? Sabina scowls. "I'm not stupid, I know what they are."

"We're big on blueberries at home," he says. "That's what the mess was. Good breakfast."

She turns away. "Get back to work, Bishop. I don't pay you to be sucking on your blueberries all day."

She gets back to her desk and decides she hates blueberries.

*

Sabina was angry and horny when Tristan Bishop first slept beside her.

She was angry, horny, and tipsy, and she needed someone (not herself, thank you very much), to relieve her stress, and Tristan was right there.

He was sitting on her counter, going through his phone, with that pinch in between his eyebrows. He was working damage control—his phone was blowing up. Sabina's phone was blowing up too, but she tossed it somewhere on the couch and was halfway to downing her red wine.

"Jesus, Kyle," Tristan muttered, jaw clenched tight. He raised his eyes, meeting her droopy, uncaring, indifferent ones, and said, "It's...God, you—did you have to be so aggressive?"

"Yes," answered Sabina.

It was a shoot for Rogue. It wasn't the cover, no, she wasn't big enough for that yet. It was just a spread, a brand advertisement, a watch. She shot a couple of pictures, left satisfied with them, and eagerly waited for the release.

When she got it, she shoved it in the editor's face. Stormed in his office, didn't care that the secretary was saying you can't go in there, you don't have an appointment—

"What the hell—" the bastard was saying, eyes wide and pissed, but oh, God. Sabina was furious.

"I'm not white, you disrespectful piece of shit, what the fuck is this?" Sabina bit out, body shaking from anger, the raging violence consuming her whole fucking body—"My skin is whitewashed, you fucking prick. Take a good look at me, take a good fucking look at me right now and tell me if you see the same skin color as that fucking picture!" she screamed, stepping forward, dragging her heels painfully loud across the tiles and shoving the pages hard into the fucker's chest. They tore off from her frenzied anger, and the tips of her lashes are prickling with wet, and it wasn't like this had never happened before. When she was a rising model, her skin had been a tiny bit whitened, her ears and legs and scars photoshopped, and she let it happen because, well, the beauty industry was a constant fight to be white, thin, relevant—and to non-white people like her, let's leave the magic to Photoshop.

But Sabina didn't want to stand for it anymore. Starting that day.

They spoke with her agency after she left, after she posted the original picture on her Instagram. The magazine was tagged. And to a model with nearly a million followers at the time, they took it down and changed it.

And Tristan was taking care of her PR team, and Sabina was still pissed off and tipsy, and now she was horny.

"I'm stressed," Sabina said.

"Oh, you are?" Tristan muttered mockingly, running one hand through his sandy blonde hair. It was all messed up—the way it looked whenever Sabina would rake her fingers in his strands. She loved messing it up. He tossed his phone on the dining table and shrugged off his jacket. "Look. I understand you were angry—"

"No, you don't," she cut in, raising one eyebrow, teeth gritting together. "Shut up right now. You don't get to say anything about how I handle things when it comes to my skin color. You know why? Because you're white. And you're a man. So shut the fuck up because you have both the male and the white privilege and if they're going to whitewash the hell out of me, then they can get a new model. Now. I'm stressed and pissed off again because of you. Are you going to make yourself useful or am I throwing you out for talking out of place?"

Tristan was silent for a few seconds, surprised by her outburst, but his lips had twitched. Eyes softened. He sighed, bowed his head, and murmured, "I'm sorry. You're right."

"I know I am."

"Okay, come here."

Sabina made a noise of irritation. She kicked off her shoes and dragged her feet to her kitchen. Tristan watched her, crossing his arms over his chest, and when Sabina stood in front him, her hands reached out to unbutton his polo.

But her secretary took her hands, pulled them away and gave her a stern look. He walked her back gently towards a stool. "Sit down."

Sabina growled. "I don't want to." But Tristan pushed her shoulders until she was seated.

He turned around and opened a cupboard. He didn't even need to tiptoe. "You said you were stressed and pissed off, and food usually fixes that."

"No, sex does."

Tristan ignored her. He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, and Sabina watched him hungrily. "What do you want to eat?"

"You."

He didn't even sputter out a cough. He took out two packets of ramen instead and waved them in front of her. "And now you're tipsy, too."

"And horny, come on."

"No, we're going to eat," Tristan said firmly, shooting her a pointed look when he turned around to navigate around the kitchen. "You're hungry, I'm hungry, let's eat. The whole thing made us skip dinner and you're cranky because you're hungry."

"I'm cranky because you won't fuck me."

But he shook his head, a smile on his lips, and switched on the stove.

And they didn't actually do anything. Sabina was too tired, she was full and exhausted and kind of drunk, and when Tristan carried her to her bed she was dozing off.

When she woke up, Tristan was asleep right beside her.

According to the rules, she should've kicked him out. She would've. If it were any other person, she would've.

(She didn't.)

*

It seems that, when making stupid decisions involving Tristan, Sabina is almost always angry and horny.

A month ago, he was telling her he liked her, and now, he had a partner at home making him disgusting breakfasts put together in a kindergarten arts class. Sabina scoffs out loud, pushing her fingernail onto the elevator button with as much force as she can manage, muttering under her breath, "Faster, faster, faster, come on, God."

It's a Saturday. Tristan had the day off. Denver just dropped her off at her place after she tried to pick someone up at the bar she regularly went to, but every one who tried to catch her eye were either (a) taken, (b) disgusting, or (c) cowards. She would've taken the pretty redhead home if she didn't ask for a goddamn picture before they could make out. Sabina shoved her phone away, downed one shot, and left her.

And now she's standing outside her secretary's measly condominium unit with the rusty 32 taped to the paint-crusted door. Head spinning, but without a second thought, she presses the doorbell and waits impatiently.

She's here to see if he really has a partner two months after he said he wanted to take her out—and if he doesn't, and it's ridiculous how much she's praying that he doesn't—she's giving him a chance to have their fuck buddy agreement back on. As long as he doesn't break any more of the goddamn rules, they should be fine.

(Erratum: as long as they don't break any more of the goddamn rules.)

Tristan opens the door. His eyes are wide. He keeps his body in between the door frame and the door, only opening it wide enough for his head to be peeking out. "Kyle," he breathes. "What are you—"

Sabina holds up a hand. "Are you really taken?" she interjects, arching one eyebrow and placing one hand on her hip. "I'm asking because about two months ago you said you wanted to date me. And now you're living with someone else who's making you disgusting blueberry breakfasts. I find that kind of weird. Don't you?"

His chest rises with a sharp breath. Tristan turns his head away from her.

And her stomach sinks and curls and, wow, is she about to throw up?

Then he faces her again, after checking what or who's inside his measly unit, and he steps out into the hallway to close the door behind him.

He's glorious. Oh, he's so glorious. His body, body that Sabina would very much like to touch and to lick, is covered only by a thin fabric of a dark blue cotton shirt, and he's barefoot, wearing sweatpants, hair down with no gel. As much as Sabina finds work Tristan sexy, it's dangerous that she also finds home Tristan incredibly attractive.

She's praying he says no.

"Kyle." Tristan licks his lips. Sabina tracks that, too, and she squirms in her heels. God, she's horny. "I'm not taken, I already told you I don't have a partner, but—"

Sabina doesn't hear the rest of his words. She pushes him against the door, presses her body to his desperately, hungrily, like she's been starved of it, and tangles her fingers in his hair, tasting the skin on his neck—the sudden erratic beating of his pulse.

But Tristan doesn't respond the way she was expecting him to. She was expecting him to push his hands under her blouse, down to her hips and butt, squeeze and grip so tight they'd leave bruises the next morning. She was expecting him to touch her, grind against her, anything, anything, she was sure he wanted her, too.

Tristan has his hands on her hips, but he's pushing her away.

Sabina pants in his neck, loosening her hold on him, feet flattening onto to the floor from her tiptoe to reach him, rake her fingers in his hair. She pulls back to look at him.

Tristan's features are tight; that little pinch in between his eyebrows is there. His jaw is clenched, face ashen. His hands drop away from her body, and instantly, stupidly, Sabina misses their warmth, like her skin missed the rough callouses of his palms—and he hides them behind his back, but not before she sees his fingers curl into fists.

Sabina presses her lips together. She takes her hands away, too, and the moment they're gone from his skin, they're aching to come back. Sabina fists them into balls, sharp fingernails pressing into her palms. Her toes curl up in humiliation, and there's a shake in her voice when she says, "You don't want me?"

Tristan looks at her, and Sabina can't read him. "I'm sorry. Go home, Kyle."

And then he turns around and closes the door in her face.

Sabina has never been friends with rejection until today. It reaches its vile hand out and introduces itself.