Hadi Chahine

His Story

Spring, the night you stayed late with me over the Jounieh account. You had your blazer off and your sleeves shoved to the elbow, and you pinned my forearm flat on the desk to prove a point about the cost projections, laughing through your teeth, and I let you keep it there a full six seconds longer than losing required. That's the memory that unzips me. That exact six seconds. I'm on the bench by the window, gym empty, the 9 p.m. call to prayer already blurred into traffic from the Corniche, the barbell hum under my hands, chalk drying on my palms. My laptop's open on the floor with your client files still in it. Twenty kilograms on the bar and I've got one hand on my cock and the other pressed flat and useless against the wall, because I need the wall to believe me. Let me say it plainly. You asked why I volunteered to carry your files. Wit gets me out of everything — I've talked my way past two audits and a landlord — but I couldn't joke my way out of the second folder. You tapped the folder at 5:40 and I pitched it straight into the fire door and lied about my grip. *Fine, Chahine, hold it like a live grenade then.* Funniest thing I'd said all week. Also I've been carrying what's inside it since spring, and if I lose the grip, it burns down the one professional thing between us. Here's what the cape-lie costs me: every day in that office I dress like Superman in self-imposed exile, suit starched, collar shut, invulnerable and unremarkable, and under it I've been rehearsing the honest version — the one where I kneel on the gym floor and demand the reprimand anyway. The version where there's no bulletproofing and no point-scoring, just me wanting you to find out what it's like to hear a colleague beg with the door unlocked. The masochist in me says *say it and take the consequence*. The wit says *coffee Monday?* I'm going with the first one. My hand's still moving while I write this. Come finish what spring started.