Chapter 51: The Donna Rules
Donna's apartment was a revelation. Not because it was fancy—though it was nicer than mine, with actual furniture that matched and art on the walls. But because it was so completely her. Organized chaos. Books stacked everywhere, not on shelves but in piles that somehow made sense. A record player in the corner with vinyl scattered around it. Plants that were actually alive.
I stood in her kitchen holding a bottle of wine while she searched for a corkscrew.
"I know I have one. I used it last week." She opened another drawer. "Or maybe I left it at the office. No, that's crazy. Who takes a corkscrew to work?"
"You, probably."
She pointed at me. "Fair."
Found it eventually, wedged between takeout menus and a stack of unopened mail. I opened the wine while she pulled down glasses—mismatched, one from a college she didn't attend, another that said "World's Best Secretary" in ironic quotation marks.
"Harvey gave me that as a Christmas gift three years ago," she said, noticing me looking at it. "He thought it was funny. I thought it was tone-deaf. We were both right."
We settled on her couch with wine and Thai food from the place down the street. The windows were open, city noise drifting in—sirens, car horns, someone's terrible saxophone practice.
"I'm proud of you," Donna said after her second glass. "The Kessler case. You beat Mike cleanly, settled professionally, didn't make it about Harvey even though Hardman wanted you to."
"Did Harvey complain to you?"
"Extensively. For three days. I ignored him professionally." She smiled. "Which made him complain more."
"About the case or about us?"
"Both. Mostly us. He's convinced you're using me for inside information."
"I'm not."
"I know. But Harvey doesn't understand relationships that aren't transactional. If two people are together, one must be using the other. The idea that we might actually like each other independently of work benefits—that confuses him."
I thought about Harvey's worldview, how everything reduced to power and leverage. Donna wasn't wrong.
"Does it bother you? Him being disapproving?"
"It annoys me. But Harvey's been disapproving of something for the entire thirteen years I've known him. This is just the latest installment." She refilled her glass. "What about you? Hardman giving you grief about dating someone at Pearson Hardman?"
"Hardman doesn't care as long as I keep winning cases against them. He'd probably encourage it if he thought I could use you for intelligence."
"But you don't."
"We agreed on rules."
"We did. And they're working." She set down her glass, turned to face me properly. "But we need to talk about what happens when they get tested again. Kessler was one thing—small case, clear boundaries. What happens when you and Harvey face each other on something bigger?"
I'd been thinking about that since settlement closed. "We stick to the rules. No case discussion. No information sharing. Complete separation of professional and personal."
"And when Harvey pressures me to find out what you're doing?"
"You tell him no."
"I do tell him no. He doesn't accept it."
"Then keep telling him until he accepts it or fires you."
Donna laughed, bitter edge to it. "Harvey can't fire me. I'm too essential. But he can make my life difficult. And he will, the next time you beat him."
We sat with that truth for a while. The saxophone player down the street gave up, replaced by someone's stereo playing old Motown too loud.
"This only works if we choose each other actively," Donna said finally. "Not passively. Not 'we're together unless it gets hard.' But actively choosing this every single day despite the complications."
"I know."
"Do you? Because there's going to come a moment where Harvey demands I choose between loyalty to him and loyalty to you. And when that happens, I need to know you understand what I'm choosing."
I set down my wine, looked at her properly. "When Harvey demands you choose, you tell him to go to hell. Because he's not entitled to control your personal life no matter how many years you've been his secretary."
"And if he fires me?"
"Then you find another job where you're treated like a person instead of an asset. And we figure it out together."
Donna's expression softened. "That's the right answer."
"It's the only answer. We set the rules. We stick to them. Harvey doesn't get a vote."
She kissed me then, tasting like wine and Thai basil. When she pulled back, she was smiling.
"What?" I asked.
"You keep surprising me. Every time I think you're going to calculate, you just... choose. It's refreshing."
"I'm learning."
"From who?"
"From you."
We finished the wine, ordered dessert from the Thai place, watched terrible reality TV about people buying houses they couldn't afford. Donna provided running commentary, predicting which couples would last (none of them). I half-watched, mostly just aware of her presence, the particular way she laughed at the stupid parts.
Around eleven, she muted the TV. "Tomorrow. No plans, no strategy, no calculating. Just spontaneous Brooklyn exploration."
My System immediately started generating optimal routes, rating neighborhoods by interest level, calculating travel times.
"Okay," I said, ignoring the calculations completely.
"Really? No planning?"
"Really. We'll figure it out as we go."
Donna studied me. "Who are you and what did you do with Scott Roden?"
"I'm trying something new. Not calculating everything."
"How's it feel?"
"Terrifying. But good."
Saturday morning, we took the subway to Brooklyn without a destination. Got off at a random stop—Park Slope—and just started walking.
The neighborhood was tree-lined streets, brownstones with flower boxes, coffee shops with outdoor seating. Different from Manhattan's vertical steel. More human-scaled.
We hit a bookstore first—used place with books stacked floor to ceiling and a cat that judged us from the counter. Donna disappeared into fiction, emerged thirty minutes later with three novels I'd never heard of.
"This one's about a woman who fakes her own death," she explained, showing me covers. "This one's about sisters who hate each other. And this one is apparently a meditation on grief disguised as a cookbook."
"Sounds depressing."
"Good books usually are."
I found the law section—couldn't help myself—but it was just dusty treatises from the eighties. Nothing useful. Moved to history instead, picked up something about the fall of the Roman Empire.
"Of course you choose the Roman Empire," Donna said, reading over my shoulder.
"What's wrong with the Roman Empire?"
"Nothing. It's just very... you. Systematic collapse of a complex organization through internal corruption and external pressure."
"That's not why I picked it."
"Isn't it?"
We bought the books, walked to a food truck selling Korean tacos. Ate standing on the sidewalk, sauce dripping everywhere, completely undignified. My System tried to catalog the experience—optimal food truck locations, probability of good recommendations—and I deliberately shut it down.
Just ate the taco. Just existed in the moment.
"You're doing it," Donna said.
"Doing what?"
"Not calculating. Your face gets this particular expression when you're running probability models. Right now you just look... present."
"Is that good?"
"That's everything."
We spent the afternoon wandering. Hit a vintage clothing store where Donna tried on ridiculous hats and made me model a leather jacket that made me look like I was trying too hard. Found a coffee shop that roasted their own beans and spent an hour reading our new books while overpaying for espresso. Stumbled across a street festival—local artists selling jewelry and paintings, a guy playing guitar badly but enthusiastically.
No plan. No strategy. No optimization.
Just wandering.
Around six, we ended up on the Brooklyn Promenade watching the sun set over Manhattan. The skyline glittered across the water, close enough to touch but feeling very far away.
"You smiled more today than the entire past two months," Donna said, leaning against the railing.
"Because I wasn't calculating anything."
"Good. Keep not calculating. At least with me."
I thought about that. The System had been quiet all day, dormant except for occasional attempts to catalog information I kept dismissing. Like it was learning when to step back.
"Can I tell you something?" I asked.
"Always."
"This is the first time since arriving in New York that I've felt like myself. Not an associate. Not an opponent. Not someone building a career. Just... me."
Donna looked at me, expression unreadable in the dimming light. "That's what I wanted to hear."
"Why?"
"Because it means you're not performing anymore. Not even with me. You're just being."
We walked back to her apartment as the city shifted into evening mode. Streetlights flickering on, restaurants filling up, the particular energy of Saturday night taking hold.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Probably work, probably important. I ignored it.
[ **System Notification: New Case Assignment Pending** ]
I dismissed it without reading. Tomorrow would be soon enough for work. Tonight was just for this—walking through Brooklyn with someone who saw through all my calculations and liked what she found underneath.
"Stay over," Donna said as we climbed her apartment stairs. Not a question, just a statement.
"Yeah. I will."
We spent the evening doing nothing important. Made dinner together—badly, but together. Watched a movie neither of us had seen before. Fell asleep on her couch wrapped around each other, city lights filtering through her windows.
My System whispered probability assessments about relationship longevity, success rates for cross-firm relationships, optimal strategies for balancing professional and personal lives.
I turned the volume down mentally. Let it run its calculations in the background where I didn't have to hear them.
Because Donna was right. This only worked if I chose it actively. Not because the probabilities were favorable. Not because it was strategically advantageous. But because she was the one place where I didn't need to be calculating or careful or strategic.
Just present.
And that was worth more than any System calculation could measure.
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