Stress management was hardly the type of thing Roger went in for, or needed for that matter, but by the time they got to Joyce's building (God he hoped she had a new doorman) he'd gone through everything short of Nick's "red triangle" technique: breathing exercises, meditation, visualization. Got a little distracted on the visualization, now that he thought about it. Realistically speaking, though, it was a New Year's party. Easy enough to evade Joyce, especially at one of her world-famous gatherings. Easy enough. No need for stress, and certainly no reason for his palms to be uncomfortably moist and his heart to be beating unreasonably fast. As they were, he admitted.

            The doorman nodded cordially as Genevieve guided them into the apartment complex. Roger barely bit back a caustic remark at the guy's apparent attitude transplant, but conditions being what they were, forced his brain to persevere over his mouth. For once.

            "How do you know Joyce?" he asked Gen, carefully keeping his tone in check.

            "Oh, she's an old friend," Gen replied with convincing vagueness. "Should I even ask how you know her?"

            She turned those eyes on him, and suddenly he longed for the company of the doorman. "She's my," he cleared his throat unnecessarily, "former employer."

            Gen grinned maliciously. "I see."

            He felt tired, drained, wondered if he could be sobering up only forty minutes later. "What's the number?" he asked, well aware they were standing right outside her door.

            In response she rapped on the door. A moment later, a woman who was not Joyce answered it. No, Roger corrected himself. She was a tall blonde in a revealing red dress. This night would not mark the return to his habit of classifying woman as either Joyce or not Joyce.

            Genevieve looked slightly nonplussed, but the blonde welcomed them in with the cheerful, distracted manner of those who have attained true oblivion through alcohol. In fact, Roger was fairly sure he could convince the woman they knew each other in a matter of minutes and was keen to start a conversation, but Gen clearly wasn't in the mood. He ditched her in favor of the bar, certain she wouldn't mind, and this time settled for the respectability of champagne.

            Clutching the glass, his tenuous link to the world of the sane, he scanned the party for any familiar faces. Most of the guests reminded him of Nick. Young, innocent, a little too enthusiastic. People like that had always inspired revulsion in Roger, but now he'd reached the stage where he wondered who exactly the revulsion was directed at.

            He took a nice long gulp of champagne and glanced around for the absent Gen. She'd probably slipped away to talk with Joyce. That particular conversation was bound to be an interesting one. "Interesting," of course, did not mean he wanted to be within a 50 mile radius of wherever it was taking place. No matter how he looked at it, Roger saw the evening ending in typical train wreck fashion and despite popular belief, even train wrecks could lose their novelty if they occurred on a regular basis. Just thinking about it made his head hurt. Something was decidedly wrong when the headache came before the drunken stupor.

            Discarding the champagne for his old standby, scotch, Roger drifted from group to group, eventually attaching himself to the group whose conversation sounded the most promising. After half an hour of nothing but forced laughter he quietly excused himself.

            "So much for finely-honed instinct." He resumed the half-hearted search for Gen, keeping an eye open for Joyce as well.

            He almost missed Gen, and in the end it was the years of vigorous visual training that detected something slightly off about the dancing couple. Maybe it was the way they moved, impervious to anyone and anything around them, a true couple. More likely, it was just the fact that it was Gen dancing with someone else. And, absurdly, her dancing seemed to him more intimate than anything he'd ever shared with her.

            He wanted to leave. No, not leave. He wanted to go home. He wanted what he'd had at the beginning of the night: a nice comfy chair and a bottle of scotch. He wanted to be at his place, methodically getting plastered. He wanted to wake up in the same disheveled clothes with little or no memory of the night before. He sighed. For once, he just didn't want to worry about the name of the woman at his side the next morning.

            The betrayal didn't alarm him as much as his reaction to it.

            Roger walked directly to the door, roughly disregarding anyone in his path. He wondered whether or not there were any cabs in service on New Year's and was leaning towards the affirmative when a final obstruction appeared.

            He stopped. He wasn't frightened when he saw her; the trembling started as, under he strong gaze, his feet slowed and then simply refused to move, despite adamant metal urgings. Cursing involuntary actions and the choice moments at which they reared their ugly heads, Roger raised his eyes to meet Joyce's.

            This meant that despite his excellent peripheral vision, he was completely off-guard when the slap came.

            It was a relief, in truth, a harsh, stinging relief, because for once Roger could say to himself, "I was right" and genuinely mean it. He smiled openly, didn't make any move to assess the damage.

            "Joyce, you're blocking the door." Taunting her to hit him again.

            "What are you doing?" Her stare was pure ice, her stance just as frigid. Some women (well, nearly all) Roger found more attractive when they were angry. It intensified everything, added one kind of passion, at least.

            Joyce's subzero loathing, though, that just reminded him of what he'd had, how she'd been before.

            "Trying to leave."

            She didn't reply, just nodded and slid aside with poise that made him ache. Maybe it was that uncomfortable sensation that compelled him to explain.

            "Look, I came here with a friend. I wasn't trying to pull anything. I didn't sneak in to see you. It was pure—"

            "Don't," she cut in harshly. "Don't try to talk your way out. I don't want to know anything—not who you came with or how you got in. Leave, and please, for once, do it silently and with a shred of dignity."

            Roger felt a spurt of shame at the words, a brief inner pang before he could deflect them, consign the memories of his departure from Joyce, from the office, to a thick file in the back of his mind. The one labeled "topics not suitable for conversation—polite or otherwise."

            "Are you telling me to 'take it like a man'?" he sputtered incredulously.

            "Six months later?" She laughed, and it hurt because it was light and amused. More than that, it was knowing.

            And Roger couldn't protest. There was nothing left for them, if there had been anything in the first place. He was glib and witty and excelled at throwaway comments, but that was what made a great advertiser. Not a great man.

            Dear Lord, had he just had that thought?

            "I'm sorry," he said before he could think about the words. Then he slipped behind her to the door. A subtler exit, this time, but not dignified or meaningful. Never.

            He turned around—for just one glance, he told himself, one glimpse of her standing stock still with the crowd milling around her. Her silence afloat in their tide of words.

            He thought she might have whispered, "Too late."

            As if on cue, a champagne-saturated chorus began to belt out Auld Lang Syne, off-key notes carrying like rumors across the room.

            And, mind whirling at the energy and the noise, vision blurred from exhaustion and scotch, with the acute desperation of someone borrowing time on bad credit, Roger kissed Joyce.

            As people around them shouted "Happy New Year" and confetti dotted the air, fluttering to the floor, Roger slowly stepped back, away. He didn't seek out Gen. The thought didn't even occur to him. His eyes never wavered from Joyce, from the lost or broken part of him her expression mirrored.

            Around the lump in his throat, he knew exactly what to say.

            "That was the way it should have ended."

            The kiss had been utterly devoid of passion.