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“I’m surprised Aiden is putting up with it,” Gloria mused one evening when it was just the core group of us staying late. We’d had to rearrange our schedule due to one of Blake’s unscheduled drop ins, so now the five of us were back in the conference room with our laptops, eating pizza.
“It’s obvious why.” Joe rubbed his thumb against his other four fingers.
Gloria scoffed. She and Joe were dating, or something like it, but they still never missed a chance to disagree with one another. “Cross Media isthego-to marketing firm in Boston these days. Local magazines are always doing profiles on the boss.”
“Yeah, because he’s hot.”
For a second, I was afraid I was the one who had said this. It was what I was thinking, after all. But then it registered that it was a male voice. As one, we all turned to look at Andrew, eyebrows raised. I felt a secret thrill at someone giving voice to my inner monologue.
He rolled his eyes. “Come one. Objectively speaking. He’s a good-looking dude.”
“I don’t know,” Gloria said, and we all pivoted to look at her. “No, not about that. The boss is hot. I mean, I don’t know about money being enough.”
Gloria had a habit of saying half of what she meant and making you dig for the second half. It was mysterious and annoying. I refocused on my computer while Joe and Andrew coaxed the rest out of her. Now that we were done talking about how good-looking Aiden was, I wasn’t interested. Until she said, “Well, I overheard him talking to Maureen earlier today, and it sounds like he wants to cut Blake loose. Maureen is trying to talk him out of it.”
“After all the work we’ve done?” Andrew asked, annoyed. “He could at least tell us if that’s what he’s planning so we know to stop wasting our time.”
“I think something happened. He sounded pissed.”
I was still looking at my screen, but all my attention was on Gloria now.
“Did he say why?” Joe asked.
“Not that I heard, but he said something about him being inappropriate.” Gloria shrugged. “I wish he’d be inappropriate with me.”
Andrew and I were very careful not to look at Joe. I was very careful not to look at anyone, in fact, because I had a bad feeling I knew what had set Aiden off. In Blake’s morning drop by, he’d sniffed my hair. It had been subtle. Strange. He’d done it on one of his continuous loops around the conference table. As he so often did, he’d come to a stop behind my chair. This time I’d felt the weight of his hands closing over the back. And then I’d heard thesniff.I’d nearly laughed at how odd it was, but then I’d seen Aiden’s face. He didn’t find it subtle or laughable.
Apparently, he found it to be a fireable offense.
I gritted my teeth, half encouraged by how much Aiden obviously cared, half mad. I was enjoying this project, despite the client at the center of it. I didn’t want to see it come to an end just because Blake had a shampoo fetish.
“Maureen will talk him around,” Joe said confidently, recovering from his maybe-girlfriend’s comment about another man.
“Maybe.” Gloria said. “He looked mad.”
Half an hour later, we finished our work and got up to leave.
“I’ll take these to the break room trash can,” Joe said, gathering up the pizza boxes.
“No, I’ve got it.” I took them from him. “I forgot something at my desk anyway.”
“Do you want us to wait for you?”
I hesitated. I couldn’t say yes because my plan was to dump these empty boxes in the break room trash can and then confront Aiden. But did it look suspicious if I said no? Would they suspect? “No, I might hang out for a minute. My roommate is coming to meet me for a drink at a bar nearby,” I lied.
They accepted it without a flicker of skepticism. “A drink sounds good,” I heard Joe suggest to Gloria as they walked down the hallway toward the elevator with William.
“I’m tired.”
I felt a moment’s pity for Joe, then my heart kicked into overtime. I was about to be alone in the office with Aiden, which was something I’d tried to engineer before, but these weren’t ideal circumstances. I couldn’t focus on seducing him–I had to confront him over this Blake Morten situation first.
As I walked through the office with the pizza boxes in hand, I heard him talking in his office. At first, I worried that I’d been wrong–we weren’t alone. Then I realized he was on the phone. I listened as I crossed to the break room. It didn’t sound like work. He was laughing, and his voice was relaxed. He wasn’t uptight with anyone on the team, but this was different.
Familiar.
If I closed my eyes, I could almost hear that laugh in my memory. He and my dad, sitting on the back porch, each with a long neck bottle of beer. I heard it the night of my graduation party, and the sound had stabbed my heart because he was laughing withSharawho was wearing his ring.
It was funny how much could change in seven years. I’d been heartbroken then. I’d felt silly and like I’d always be too young. Unsophisticated. Naive. Now I left the break room and moved toward his office, feeling silkily confident. I had two goals–to make him relax about Blake, and to make him kiss me again.
