“I’ll see you in the morning,” she tells me with a smile as she climbs out of the car, and I remain frozen, stuck to my seat.
She moves up the driveway, weaving around the hood of her father’s car, and stops dead in her tracks. Her hand flies up to her lips and she turns to me with eyes wide as saucers. I smile at her and throw her a teasing wink.
Fuck. I want this girl.
ELEVEN
Rowan
The good thing about holidays is that you get bigger chunks of time off work, so if you accidentally make a move on your insanely hot boss in his space ship car, you can hide from him a little easier.
I’ve spent the past week actively trying not to flirt with Colt. When he asked me what I had planned for New Year’s Eve, I made something up on the spot, a total lie. I told him I was going to a friend’s house to watch the ball drop, but I really just spent the night in my room, watching reruns of old sitcoms. I don’t even have any friends whose names I could have used when I lied; I’m really lucky he didn’t ask.
Walking into the office, I take a confidence-boosting breath and round the corner to Colt’s office, stepping inside wearing a smile.
“Happy Monday, C— Mr. Fowler!” I call to him as I walk in.
Looking up at me from his desk, a warm smile crosses his face that reaches up to his honey-tinted eyes, making them sparkle.
“Happy Monday, Rowan,” he says, “and happy new year.”
“Oh! Happy new year.”
I shrug off my coat and hang it up. When I turn around, I catch Colt’s eyes trailing up my legs, and it sends a shiver through me. I bend a little further than I need to to set my purse down on the ground and reach for my water bottle – the one he gave me.
Turning to him, fighting back a smirk, I ask, “Did you get a new year’s kiss?”
“I— uh,” he stammers. “Rowan—”
“Was it with Mr. Davis?” I tease, “it’s okay if it was, I won’t tell the boss.”
In a breath, he goes from looking at me like I’ve grown two heads, to laughing so hard I think the windows might shake from the deep, booming sound. It settles easily into my top three for best sounds ever, and I can’t help but join him, practically doubling over as our laughter feeds off of one another.
“What the hell is going on in here?” Mr. Davis asks, poking his head into the office.
We stop laughing for a second, each of us looking at him and then back to each other, and we burst back into laughter. Mr. Davis pinches the bridge of his nose, shaking his head, and he walks away, leaving us alone in our chaos.
By the time we calm down, I’ve completely forgotten what was so funny in the first place. I wipe tears from the corners of my eyes, taking a deep breath, and reach for my water bottle to take a sip from it.
“You have a great laugh,” Colt tells me, looking at me with a softness to his eyes that sets a raging swarm of butterflies loose in my stomach and sends heat flooding to my cheeks. “I don’t think I’ve heard you laugh like that before.”
“I don’t think I’ve heard you laugh at all,” I tease.
“Har, har,” He says sarcastically.
I force myself to look at anything but those soft, honey eyes, landing on a stack of papers. I pick them up and,trying to hide a smile, I say, “I’m gonna go get these copied for you.”
Realizing that he’s probably looking, I make sure to sway my hips just a little more than usual as I walk out of the office.
Dangerous game, I tell myself.
•
Leaning against the wall, I press theSTARTbutton on the massive copy machine and watch as the pages shoot out. When I started here, I hated the way the room smelled while the copier was working, but now the smell of machinery and ink has become comforting for me. I like having to come in here so often, now.
Emmett walks in, carrying his own small stack of paper, and gives me a nod in greeting. “Hey,” he says.
“Oh hey. How have you been?”
