I thought of our kisses yesterday. Yes, he was definitely shaking things up.
The key in the door made me look up, and also made heat rush through my body. He had come back after his training session.
“I was hoping you might still be here,” he said with a smile when he entered the office. I watched his quiet, graceful movements as he took off his coat and hung it on the hook behind the door, which he then closed. And locked.
Turning to me, he saw how my gaze went from the locked door up to his face and he grinned. Right then I couldn’t have told you one character name from the multitude I’d just read and typed.
The only name I could think of was Montrose. The only plot point I wanted to document was getting beneath him on the old leather couch in the corner.
The only character arc that seemed relevant was mine…and his.
Looking at me like that, his hair slightly wet from the snow outside, his grin both promising and devilish, I wanted to arc his brains out.
He crossed to me, and like he did yesterday, he penned me in with a hand on his desk and one on the back of my chair, which he turned to face him.
“I’m really glad you’re here,” he said, leaning in for a soft, barely-there kiss. My head followed him as he retreated, then fell back against the chair, as if a string had been cut.
I smiled up at him. “Me too. Do you want to go over what I got done? I left you notes on it, but—”
“Later,” he said. He glanced at the desk, seeing his computer open. “As long as it’s all on my machine I can look—” He did a double take at the screen, registering what files were open. “What…what are you doing?”
I briefly explained the whole process, but he wasn’t listening. He pushed on the arm of my chair, wheeling me a little beyond the well of the desk, which he stepped into. His arms no longer penned me in, but instead were placed firmly on either side of his laptop as he began clicking through all the different chapter one documents, though, unlike me, he didn’t take the time to read each one.
By the look of his face clouding over, something told me he didn’t need to reread each one, he probably did so all the time.
And I also realized that maybe I’d screwed up.
Chapter15
I again triedto explain what I’d done with the files, but it was like he couldn’t hear my voice, he just kept clicking each document closed one by one, his eyes becoming that darker grey as he worked.
Finally, I edged him out of the way, and swiped the cursor across, catching all the files and closing them all at once.
He stayed where he was, leaning over, one hand still on the desk, the one I’d nudged now dangling lifeless by his side. His eyes stayed on the empty screen. I pointed to where I copied my folder of transcribed work and he silently nodded.
I sat back in my chair, willing myself not to speak, knowing that I probably wouldn’t say the right thing. He was obviously embarrassed that I’d seen the fruit—or lack of—his labor for the past five years. That embarrassment now looked like it was turning into a healthy dose of anger. I learned from my stepfather that it was best in these situations to not speak first.
That, and become as small and invisible as you possibly could.
“I know I said you had free rein as far as giving feedback, and I did ask you to transfer your files to my machine, and we never really discussed boundaries…but…I…” He shook his head as he stood straight, running a hand over his chin and then placing both hands on his hips and turning toward the door.
Turning away from me.
A feeling of panic rose from me that I would lose this job, and whatever chance I had of being with—in whatever capacity—Montrose. And yet, I kept silent.
Like I said, I’d learned a lot from living with my stepfather.
“I mean,” he continued, still not looking at me. “It’s a weird situation. On one hand, as my assistant,eventuallyyou would have had access to some of those files. Who knows, maybe all.” I didn’t miss the emphasis he put on “eventually.” Clearly in his mind, we were not there yet on a working level. “But, in another aspect, you’re someone I’m…” The hand across the chin again as he walked away from me, to the couch, where he sat, sinking down into the old, soft leather. He held his hands palm up, as if that would help him put a label on us. It didn’t help and his hands dropped to his lap. “I don’t know. Whateverweare. It’s early, yes, but it feels like over the last three weeks and all our talks that we missed a few steps. Doesn’t it? Like we were on the accelerated course?” He looked directly at me as he asked and I nodded, wheeling the chair back into place behind the desk, as if needing its protection.
And noticing he had used the past tense “were” when summing us up.
He waved his hands in the air, then let them rest on his thighs. Yesterday, my legs had been pressed up against those rock-hard thighs, rubbing against them as we’d tried to get closer to each other.
“Whatever we’ve got going, I would never allow my…person in my life to read any of my works in progress. I guess I should have explained that, but…” he trailed off, leaning back into the couch. His body read defeated. And pissed off.
I could keep quiet no more, even though my hard-earned lessons whispered to me to keep my mouth shut.
“Look, I get that you’re embarrassed, but—”
