Christine gasped after she took a second to look at me. “You did get laid!”
“Shhh!” I snapped and then lowered my tone. “Don’t yell that! Besides, how do you know I didn’t win the lottery?”
Ben still said nothing, just chuckled while staring at his computer.
Christine, on the other hand, rolled her eyes at me. “If you had won the lottery, you wouldn’t have come back to work,” she explained. “You would have stayed in bed with Hector all morning instead.”
“That’s not true,” I defended just as Leah walked in. “Besides, he had work too.”
Christine snapped her fingers, pointing at me, as Ben laughed even louder. “Ha! Caught you! Youdidhave sex with Hector the Convector!”
Well, crap. I’d walked right into that one.
“Maybe we should call him Hector theErectornow!” Leah joked, causing Christine to laugh and Ben to groan.
“Tell me all the details,” Christine begged as she and Leah produced megawatt smiles.
“Actually, please don’t,” Ben protested.
I shook my head at all three of them, ignoring Christine’s request.
“New controversial topic,” Ben interrupted. “Red Flag Warnings should be red, not pink. Why are they bright pink on our maps when they should be red?”
I could have kissed Ben for bringing this up because he was doing it to help me. This was one of those topics that Christine and Leah were divided on and a hill they would each die on—and Ben knew it.
“Thank you!” Leah said. “It literally says red in the name. Why is it not red? Dumbest thing ever.”
“Because there are too many other warnings and alertsthat are red,” Christine countered. “Tornado warnings, heat warnings, flash flood warnings, and hurricane warnings…The list goes on.”
“Then they should switch one of those to pink…since they don’t have red in their name,” Leah rebutted.
While they argued, I slowly crept to the empty desk in the far corner since it was mostly hidden by the large filing cabinets, hoping they would forget I was in the same room with them and not bring Hector back up again.
It wasn’t that I was embarrassed about Hector—quite the opposite. I really liked him, which was why I found myself so protective of him and talking about us, especially since getting Hector to even take a chance on me seemed to ignite some huge internal battle within him.
“Hey!” Christine yelled and then turned her volume down a bit. “You can’t leave yet. We have to talk about you sleeping with Hector!”
Leah gasped. “Oh yes!” she asked excitedly.
I turned back around to face them both. “Doesn’t matter if I did. We’re not talking about it,” I said and then slid behind the corner desk, hoping they would take the hint.
“Fine, but that’s only because I have to go outside because I think one of the sensors is broken,” Christine yelled, clearly disgruntled. “But this conversation is not over—just on pause.”
Knowing Christine and Leah likely would never letthis go, I decided to work from one of the private offices today so that I could get the rest of my work done.
Except, it didn’t help. I couldn’t seem to focus on anything but Hector all day.
I thought about our amazing dinner, him holding my hand the whole drive back to his place, and the incredible sex. I also thought about Hector staying the night at my place tonight. I hated how much I freaked out the other night in my own space. I knew I needed to get over that fear, but it wasn’t easy. My hope was that having Hector there would ease me back in and allow me to have that mental security blanket for a few days to conquer my unease. If not, I was going to have to reach out to a therapist to get some advice on how to move forward.
By the time five thirty rolled around, I was giddy with excitement at Hector’s impending arrival. He had texted around lunchtime to say he was going to run to his house after work, pick up Sarge, and would meet me at my office.
He arrived just as I walked out of the building, waving to Dorothy. He got out of his car and walked around behind it to greet me.
“Hey,” he said, standing near his trunk as I walked up to him.
I wasn’t sure if he was going to kiss me, hug me, or just stand there.
“How was work?” I asked him.
