If he knew I thought that about him, he wouldn’t be pleased. If he knew I considered him important, he would tell me I was wrong. That he was just an employer.
Except, we’d crisscrossed personal lines so many times over, it was hard to even see where they were anymore.
“Hello? Did I lose you?”
He jerked me out of my thoughts. Pretty sure he’d been ranting about the evils of sugar again.
“I’ll take it to my office. You’re right. Makes more sense there. I’m full of fun. If I get fat though, that’s on you.”
“I doubt a few M&Ms will make you fat,” he said, dismissing me as he turned back to his monitors.
“Aw, E.G. you say the nicest things sometimes.”
“Coffee! Papers! You know, the reason I pay you.”
“On it.”
I took my dispenser and tucked it under my arm as I left his office to walk over to mine. I set the dispenser down.
Face out, because that was going to stop me from eating M&Ms all day.
He needed his coffee, he needed his papers. We needed to start the day, but I found myself wincing in some kind of pain I couldn’t put a name to. Like something in my chest made it difficult to breathe.
I had to admit some basic facts.
I’d bought the M&M dispenser because I wanted to make E.G. smile. That wasn’t entirely accurate. I’d bought the M&M dispenser because I had a hunch watching him be grumpy about it would be fun for me.
This was my workplace, but I’d been thinking about…fun.
I’d been thinking about bringing fun to him.
That wasn’t weird, wasn’t it? I did an inner self check and decided, no, it was fine. We’d worked well together these last few months. We’d gotten to know each other. It was okay if I bought him donuts sometimes, and occasionally a toy to see if he would laugh.
That’s what all good assistants did for their bosses to keep them loose. Help them balance all that intensity.
Wasn’t it?
How the fuck do you know, you’ve never been an assistant before?
Maybe I needed some perspective. Maybe I needed to meet and talk with other assistants. Surely there had to be several throughout the building complex where we were located.
There was Claire, who worked as the receptionist in the marketing firm on this office floor. Ironically, the job I thought I’d come to apply for. We’d met in the lobby and she’dintroduced herself. We were about the same age, started our respective jobs at the same time. She’d probably been trying to make a new friend, and I…well, I didn’t do the wholefriendthing easily.
Putting on a smile for people who showed up for meetings…that was performative.
Actually, getting to know someone, that required less defensive armor where I tended to be prickly.
Much like E. G. was.
We were a prickly match made in heaven.
Not a match!
No, of course not. We weren’t a match. We weren’t even real friends. He was my boss, I was his assistant. That was it. We could cross a thousand lines, a million, and it wouldn’t matter. That’s all it would ever be between us.
I was mostly sure of it.
“Flowers!”
