My phone vibrates on the desk, and I glance down at the screen.
PHOENIX: Cute, baby, but I think you should put those fingers to better use and letme watch.
You really want James Lawson walking into my office right after I come… I thought you were possessive, Phoenix, yet here you are practically asking for another man to sniff out the sex in the air.
Nothing.
Which is weird because Phoenix texts fast.
I stare at my screen for a few more seconds when the message comes.
PHOENIX: The way I’m going to mark your body. I can’t fucking wait.
Hell yes. Ruin me.
This is exactly what happens when your best friend is a sex-crazed, dick-obsessed nymphomaniac who’s spent years desensitizing you to things that should absolutely not be attractive.
You become one yourself.
Now here I am, hopelessly in love with a man who installs cameras in my office so he can watch me. A man who’s probably already planning eighty-four different ways to punish me for that text, and I want every single one of them.
Needing to get Phoenix out of my head before I lose the ability to function like a human being, I step out of my office. Betty looks up from her desk the second she hears me, her face lighting up.
“What’s that look for?” I ask.
“Nothing…” She tilts her head, studying me with those eyes that have seen too much of my life and know far more than I’d like. “You just seem…”
“What?”
“Happy… You seem really happy.”
I smile at her, lean back against the edge of her desk, and slide up onto it.
“I am happy. Everything is good, really good. Minus the assclown I have to spend my day with.”
“Mr. Lawson has been very charming so far.”
“Betty, I assure you he’s not, but we’re going to treat him like he is because I’ve worked my ass off on this redesign.”
“Okay.” She nods, understanding immediately. “He’s a fake-it client. Got it.”
God bless Betty.
I like spending time with the people I work with. It’s something I make time for daily, not because I have to, but because I want to. I want to know them. I want to know about their lives, who they go home to at the end of a long day, and what they complain about at dinner. Mostly, I want them to know they matter here.
Once I’m back inside, fully prepped for the meeting from hell, I pull out my phone and stare at Phoenix’s name in my contacts. God, I didn’t realize how deeply I’d buried myself in work until I started obsessing over a man instead.
It’s unhealthy, right?
I’ve gone from being addicted to my career to being addicted to Phoenix, but that man is pure, uncut crack.
I don’t miss the irony that addiction clearly runs in my DNA.
Genetics really are a spiteful bitch like that.
My phone suddenly lights up in my hand.
PHOENIX: I love you.
