by L. D. Davis
“Are you okay?” he asked softly through the door.
With an inward sigh, I opened the door to step out, but he was standing there with another foreign expression on his face: concern. I didn’t want him to look concerned. It made my heart flutter.
Cripes.
“I’m fine,” I tried to smile, but failed. I couldn’t meet his eyes either.
“Em,” he sighed my name and I almost died because it sounded similar to when he sighed my name while we were getting it on.
“This feels a little weird,” I admitted. “I hated you two days ago and now my panties are tangled up with your boxers in the wash.”
“That sounds sexy,” he grinned.
I slapped his arm. “I’m serious!”
“Let’s not think about it then. Why don’t we just go watch the second Transformers and chill? I will sit in the man-chair and you can sit on the couch.”
He tapped my nose, smiled, and walked out of the room. I blinked stupidly in his direction for a moment before following him.
He took my dad’s chair and I stretched out on the couch. When the movie was over, I got the clothes from the dryer and folded them at the kitchen table while Kyle started making BLTs for dinner.
“This is starting to feel a little weird again,” I sighed, folding his boxers.
“I know, but what else should we expect? We’re literally trapped here together. Things have to get done, right? I think it just feels more domesticated because it’s just us.”
“And we slept together,” I said a little too loudly.
“Yeah,” he glanced warily at me. “If it wasn’t for that…”
I was about to say more, but my cell buzzed in my pocket. “Ick,” I said when I saw who was calling. I did not feel like having a conversation with my mother.
“Emmy! Are you okay?” It was my dad, thankfully, but I could hear my mom’s annoying twang in the background.
“Yeah, dad. What’s up?”
“We tried calling the house countless times. It just rings, and you weren’t answering your cell.”
“Hold on. Let me check the phone, dad. I’ve been here all night and day.” Kyle handed me the house phone off of the counter. When I turned it on, I only heard static and no dial tone. “The land line is dead.”
It took me a minute longer to explain to him that I wasn’t ignoring their calls to my cell. I had found it between two cushions on the couch while watching the movie.
Dad asked me how much snow I had, how I was holding up, and expressed deep regret that I was alone in such a bad storm. He went on about it so long—with my mom in the background yelling about how I wouldn’t have this problem if I was married—that I was tempted to tell him Kyle was with me. Killing two birds with one stone, I could have also told my mom that I got laid and pacify her as well.
“Dad, I’m thirty years old. I have traveled the world by myself. I can handle a snowstorm.” I rolled my eyes and looked at Kyle with an exasperated sigh.
My dad, unlike my mom, did not enjoy pestering me. With a sigh, he told me to be careful and stay prepared for an emergency. My mom got on the phone, and I thunked my head against the fridge.
“This is ridiculous,” she said. “You need a husband.”
“I don’t need a husband.”
“Maybe it’s your hair. Men don’t like ugly hair styles.”
Let the string of insults commence.
“My hair isn’t ugly,” I sighed.
“Maybe it’s the way you dress. Maybe you need to show some cleavage.”
“Trust me, mom, I’m not going to find a decent guy by showing my cleavage.”
Kyle grinned and looked at my chest. I punched him.
“Listen, I’m hanging up now,” I said.
“You never want to talk to me!”
“Because I don’t like you very much.”
“You’re a horrible child.”
“Yep. The bad seed. Bye, Mom.”
I ended the call and sighed with relief.
“You’ve got a great relationship with your mom.” Kyle laughed.
“When I’m in the same room with her, I want to cause her physical harm,” I admitted bitterly.
He nodded with a look of sympathetic understanding. His mom was a trip, too, but for different reasons. My mom talked too much and said whatever she thought, good or bad. Kyle’s mom seemed…cold. She was always polite to me, but stand-offish. I thought maybe she thought she was somehow better than me, but I saw that she treated Kyle in the same aloof manner.
“My mom…” Kyle started, staring down at his plate. “My mom was a good mom when I was very young.” He picked at his lettuce. “But she changed. Bipolar disease when left untreated changes people.”
“Oh,” I said quietly. I didn’t know what to say to this very raw insight into Kyle’s life. I felt bad for assuming his mom was just a snooty bitch.
“She’s doing really well right now, but sometimes it gets bad.”
“I’m really sorry,” I said, and actually put my hand on his. He flipped his hand and laced his fingers through mine.
I stared at our hands. He stared at me. I wanted to let go, but couldn’t make myself do it.
“Emmy,” he said my name in a way that made my stomach flip, but before he could continue, his cell rang.
It wasn’t the first time it rang during the weekend, but he only answered maybe half of the time, and they were always business calls. But this one was different. He looked from the phone to me, me to the phone, and back to me. He let go of my hand and raced out of the room to take the call.
I heard bits and pieces of the conversation. It was Jess Venner, the elephant in the room, Kyle’s girlfriend.
Chapter Six
Jessyca Venner was the elephant in my head, too. Every time I would come close to thinking about her, my mind conveniently walked around her, as if she wasn’t there. Except for the one mention of her the previous night, we always managed to skip around her. Discussing your current girlfriend while lying in bed with your employee just didn’t seem like much fun. Now that the focus was on her, I felt really strange, and I didn’t like it.
When Kyle was finished with his phone call I carefully told him I wanted to get a little more work done in the office. It didn’t take much convincing because he seemed like he needed the space, too.
I never claimed to be a saint, but that didn’t excuse my behavior. Jessyca was a world class stuck up bitch, but that didn’t make it okay for me to sleep with her boyfriend. Furthermore, sleeping with my boss wasn’t going to make our jobs any easier. I had always been able to keep my personal life separate from my work life, but the two had merged in the worse possible way.
It was three hours later when Kyle came to get me. He told me he had found and prepared everything we would need to dig us out in the morning. He had even shoveled the front steps and part of the walkway. I was relieved to have him there to do all of that man stuff for me and said as much, but I would never admit that to my parents.
“We should get some sleep,” he said, and the words hung in the air. Naturally, when we were having sex we slept in the same bed. Now either of us knew what to do without the sex.
“I will be up in a few minutes,” I said, trying to appear busy.
He stood in the doorway for a long, silent moment. I felt his eyes on me. When I didn’t look up, he went away.
I waited almost a half hour before going upstairs. I was leaving the decision up to him. Since he went upstairs ahead of me, he surely would make the decision of where to sleep. If he chose to sleep in another room, I would be okay with that, but if he chose to sleep in my bed, I couldn’t even think about what that implied.
The lights were off in my room when I walked in, but I could vaguely see Kyle’s form in my bed. My emotions ranged from relief to anxiety. Instead of questioning it any more, I pulled back the blankets and slid into bed and into his open and waiting arms.
We were silent for a long time. My head r
ested on his chest and I listened to his racing heart.
“Why is your heart beating so fast?” I whispered.
“I don’t know. I guess it’s because of you.”
I could have left it at that, but I didn’t.
“Kyle,” I said a few minutes later.
“Hmm.”
“I had a good weekend but…” I patted his arm. “When you go home tomorrow, it’s over.”
He took so long to respond, I thought he had fallen asleep.
“I know,” he sighed. “But I don’t want it to be.”
We didn’t need to say anymore. We both knew why it couldn’t continue. He was my boss and he had a serious girlfriend. I didn’t let my mind wander to the what-ifs, but I was feeling a little woozy thinking about how we got to this point. My perspective had changed so quickly, that I was left with a mind and heart full of doubts, but I had to let them go. What was done was done and it was just a weekend fling. We were both obviously lonely and bored and nothing more.
That thought was actually comforting, and I fell asleep easily.
***
We woke up before the sun came up, showered—separately—–and ate a quick breakfast of eggs, toast, and coffee. Kyle dressed in some warm clothes of my brother’s again and I had found a pair of boots that fit him.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much snow in my whole life,” I said when we stepped outside for the first time.
“Probably not,” Kyle sighed and handed me a shovel.
It took us longer than expected to finish. After we got inside and got out of our wet clothes, I made us some hot chocolate to take some of the chill out of our bones.
“I haven’t had hot chocolate in years,” Kyle smiled at the mug I gave him. He happily poked at the large marshmallow I added.
“You’ve been deprived.”
“I have. Thank you.” He grinned at me. “The chili smells awesome.” He glanced toward the counter where the crock-pot sat, slowly cooking the ingredients I had thrown into it before we went outside.
His eyes fell back on me. There was an unreadable expression on his face that made my heart tap out a funny beat.
“What?” I tugged on my shirt, trying to cover my legs a little. We had literally stripped out of our wet pants, socks, and footwear in the foyer. We were standing in the kitchen in just our shirts and underwear.
“Nothing.” He looked away, and before I could press him further, he started talking about work. We ended up in the office for over an hour.
Even though we were on a different level of understanding now, office talk seemed to turn Kyle into a dick again. I knew he didn’t necessarily mean it, but it was hard for him to stop. I didn’t comment on it. Why should I? I knew that he knew that I knew he was a dick, especially when it came to work.
We ate chili in the middle of the afternoon and while Kyle got ready to go, I packed some up for him to take home. As the sun already began to lower outside, we stood in the foyer staring at each other. I had never seen Kyle Sterling look unsure of himself, but that was exactly what I saw on his face and in his body language. Not for the first time during the weekend, I realized that I had seen so many new sides of the man, that I no longer knew who he was. But then, it didn’t matter, because the weird chemistry between us had to come to an end.
“You should go,” I finally said. “We still don’t know how bad the roads are and it would be better for you to go in daylight.”
Hesitantly, he nodded in agreement.
“I will see you at work tomorrow,” I said, opening the door for him.
“Sure.” He walked out of the door and didn’t look back.
Chapter Seven
Three weeks sped by. The first couple of days back to work were more awkward than I think either of us anticipated. On that first day while I was standing next to Kyle at the copy machine, he whispered that I smelled really good. I had whispered a thank you, but whispering in a corner with him made me feel a strange anxiety, so I walked away before all of my copies were even finished.
Since I was always last to leave, I found myself alone with him at the end of the night more than once. In the past, neither of us felt the need to fill the silence with useless conversation, but those first couple of nights we both said ridiculous things. It stopped being awkward when one night as we were filling the silence, Jess stepped off of the elevator. Although we were already a few feet apart, we both backed up and quickly went our separate ways.
It was another Monday morning, and Kyle was being a dick, which wasn’t unusual. That long snowed in weekend didn’t fool me, I knew the dick in him was still going strong. But he was being extra dickish on this particular day. He was so wound up, he snapped at anyone and everyone, including me. His bad attitude was putting the entire office on edge, starting a chain reaction of short tempers that made everyone’s work suffer. Most of the time I was able to calm the staff, lighten up the mood with rewarding comments about their work, or by offering some kind of incentive for good work done despite their asshole boss.
This day, however, nothing I said worked. People rolled their eyes or huffed out irritated sighs when I tried to smooth things over. I suppose I couldn’t blame them, even with my new insight into the man he was outside of work, my own patience was wearing thin.
I sat at my desk, staring at his office door and thinking. I had to do something before the whole damn workweek went to hell. I was absent-mindedly playing with a few strands of my hair when a memory flashed in my mind.
Kyle was smelling my hair outside of my dad’s office at home. “Your hair always smells fucking amazing. It makes me so fucking hard.”
“Ah-ha,” I said at my desk. I jumped up and walked over to Kyle’s office door, running my fingers through my hair as I went. As an afterthought, I rushed back to my desk and grabbed a file.
“What!” he barked when I knocked.
I let myself in and walked over to his desk. I almost always stood on the opposite side of his desk when I talked to him, but this time, as if I did it all of the time, I stood next to him instead. I put the folder on his desk and opened it.
“What is this?” he grumbled.
“You have to sign these,” I snapped, trying to match his tone.
“Now? Don’t you realize how busy I am!”
“We’re all busy!” I leaned over him and started rifling through the papers. I flipped my hair so that it hung over my shoulder a few inches from his face. I took a painstaking amount of time to search through the paper work, cursing under my breath for effect.
Kyle was always tight on time, and bumbling about wasting his sacred time was never acceptable, and wasn’t something I was accustomed to doing. However, I took my time pretending to look through the paperwork that didn’t even really need to be signed. After a half of a minute of this, I started to worry that my dumb blonde plan wasn’t going to work. Then I realized how quiet he was. After another moment, I felt his fingers raking through my hair. I pretended it was okay, and in fact I didn’t even acknowledge it. Like magic, I found the papers for him to sign.
“Here. Sign these, please, Mr. Sterling.” I handed him a pen and stood up straight.
He stared up at me for a few seconds before he started signing. He looked a little calmer, but I couldn’t be sure until he opened his mouth.
“Feel better?” I asked when he stood up and handed me the folder.
He reached out and entwined his fingers in a few wavy locks, leaned in close to me and inhaled.
“Yes,” he said simply. His hand slowly slid down the length of my hair and the back of his hand lightly brushed my neck before he let go.
The skin on my neck felt like it was on fire, and I actually stood there with my dumb mouth hanging open for several seconds before I was able to collect myself and leave the room.
When Kyle came out of his office a short time later, his demeanor was pretty relaxed. He made sure to find a reason to visit several areas of the office so that his new mood w
ould hopefully rub off on everyone else. I was shocked by this, and thought maybe he had been paying attention after all that night at my house. Of course, my awesome scented hair was a big contributor.
As he passed by my desk, he smiled and winked before disappearing into his office. I smiled, despite myself, and then got mad at my smiling mouth and bit hard on my bottom lip as punishment.
Dumb mouth.
***
It was part of my job description to occasionally accompany Kyle on business trips, meetings in and around the city, and the occasional event. While I understood much about the business, I wasn’t there to participate. I was there as eye candy. Kyle told me that directly early in our professional relationship. I was slightly offended, and was tempted to beat his face in, but I knew appearances meant a lot to many of our clients. It was absolutely ridonkulous and sexist, but big corporate business, unfortunately, was still a man’s world. If Jess wasn’t available, and she often was not, I would go in her place. The Wednesday after I reined Kyle in with my hair was one of those occasions.
My hair was pinned up that day, but in the back of the company car on the way to the restaurant Kyle insisted that I let my hair down. He helped me unpin it, and didn’t hesitate to take a whiff when I was finished fixing it.
“Do you have earrings in your purse? Put them on.”
“I feel like an upscale whore,” I grumbled, digging out a pair of small gold hoops.
“But I pay you so well,” he teased and took the earrings from me. I looked at him with confusion until he gestured for me to turn my head.
Well, that was new. Before our brief affair, Kyle would have never considered doing such a task. Swallowing hard a couple of times, I turned my head and pulled my hair back away from my ear.
Carefully, he put the earrings in my ears, letting his fingers linger a little too long on my skin. It took everything inside of me to act casual and not melt all over the seat.
Much attention was paid to me by the two clients at the beginning of the meeting. I played along, flirting lightly and smiling too much, until they finally got down to business.