Boss with Benefits_An Office Romance

by Tyler Grey

  Chapter 30

  Alice

  I felt nervous as I made my way to Jacob’s. I’d been expecting either Jacob or Hayden to call me and ask me not to come in, but the call never came. I spent the morning looking at the email from the restaurant in Belgium. The email was very professional, laying out exactly what they expected of me and offering me a detailed report of what they would give me in return. It was an amazing offer. Not only would I be working with the most incredible team in the world, but they would use the year to train me to their standards. After a year, I could decide whether I wanted to stay, if they wanted to keep me. Even if I only stayed for a year, it would still mean a year of experience with them. It was, without a doubt, the most incredible offer. And I still hadn’t said yes to them. At the end of the email was a message asking me to please let them know by the end of the week. I needed the time. I wanted to first see how things were going with Jacob.

  My mother called, but I managed to avoid talking to her. I told her that I was on my way out and I promised to call her later that day. I wasn’t sure yet if she knew about the job offer, but I was too scared of finding out. She would freak out if she knew that I was considering not taking it. I’d already made up my mind, though. I was going to stay with Jacob. It was where I belonged. I could feel it inside me. His past didn’t bother me anymore. I had made my amends with it. I believed that he was a different person, and I never thought of him as anything else. This Jacob was the man I’d been waiting for. I didn’t turn down the job offer just yet, though. I first wanted to make sure that Jacob wanted me.

  My hands were trembling as I got to his house. For a while I just sat there, thinking things through. I was sure that he was going to be happy that I had chosen to stay. I was sure that he was just ashamed of what he had done to me. I needed to make him understand that I didn’t see him like that anymore. That I had forgiven him. A person could change, and he was proof of that. In a way, that actually made him more special than anyone else.

  I stepped out the car and made my way inside. For a while, I thought he wasn’t home. The place was quiet. I figured he might be sleeping, so I went to the kitchen and began unloading some of the ingredients I’d brought with me for the day. I was going to make him all of his favorite meals and then join him for both lunch and dinner. I even had a bottle of wine for us to enjoy. I pictured us sitting in the living room, a little tipsy, laughing at how crazy it was that we ended up back together. I’d even packed a few clothes in anticipation of sleeping over. Then I was going to suggest that we go back to the café the following morning to give Mary the shock of her life. If she’d been surprised to see us together before, imagine what she would say if she saw us kissing and holding hands. After today, Jacob was going to officially become my boyfriend, and I was thrilled.

  “Hey, Jacob,” I said softly when I noticed he’d come out of his room. He was wearing mismatched clothes for the first time, and it looked like he hadn’t been sleeping. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his clothes were disheveled. I wanted to reach out and embrace him, but I knew we needed to talk first. “Let me make us something to eat, and we can go into the living room to talk,” I said. “Or we can go for a walk, even. I’m sure Tank would like that.”

  “Actually, Alice, I think it’s better if you leave.”

  I frowned. “Leave? Why? I just got here.”

  “Have you responded to that email about the job in Belgium?” he asked. It was a strange and sudden change of conversation that I had not expected.

  “The job? No, I haven’t. I was going to email them tonight. But I wanted to talk to you about it first. I don’t think I’m going to take it, Jacob. I don’t really see the point in it if I’m happy here.”

  I waited for the smile that was sure to appear on his face, but it didn’t come. Instead, there was a scowl that never left. “I think you should take it.”

  “You do? Why? I thought you were happy with me here.”

  “Alice, just take the job. Okay?”

  “Why, Jacob? Why?” I could feel the tears threatening to come up, and I felt angry with myself for being so weak.

  “Because…because I don’t want you here. I thought you were someone else. I didn’t know you were the little Alice Bozeman of my past.”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “I’m not a big fan of little Alice Bozeman. I’ve never been a big fan of clowns, if I’m being honest.”

  I froze. I was holding the bottle of wine, so I slowly lowered it down onto the counter. I looked at Jacob to see if he was joking. I was expecting him to burst out laughing and tell me that he was only kidding. There was no smile on his face. He was holding onto the sofa for support. Why? Was he trembling like I was? Did he really just call me a clown again? What the hell was going on?

  “Jacob,” I said slowly. “You don’t mean that. I know you don’t mean it. You’re only saying that because you’re trying to push me away.”

  “Oh, but I do. I mean it. I’m sorry that you thought you saw another side to me, but that was always just pretend. You should’ve known that my real self was going to rear its ugly head eventually. And here it is, in its full glory. And I’m so glad for it. It was hard being someone I wasn’t. I don’t want to be around you, little Alice Bozeman. What did I use to call you? Awful Alice! That was it. Well, Awful Alice, I don’t want you here.”

  The words bounced around in my head. Awful Alice. Awful Alice. Awful. Awful. Awful. I’d gone to bed so many nights with those same words playing over and over as I tried to fall asleep. “What do you have against me? Why were you fine with me before this? You were nothing but nice to me. I thought you had changed. I don’t understand why you are doing this. I wanted to stay for you, Jacob. I wanted to make this work.”

  “And I want you to go, Awful Alice. I was fine until I found out it was you. I didn’t like you then, and I don’t like you now.”

  “You’re just saying this because you’re ashamed. You don’t mean this. This is not the Jacob that I have come to know. This is not the Jacob that I have come to l…” I stopped because I couldn’t bring myself to say the word. If I told him that I loved him and he still asked me to leave, I would never forgive myself.

  “What? You think you’re a strong person because you have risen above your past? You think that by working for me, you’re being the better person? No, that’s not the way I see it. I see it as weak. Nobody else would have done something like that. I bullied you all through school, and you should’ve walked right out of my house when you discovered it was me who needed a chef. Instead, you took the job. You allowed yourself to get close to me. And what happened? You got hurt. Don’t you know you’ll always get hurt if you get close to me? Haven’t you learned a thing? Now, Alice, please go. Take the damn job and don’t come back. You and I…we’re not meant to be together.”

  I stood there for a while, just staring at him. His words had hurt more than they did when I was a child. It was different then; I hadn’t seen this side of him.

  “You know, Jacob, I really thought you had changed. Do you know that I’m still best friends with Laurie? The one girl who was always there for me. I cannot tell you how upset she was when she found out that I had taken a job with you. She begged me not to. I told her that you had changed. I told her that I liked being around you. She warned me that bullies don’t change, but I didn’t listen to her. I should’ve. I should have taken her advice from the very beginning. I’m not going to stand here and pretend that this doesn’t hurt. It hurts. I don’t care about the bullying. I became a stronger person because of it. But what you’re doing to me now is awful, Jacob. It’s awful. I will leave, and I will take that job. And I hope to God I never see you again.” I bent down and called Tank to me. I gave him a big kiss and a cuddle. “I love you, Tank,” I whispered to the dog. “And I will never forget you.”

  I walked out the house and went straight to my car. I drove all the way home without thought. I felt strangely
calm, as if someone else had taken over my body and taken me home. It was only once I was back inside the house and sitting on the sofa that I felt the emotions take hold of me. They rocked me. My entire body trembled as all the thoughts came flooding to the forefront of my mind. How could he do this to me? How could he talk to me that way? Laurie had been right all along. Jacob wasn’t a good man. He was just good at pretending. It was better that I found out now rather than later. The tears streamed down my face as I sobbed. Nobody had ever hurt me as much as he did. I should never have allowed myself to get as close to him as I did. What a fool I was. If anyone else had done what I did, I would’ve told them that they were crazy. Why had I taken on the job in the first place? I shook my head. I hated that I was going to miss him so much. That I was going to miss Tank so much. I would forever mourn for the Jacob who I had now come to know. A Jacob I wasn’t even sure really ever existed.

  I opened up the laptop and found the email. I read through it once more and then finally hit ‘reply.’ My hands were shaking as they moved over the keyboard, but I eventually found the words. I read through them again. Thank you so much for this wonderful opportunity. I would very much love to accept the offer, and I cannot wait to start this new and exciting venture with you. Alice. I stared at the message, reading through it over and over again. As soon as I pressed send, it would mean that any chance with Jacob was now gone. But it was gone already, wasn’t it? I had to get out of here. I had to move on. I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath. Then I opened them and pressed send.

  Chapter 31

  Jacob

  I did it. I chased her away. Saying all those things to her had been the hardest thing that I’d ever done in my life. It hurt more than losing my eyesight did. Losing my eyesight had hurt me, but hurting Alice was so much worse. She was Amazing Alice, not Awful Alice. I was glad that I couldn’t see the expression on her face as I bullied her all over again. Of course, I hadn’t meant a word of it. It was strange speaking that way again, as if I was reliving a part of my history. Had I really spoken like that naturally? It felt so hard to say the words this time around. I had to do it, though. If I asked Alice to stay, she would, and I couldn’t do that to her. She deserved better than me, and I was going to make sure that she got it. I wanted her to live the life of her dreams.

  When she left, I collapsed onto the floor. It took a while for Tank to come to me, and for a moment I thought he had left me too. I wouldn’t be surprised. I felt bad for taking her away from him. Tank loved Alice. Dogs could always sense when someone was good. When he finally made his way to me, he put his paw on my lap. I bent down so that my face was against his, and he licked me. I wanted to cry. Tank was here to stay, but I didn’t deserve him, either.

  “I’m sorry for being such a horrible owner,” I said to him. “Please don’t leave me.”

  I lay down on the sofa and cried until I finally fell asleep. I had no idea what time it was when I eventually woke up again. I put the radio on and was surprised to hear that it was already evening. I’d slept for a few hours. Instead of feeling refreshed though, I felt worse than before. My dreams had taken me down to memory lane…

  I sat in my room, reading a comic, and praying that my father wouldn’t come home that night. I could hear my mother cooking in the kitchen, and I rushed down when I smelled something cooking. When I got there, I saw smoke in the air, and my mother rushing to open all the windows. She was swearing, saying words I never thought I’d ever hear come out of her mouth. She groaned when she saw me.

  “Sorry, Jacob. Ignore those words. I cannot believe I burnt the dinner. Everything was going so well, too. I had your father’s favorite meal on the go. I turned my back for a few minutes, and everything is ruined. Look at this steak! It’s charred.”

  “When will he be home?” I asked.

  “Any minute now. What am I going to do?”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Mom. Why don’t we order some pizza?”

  She didn’t get a chance to answer me, because at that moment, my father walked into the house and crinkled his nose at the smell. He looked around the room and waved his hand at the smoke. He was exaggerating though, because there was hardly any smoke left in the room now that she had opened the windows.

  “What the hell happened in here, woman? Are you trying to burn the house down?”

  My mother shook her head. “No, of course not. I don’t know what happened. Everything was fine, and then I left the food for a few minutes, and it was ruined. I’m so sorry. Don’t worry; I’m going to fix it.”

  My father walked forward and glanced at the meat. “You’re going to fix it? How the hell do you plan to do that? Look at that steak. It looks revolting. Goodness, can’t you do one thing right? All you have to do is cook and clean. That’s all I ask of you, and you can’t even get that right. I slave all day at work, and all I want is to come home and put my feet up.”

  “Dad, she didn’t do it on purpose. Why don’t we get a pizza?” I said.

  My father looked at me in surprise. It wasn’t often that I stood up for my mother or had the nerve to stand up to him. He squinted at me as if he were trying to figure out if I was being serious or not, and then laughed.

  “No, Jacob, that’s not how it works. If we get pizza, then your mother is going to just burn her food every night to get out of cooking. There is only one way for her to learn how to not make this mistake again. She needs to start dinner all over.”

  “All over!” my mother said. “But that’s going to take forever. It’s not just the steak that burnt but also the potatoes. You’re going to wait ages for food.”

  “Then we’ll wait. We’ll go hungry until you are ready. What other option have you left us with? Now, you better get a move on, because I’m hungry. Also, pour me a drink, why don’t you? I’ll have to have something while I wait for this food to be ready. Jacob, go to your room. Your mother will call us when dinner is served.”

  I went to my room, feeling strange about the whole thing. I thought of my mother’s face as she surveyed the kitchen. How scared she had been at my father’s reaction. It didn’t sit right with me. I felt like I should go in there and tell him not to talk to her like that. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Instead, I got back into bed with my comic and ignored what had happened. Later that night, we all ate the new food in silence. I noticed my mother was barely eating, and that a small tear had escaped her eye. My father, after devouring two plates of food, scraped his chair back and looked at her.

  “What a long wait for a dinner that wasn’t even that good. I think you need to sort yourself out and make sure this doesn’t happen again. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  My father grinned, and then he winked at me as if he and I were on a team together. I was both excited and revolted by that wink. I wanted him to like me, and I wanted to be on his side, but at the same time I felt like I was hurting my mother, and that felt wrong too.

  The next day it was as if nothing had happened. We all carried on with our day as usual. I got to school that day and saw Alice Bozeman sitting at her desk. She was by herself, looking through her books. She was so deep in concentration that she didn’t even seem to notice anyone around her. I wasn’t sure what it was about her that bugged me so much. Probably because she didn’t seem intimidated by me. She didn’t like me; she also didn’t follow me around like anyone else. I walked right up to her desk and stared at her until she looked up. Her eyes were like a forest; the color was so beautiful I battled not to look away.

  “Where’s your friend today?” I asked. Poor little Alice only had one friend. Everyone knew it, including her. I was impressed that Laurie stuck around for her, but I wouldn’t say.

  “Laurie is out sick.”

  “So, you’re all alone then?”

  She shrugged and closed her notebook to stare back at me. I could tell she was used to being alone. I was used to being alone too, but in a different way.

  “What were you writing ab
out?” I asked as I pointed to the notebook. Whatever it was had looked very interesting.

  “Nothing. Just doing homework.”

  I laughed. “You’re doing homework at school? That doesn’t sound like you. You always do your homework on time. There’s no way you would leave it for the last minute like this. You don’t fool me, little clown. Come on, let me see what you were doing.”

  “I wasn’t doing anything, now please leave me alone,” she said between gritted teeth. But something had struck a chord with her. Whatever it was that she was doing, she clearly didn’t want me to see it. This, of course, only made me want to see it even more. Seeing what she wrote suddenly became the most important thing to me.

  “Show me.”

  “No.”

  “Come on, Awful Alice; what is it? A love poem to me?”

  “You wish,” she said with a laugh.

  “Show me or else I will take it from you,” I threatened.

  “No. It’s mine. It’s not yours, Jacob. Please go away.”

  I reached over and pulled the notebook from her.

  “No! Give it to me!” she yelled, and almost fell off her chair trying to grab it from me.

  I rushed off with her notebook and opened it up. Inside was a full page of writing. It was a story about a girl who liked to cook, but her food was laced with magic potions. It was a good story, but I wouldn’t let her know it. Instead, I got a pen and wrote ‘I love Jacob’ in the corner. Then, when I got back to class, I showed everyone what she had written. Her story, and the little reference to me at the top, was handed around the school. I told everyone that she was a terrible writer, and they all agreed even though it wasn’t true at all.

  I woke up drenched in sweat at the memory. Alice had wanted to be a writer when she was a kid, and she’d obviously always had a love for cooking. I was so grateful that she had gone after her dreams despite what I had said. But how did she feel about her writing abilities? She’d told me that she wanted to become a writer, but she’d seemed shy about it. Was it because once upon a time the entire school had told her how bad she was? I groaned. What was wrong with me? How could I do that to her? I felt sick at the thought of what I had put her through. No matter how much I missed her and wanted her back with me, I knew I had done the right thing. Alice deserved better than me, and she didn’t need to be constantly reminded of the worst times of her life.