Boss's Intern: An Older Man Younger Woman Romance

by Arlo Arrow

  “He… broke…” I can’t get the words out.

  “Oh, come here,” says Emma, leaning down to give me a huge, tight hug.

  “It’s…”

  “It’s OK,” says Emma, in a soothing voice. “Come on, we’re going to get you inside the room.”

  She basically picks me up since I’m not really carrying my own weight and drags me back into the dorm room. She helps me get onto my bed.

  “Now,” says Emma. “This has happened to me… I don’t even know how many times…”

  “This was different,” I say, the tears really starting to stream out now. I’m sobbing.

  “There’s nothing that’s going to make it better right now,” says Emma. “In time…”

  “I’ve heard all that,” I say, as Emma hands me a box of tissues.

  The late afternoon turns into the evening which turns into the night. Gradually, I calm down enough to the point that I’m not sobbing or crying anymore.

  At some point, Emma figures it’s OK to leave me alone for a minute, and she goes down to the little campus cafeteria that’s in the basement of our dorm building. She comes back up ten minutes later with six ice creams.

  “They wouldn’t give me a big one,” she says. “So I had to improvise. So that’s three for you and three for me.”

  She hands me one and I try to grin at her but I can’t force my face to make the right motion. She sets the other two carefully down on my bedside table.

  “Don’t get too comfortable,” says Emma. “I’m sitting there with you. You don’t think I’m crazy enough to eat ice cream in my bed, do you? I’ll spill it all over the place.”

  “So you’re going to spill it all over mine?”

  Emma shrugs.

  “Have it your way,” she says. “But you’re not going to be able to see the video on my computer if I’m on my bed.”

  So Emma gets into bed with me, pushing herself up against the wall. She brings her laptop over, and puts it in front of us. We watch stupid videos for the rest of the night and gorge ourselves on ice cream.

  I end up feeling better towards the end. Just a little better, though. And that’s just during the videos.

  By the time Emma has to turn in and go to bed, I’m feeling worse again. The ice cream only seems to have lasted a little while, and the videos helped me forget my troubles for a short moment.

  But I know there will be many more moments like this to come… Liam isn’t someone that I can just forget.

  Chapter 16

  Liam

  “So there’s nothing I can do?”

  “Sorry, buddy,” says Dave. “Looks like you’re fucked.”

  “Thanks for being frank,” I say sarcastically.

  We’re sitting in my kitchen, slowly sipping glasses of whiskey on the rocks.

  I normally drink whiskey straight up, if I’m drinking at all, which isn’t that often. But when things aren’t going well, when things are totally fucked, that’s when I drink it on the rocks. I don’t know why. Maybe the depressed me likes to swish the glass around and watch the ice cubes slowly melting. Maybe it reminds me that everything good disappears, that everything goes away at some point.

  “But what about Jacobs?” I say. “He admitted everything. He admitted he’s an adultering piece of garbage. He told me all. That whole old man thing is just an act.”

  Dave shrugs. “There’s not a lot you can do about it. Plus, even if you had a recording of it, you don’t seem like the type to rat on someone else just to save yourself.”

  “You’re right,” I say, shuddering at the thought of it. “That’s not really me.”

  “And it wouldn’t do you any good either,” says Dave. “You’re fucked anyway… Hey, what happened with that intern anyway?”

  I shrug. “I had to… take some time off from that.”

  “Smart move,” says Dave, taking another gulp of whiskey. He reaches for the bottle and pours himself another two fingers into the glass.

  I shrug. “I’m not so sure,” I say. “She took it to mean we were breaking up. I couldn’t talk to her. She was too upset.”

  “You mean you weren’t cutting it off for good?”

  “I just meant until things cool down… I need to find another job. And I don’t want her sucked into all this media crap.”

  Dave nods.

  “You’ll find someone else,” he says. “I mean, you’re not going to be making what you were before, but you’re still going to be rich.”

  “It’s not the money,” I say. “You know I never cared so much about that.”

  “Yeah, but you do care about your cars and your motorcycle.”

  “The thing is,” I say. “I don’t want anyone else.”

  “Wow,” says Dave. “I’ve never heard you talk like that before.”

  I shrug and stare into my whiskey without taking a sip.

  “Well,” says Dave. “You’ve barely touched your drink. You’ve been swirling it around all night, but meanwhile I’m hammered. And you’re the one who’s got all this shit going on. Seems a little backwards to me.”

  “Dunno,” I say vaguely.

  I’m not really listening to him. I’m thinking about Ava, and whether or not I can go on without her. I really don’t think I can.

  And Dave is right about that—I’ve never felt this way about anyone before, ever.

  “Well,” says Dave, starting to slur his words. “I’d better get going.” He gets to his feet unsteadily. “Oh. Check the news. The article’s already out.”

  I watch as Dave wanders to the front door.

  He heads out, closing the door forcefully behind him.

  Me? I’ve never been more sober in my life.

  I grab my phone and find the article. It just takes a minute.

  Blah, blah, nothing new in the article. Apparently they say I was caught, according to an “inside source,” having an affair with a new woman in my office. And they write that I “cannot be reached for comment.” Like they even tried. They’ve stopped camping outside my house, and no one has called me. What a bunch of bullshit.

  But the article isn’t nearly as bad as it could be.

  I’ll lose my job. But so what.

  The important thing to me is that Ava isn’t mentioned in the article. She’ll get to keep her reputation. Actually, all she’ll have to do is simply never put this job “experience” on her resume and no future employers will have any reason to ask the company for her work history. She’ll be fine.

  Except I won’t have her.

  And that’s not a condition that I can live with.

  I hold the whiskey glass up, as if I’m about to take a drink from it, but instead, I walk to the sink and toss the drink out.

  I put the glass down on the counter a little too hard, but not slamming it.

  I take a deep breath. I know what I have to do.

  In the garage, I get on my bike, throwing my leg over it and cranking the engine. It roars to life and the garage door starts to open.

  The last time I was on my bike, I was wearing gym shorts and a t-shirt. The wind blew at me like crazy, right up to my junk. It was freezing, but I didn’t care because Ava was behind me, clutching me like her life depended on it.

  This time, I’m wearing jeans and a button down shirt.

  I’m alone.

  But I’m not going to be alone for long. Not if I can help it.

  Chapter 17

  Ava

  I’m in a deep, heavy sleep, a sort of depressing dream where nothing seems to be happening. Everything is going wrong, but I don’t even know what’s going on. In the dream, everything is fuzzy, completely hazy. I’m groping through some strange darkness that’s thick and impenetrable.

  I’m vaguely aware of my phone ringing. I think I reach over and turn it off but I’m not sure. In my sleepy state, I figure that it’s my alarm, and I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to go to class. I don’t want to do anything. All I’m going to do today is stay in bed and hid
e under the covers. Maybe Emma will bring me some more ice creams and I can live off ice cream forever. Then I can drop out of school and be alone forever. I know I don’t want anyone else but Liam.

  But he broke up with me.

  I still can’t believe it.

  I guess I’m awake now. After all, I’m not dreaming. I’m sort of thinking, the same thoughts I was thinking before I went to sleep. I lay in the darkness forever, my mind in turmoil, before finally falling into a strange, horrible dream.

  My mind is heavy with sleep still. I’m thinking slowly, reacting slowly, stuck between that sleepy and awake stage.

  There’s a noise in the hall.

  Is someone knocking on the door?

  It continues, and I don’t know for how long.

  “Is someone there?” I say sleepily.

  I get out of bed, and move towards the door. Emma is still lying in bed, snoring. She passed out in all her clothes.

  I’m wearing what I consider my pajamas, but it’s really just a hugely oversize t-shirt and some baggy sweatpants. Emma convinced me to change into my sleeping clothes so that I’d be more comfortable. She said it was an important part of the recovery process. If it hadn’t been for her, I would have fallen asleep in my clothes. I was past the point of caring. But it looks like she was so tired from helping me that she did what she was telling me not to do.

  I tiptoe across the room so as not to wake up Emma.

  I open the door a crack, just enough to poke my head out.

  “Is someone there?” I whisper.

  “It’s me,” says a deep voice.

  I jump back, startled, making a weird noise somewhere between a scream and a whimper.

  “What’s him? That?” mumbles Emma in her sleep.

  “It’s me,” whispers the voice I now recognize. It’s Liam, standing outside my dorm room door.

  “It’s OK, Emma,” I say. “You can go back to sleep.”

  “Good OK yes,” mumbles Emma, and literally a second later she’s snoring up a storm.

  I slip out through the door, and I’m face to face with Liam.

  “What are you doing here?” I whisper.

  The lights are dimmed in the hallway. I can see underneath the other room doors that everyone else is asleep—all the lights are off.

  “I came for you,” whispers Liam.

  “But you broke up with me,” I say.

  “I what?”

  “Come on,” I say. “We’re going to wake everyone up. Let’s go down the hall.” I know there’s no way he’s going to leave without talking to me. His stance makes that clear.

  And I don’t want him to go.

  I need him.

  Even if he’s not mine anymore.

  He follows me down the hall past all the other sleeping students and we enter the little student lounge.

  I close the door behind us and turn on the lights. But they’re too blindingly bright, after being in the dark for so long. They’re those harsh fluorescent lights that always seem to bother my eyes. I turn them back off.

  There’s some light from the city outside the windows. The cityscape spreads out in the distance, a landscape of tall bright buildings and smokestacks.

  “We can talk in here,” I say, waiting for him to say something.

  “I didn’t want to break up with you,” says Liam.

  My hearts starts pounding in my chest.

  “I… I just wanted to protect you,” says Liam. “I didn’t want things to be so hard for you. But the first article came out and you weren’t mentioned. I’m losing my job, obviously. I’m getting thrown under the bus. Those are the words of the head of the company… I know, I know, I’m supposed to be the head of the company. But he has the ultimate say…”

  He pauses and scratches his head.

  “None of that really matters,” he says. “That’s not what I came here to say. What I realize, Ava, is that I don’t care about the job. I care about you. And I want you in my life. I can’t take a break from you, not ever. I love you, Ava.”

  He’s looking at me in a way that melts my heart.

  “Oh, Liam,” I say. “I love you too.”

  We kiss, the most intense kiss of my life.

  I’ve never loved anyone before. I’ve never been kissed like this.

  Liam makes me feel better than I’ve ever felt.

  His body presses against mine. My hands are all over him. His cock is hard in his pants, pressing into me.

  “We can’t do it here,” I whisper.

  “Why not?” growls Liam. “There’s no one awake.”

  “You’ve got a good point.”

  Liam kisses my neck, a long and slow kiss, biting me slightly.

  My breathing is heavy and ragged.

  This is going to be a long, long night.

  THE END

  Epilogue

  Ava

  It turns out that Mr. Jacobs was incredibly corrupt, not to mention a chronic cheater. His wife happened to find out a couple days before the big press event with Liam, and she reported all of his shady business dealings. Because of all that, Jacobs lost control of the company. The board needed someone reliable like Liam to manage things, so he kept his job. It turns out the board didn’t really care what the press thought of Liam.

  The whole press thing ended up blowing over pretty quickly. Someone near the mayor got indicted on something, and that became the big story in the city. Well, that, and pollution in the Delaware River.

  So Liam still manages the company, just like before. He even hired me back as an intern. Although we both thought it would be best if I didn’t work directly as his personal intern. Instead, I work as a general intern, but rest assured, we get plenty of private and personal time together in his office. Without Jacobs hanging around all the time, we can spend as much time in Liam’s office as we want. After all, he’s the boss, and what he says goes.

  I was initially worried about spending time with Liam as well as trying to juggle school and the internship. But what I found is that it isn’t as hard as I thought. I’m much happier than before I met Liam, and that happiness seems to carry through to the rest of my life, making everything easier than it otherwise would be. Liam and I go out to restaurants, work together, hang out at his house, and go on hikes along the beautiful trails, where we have small picnics. Liam carries all the supplies, obviously.

  “Isn’t this beautiful?” I say, as we walk through the tree lined path one sunny afternoon.

  Liam nods. “Look over there,” he says. “There’s a waterfall.”

  “I can’t see it yet, but I can hear it.”

  Liam takes my hand. The path is wide enough that we can walk along it together, side by side.

  “There it is!” I say excitedly.

  We walk up close to it. The water is rushing down.

  “I haven’t seen one of these since I was a kid,” I say.

  “I used to come here a lot,” says Liam. “It’s always been a special place for me.”

  We stand in happy silence, holding hands, admiring the crashing water.

  “Come here,” says Liam. “I want to show you something.”

  He leads me by the hand closer to the water. Right at the bottom of the falls, there’s a place that Liam shows me. We’re able to walk right behind the wall of crashing water. It’s a cave like area, wet and humid. It’s cool and refreshing, rather than muggy.

  “It’s beautiful in here,” I say, admiring the rock walls that have been worn away by years and years of dripping water, working slowly against the rocks.

  I look back at Liam, and suddenly he’s on one knee in front of me.

  “What are you doing?” I say, momentarily confused.

  “Ava,” says Liam, his voice serious. “I knew I wanted you from the moment I met you, but I never knew how much you would change me. I love you, Ava, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  He holds out a gorgeous diamond ring, like nothing I’ve ever seen before.
<
br />   “Will you do me the honor of being my wife?”

  “Oh my God!” I shriek.

  The water is falling all around us. This is the most romantic, perfect thing that’s ever happened to me.

  “Of course!” I say.

  Liam slips the ring delicately onto my finger. He rises to his feet and we embrace underneath the waterfall.

  “We’re going to be very happy together,” says Liam. “For a long, long time.”

  About Arlo Arrow

  Arlo Arrow writes contemporary steamy, taboo romances for your pleasure. Some of these include older man, younger woman romances. He recently graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in creative writing and loves hanging out with his dog, Rocket.

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  Also by Arlo Arrow

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