AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Hannah rushed into EM's office and set it up on a sidebar above a small mini fridge he kept cold drinks in. Next to it she placed three pristine white mugs and a canister of coffee inside the cabinet. She brewed a pot and ran into her own office just as she heard Sally greet EM.
He smelled the coffee as soon as he opened his office door. He had figured Hannah must have just brought him his morning cup until he heard the five shrill beeps announcing the completion of the brewing process. He looked over and saw the pot and laughed a big, appreciative laugh. It wasn't often that someone got to him, but Hannah was a real card. He guessed she had chosen the "ignore it and let it blow up in our faces" option. And she was trying to distance herself from him as much as possible. He had to hand it to her, it was pretty damn clever. But it wasn't going to work. He wasn't going to let it work. She wasn't going to win that easily.
Though what she was trying to win was beyond him. They were both attracted to each other. They both wanted more than a professional relationship. But, unlike him, he supposed... she had a job to worry about. There was no one who was going to fire him. There was no chance of him losing his financial stability. But Hannah did run that risk. And as much as he didn't want to admit it, she was right. Even if they had an affair, the awkwardness of that situation would eventually lead to stress and mistakes which would lead to her termination. Or even if that wasn't the case, she might hate him after and quit. Either way it was definitely a lose-lose for her.
But that didn't stop him from wanting to make it a challenge. Even if he wasn't going to get her in the end, he didn't want her to think she had the upper hand. And there was something obnoxiously adorable about her when she got riled up. She always got very proper in her speech, almost haughty like a grammar teacher who corrects you when you say "who" instead of "whom". Despite the complete serenity to her face, there was something in her eyes that suggested she wanted to throttle you, to verbally beat you down until you screamed "uncle". It was altogether too sexy to meet a woman who was not intimidated by him and could put him in his place in a way that you weren't even sure it happened until it was over.
She really was a pretty phenomenal woman to have around.
She didn't plan on EM playing games with her. She never would have even thought it was something in his wheelhouse. But then there she was, every half-hour, being summoned into his office to do some banal task- open the blinds, find his "missing" flash drive, to water the office plants. He had an unlimited list of reasons he needed her to be in his presence. And every time she walked in the room, he had a light in his eye and the edges of his lips kept twitching as if he was trying to hold back a smile.
Hannah walked in the room for the sixth time that day to find the paper he had somehow lost after she had handed it to him a few minutes before. She was getting fed up with the interruptions. She had her own work that she needed to get done and his voice over the intercom was getting more and more grating every time she heard it.
Though if she were being honest with herself, the constant demands really had all but eliminated the awkward embarrassment she thought she would be carrying around forever.
She grabbed a pile of papers off his desk, slamming each piece down on the surface looking for the missing page. She was on the second to the last in the pile when EM's voice interrupted her internal string of curses directed at him.
"Oh," he said, holding up the page, "I was holding it all along."
Hannah turned away without comment, not trusting herself to speak because the only things she could think of were horrible ways in which he could rot in hell.
"Oh and please," he said and she could hear the irritating humor in his voice. When did he suddenly get a personality? "Help yourself to a cup of coffee. I seem to have a new pot of my own."
Hannah slammed her office door behind her and she could swear she heard a laugh from EM's office.
"That son of a..."
"Now is that any way for a lady to talk," Tad's voice asked from her couch where he was, yet again, taking an afternoon siesta. She looked over at him, her frustration creasing between her eyebrows and her jaw in a rigid line. He smiled with a raised eyebrow. "Something wrong?"
Hannah made a long frustrated grunting noise, like one from a five-year-old when you tell them they've watched enough television for the day. She raised an arm and pointed toward EM's office. "Him," she said, sitting down roughly in her office chair.
Tad sat up, shaking his head. "Actually he seems to be in a weirdly good mood today. I don't think I've ever seen him smile before. And I heard him laugh earlier right when he got in."
"Yeah well he's being a douche to me," Hannah said, stabbing a pen into the holder.
"Now why would that be?" Tad asked, in a voice as much question as accusation.
"Do you ever see a cat when it catches a mouse? Like how it lets it go only to catch it again or pretends to eat it?"
"Yeah..."
"He's the cat," Hannah said, putting her feet up on her desk and staring at the ceiling.
"So, his end game here is to eat you," Tad asked in an altogether too derogatory tone.
"Oh, gross, Tad," Hannah scoffed, throwing a calculator across the room at him.
Tad grabbed it and toyed with it between his hands, laughing. "Hey I'm just trying to get the whole picture here.
"Yeah, well, that is not the picture. This picture would be in an entirely different gallery. Like one of the French revolution, the people being crushed between the boot of the monarchy or something."
"You're a mouse. You're a destitute French civilian. Hannah-Banana, why would you ever accept yourself as the victim?"
Hannah looked up at Tad then. For someone so silly and carefree, he really was wise in unexpected ways. And he was right. She was letting herself feel unjustly used. This wasn't a monarchy. True, he was her boss but no where in her employment contract did it say she couldn't put him back in his place when he overstepped his boundaries. She wasn't going to be the goddamn mouse anymore.
–
But that was before everything changed. It had been a week since the making out in her office after hours. And it only took two days for EM to stop pushing at her buttons when she would no longer let herself be so frustrated by it. Eventually things slipped back into their usual rhythm and she could feel like she could breathe again.
