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“You’re mistaken, sir. I am listening to you. I’m simply choosing not to respond to you.”
He groaned, once again sliding his fingers into his hair. “How on Earth have we worked together for the last ten months without exploding?”
“You’ve started to pay attention when I choose not to respond to your silly comments,” I said brightly, my gaze fully focused on the shirt. “It never bothered you when you didn’t.”
“I don’t think asking you to call me something other than ‘sir’ when we’re not working is unreasonable. Do you not feel uncomfortable?”
“I think I’d feel far more uncomfortable calling you by your name.”
“Why? We’ve known each other for years.”
“And in all those years you’ve never been anything other than Mr Black or sir to me,” I reminded him, putting the iron down and finally meeting his eyes. “I’ll never say never, but for now, please drop it.”
He sighed, lowering his chin to his chest. “All right, fine. As you wish.”
Damn it.
Was he sulking?
“Let’s compromise.” I swept his shirt off the ironing board and held it up. “After you pass me that hanger.”
He picked it up from the counter and held it out for me to hang the shirt on. “What compromise?”
“You’re uncomfortable with me calling you sir outside of work and I’m uncomfortable using your name, so I just won’t call you anything.”
Theodore stilled. “You won’t talk to me at all?”
“No, I’ll talk to you, but I won’t address you unless it’s necessary.”
“How do you mean?”
“Um.” I paused midway through buttoning the shirt and looked up, meeting his gaze. “If you’re working when dinner is done, instead of knocking on the door and saying, ‘dinner’s ready, sir,’ I’ll just stand in the middle of the kitchen and yell ‘dinner’s done!’ instead.”
His lips twitched, slowly curving into a lopsided smile. “Let’s do that.”
“I’m glad we got it cleared up.” I coughed and stepped back, taking the hanger from him. “Now, iron a shirt.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“Why? Because you were rabbiting on at me about your name instead of paying attention?”
“That’s exactly it, yes.”
I sighed and hung the hanger on the door. “Do you know what that’s called? Weaponised incompetence.”
“That’s the first time anyone has ever called me incompetent in my life.”
“You live alone, don’t you?”
“You know very well that I live alone.”
“Then I suggest you get used to being called incompetent, because something tells me you’ll be hearing it a lot over the next six weeks.” I laid another shirt out on the board and raised the iron. “Pay attention this time. I won’t be showing you again, and I’ll tell Auntie Pat that she’s not to do your ironing until you’ve learnt yourself.”
“It’s starting to feel like you’re my mother.”
“Which makes it worse, considering that I’m two years younger than you.” I smacked the ironing board. “Pay. Attention.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
