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He’s in a shirt again, sleeves rolled up to his elbows to expose those incredible forearms, leaning casually on the edge of his desk to receive me, a smile so wide across his face anyone might have thought he’d won the lottery.
“Hello, Penny.”
“Hi Jack”, I say, unsure whether I should move towards him for a double kiss and hug, stand here looking meek and silly, or step forward anyway, even if only to grasp his hand and shake it firmly. It’s kind of a weird situation and I knew it would be, but I didn’t want to think about it in advance, hence not being entirely prepared now it’s here and staring me in the face. Thankfully, Jack doesn’t think twice. He closes the distance between us, pulls me into him and gives me a hug, the absolutely last thing I’d expect a boss to give his new employee on her first day of work anywhere but here.
“It’s great to see you again”, he says, stepping backwards slightly to see me, his hand still resting playfully on my arm. “How was the rest of your weekend?”
“Good, thanks, I was drawing”, I say, my cheeks beginning to color.
“Oh, anything good?” Jack asks.
“Just something I’ve been thinking about quite a lot recently, a new story. It’s not quite finished yet, but when I know how it ends I’ll be sure to show you. How about you?”
I think I handle that well enough, obviously not well enough to stop myself going bright red, but in a decent enough way to come across as mysterious, while I bury a mountain of subtext in something that could be interpreted as suggestive by anyone who might be looking for exactly that, and then turn the question immediately back to him before he has a chance to respond.
“I was thinking too”, Jack says. “About Friday night, about the story of our pirate, about what I’d like you to do here for me.” He pauses briefly to take me in like a cat contemplating a bowl of milk it’s about to devour. “I started the rumor”, he adds, excitedly. “Shadowheart is officially real.”
“How so?” I ask.
“An interview with a man who claims to have discovered what can only be described as a true indication of the truth of the Shadowheart story in a thrift store in Williamsburg, along with claims of a ghostly figure walking the water line at Red Hook. I’ve set up a Facebook page, asking for people to come forward with information.”
“Wow”, I say, partly in response to what he’s saying, mostly because I’m in awe of just how sexy he is.
“That’s not all. I’ve got a Wikipedia page set up already about our pirate, and there seems to be a buzz developing online about both the treasure and about our lovely female protagonist Rosalie herself. We’re climbing up Reddit, and there’s every chance this thing could go viral in the next few days. Here, I’ll show you.”
I follow Jack to his desk and stand alongside him while he clicks open the pages. Wikipedia, Facebook, ghost forums, Reddit, in forty eight hours he’s managed to create a storm.
“How on earth have you done this in such a short amount of time?” I ask.
Jack shrugs. “It’s kind of what I do”, he says. “Logan finds stuff, you draw, and I make fake stuff seem real.”
“I’m astonished”, I say. “I never thought we’d be able to create something like this.”
“There’s still tonnes of stuff to do”, Jack says. “We’ve got to keep the rumor going, which is why drip feeding information will be the best way to achieve it. When we’ve got people hooked enough they are convinced there’s treasure out there, bam, we hit them with a fake story about someone thinking they’ve found it, and then again with details about another piece of the treasure map, you know, so it seems like the thing the guy found was just one piece of the puzzle. I’d like to incorporate your drawings into that if I could.”
“Sure”, I say, happy to work on anything as long as I’m working with Jack. “What did he find in the thrift store?”
“An old book on pirates with a section about the Shadowheart legend, although conveniently he hasn’t shown anyone the manuscript yet.”
“Clever”, I say. “I had no idea it would be this easy to create a fantasy that people actually believed was true.”
“If you want to believe something enough, you’ll convince yourself it’s true”, Jack says, “even if common sense tells you otherwise.”
I hope he’s not referring to the belief my infatuation for him and his brother is reciprocated, because the sexual tension in here is as visible as the expensive furniture of this office.
“I suppose that anything like that could be true until you prove that it isn’t”, I say. “We can’t prove the existence of ghosts, or the legend of pirates, or anything else equally as improbable until we know for certain they don’t exist.”
“Proof is subjective, though”, Jack says. “If the person that finds the skull and necklace is so convinced they belong to our invented pirate Shadowheart and his mysterious lover Rosalie, there won’t be anything we can do to change their mind, even if we tell them the whole thing was a hoax.”
“You think that might happen?” I ask.
“Sure”, Jack says. “People still believe in UFOs even when there is a mountain of evidence to suggest otherwise, and all ghost stories essentially work on the same conceit.”
“I guess when we want to believe something so much”, I say, meeting Jack’s eyes, “we try to avoid the signs that it can’t be true.”
“Exactly”, Jack says. “Although in some cases, there aren’t any signs at all, because the thing you believe does actually exist for real.”
That sexual tension just got ramped up a notch.
“How are you supposed to tell the difference”, I ask, stuttering slightly to get the words out.
“A positive sign”, Jack says. “Something that proves beyond doubt that the thing you thought were true, is actually true.”
“A sign?” I ask, sliding along the desk a little closer to him.
Jack nods. “It could be anything. A document, a testimony, or something really simple, like a kiss.”
I gulp. For the second time in my life in the space of a single month I actually gulp again. When I’m done gulping, I just about manage to get the word out before I lose myself completely in the moment.
“Logan”, I say, guilt seeping into me.
Jack puts hand on my thigh and I nearly jump. “It’s okay, Penny”, Jack says. “We can wait for Logan to join us if you feel more comfortable that way.”
I don’t know what to say. A few seconds ago we were talking about Shadowheart and right now I feel like Jack can read my mind.
“He knows how I feel-”, Jack continues, and still I don’t know how to respond. All I seem to be able to do is stare at him open-mouthed in complete bewilderment about what I can’t grasp is actually happening.
“I’m sorry, forgive me”, he says before taking his hand away, the moment passing so quickly I want to reach out and grab hold of it with both hands to drag it violently back between us before it disappears completely. “I must have completely misunderstood.”
And then, as though acting on pure instinct alone, in what can only be understood logically as a desperate attempt not to fuck up the rest of my life completely, I take Jack’s face in my hands, pull myself towards him and plant my lips so passionately against his I nearly kiss him right off his desk.
Essentially sitting in my boss's lap, reaching over to pull him towards me and then kissing him spontaneously isn’t something I’ve ever had the pleasure of doing before, so it’s not like I’ve had much practice, but my God if I don’t make it look as professional as a top grossing actress in her career defining performance.
And then, just as quickly as I let it happen, I realize exactly what I’ve done. I’m horrified. As horny as hell, which obviously isn’t helping, but absolutely horrified all the same. This is certainly not the behavior I’ve grown up to expect from myself, and yet, even if I could, I wouldn’t take it back for the world. If I had time to think, I might wonder if that made me a bad person, but wit
h Jack’s taste still tingling on my lips, he doesn’t give me a chance. This time he’s the culprit, leaning in like the suavest movie star in the sexiest film of the century, to return what I’ve just given him: a secret kiss of stormy desire too strong to hold in any longer.
I’ve been in my new job for all of five minutes, and I’ve already made out with the boss. What the hell am I going to do after lunch?
It appears my lips are stuck to Jack’s for quite some time, neither one of us wanting to move. When we do finally move away from each other, my hand still on his thigh, his on my arm, I feel an overwhelming sense that I shouldn’t have done what it appears we just did.
“I-”, I begin, the words not coming as easily as I’d hoped.
