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I put her in a cab before catching my own. I got home, ordered the usual fare for the game, and hustled into the shower. As usual, Dane had already helped himself to the wings and beer that had apparently been delivered while I was in the shower.
“One of these days, I’m going to think you’re an intruder and call the cops,” I warned.
“Nah,” he said around a mouthful of coleslaw. “I thought you were taking the day off. I didn’t see you at the gym. I was forced to deal with all the honeys on my own.”
“I thought I was going to be off, but as it turns out, shit hit the fan. We had to cut the vacation short and busted ass at work all day.”
I grabbed the bag of food and the six-pack of beer and headed for my theater room. We settled in with the game already into the second inning.
“How was it?” he asked. “Did you and Little Miss Hot Stuff hook up?”
I could have denied it, but he would have known better. “Yes.”
He started laughing. “Shit. That was honest.”
“No reason to lie about it,” I said. “I have to say, my gut instinct the first time I met her is proving to be right. I knew she was the one for me. I can’t say how I knew, but I knew it then. All this time and all your horrible advice has done nothing to diminish those feelings. I tried like hell to not want her. It’s impossible. I want her. I need her.”
“Shit, that sounds serious.”
“It is serious,” I said. “The most serious I’ve ever been in my life. The first time I saw her, I told you I fell in love with her. Then I had some time to hate her and what she did to me. She named her cat after me.”
“Come again?”
I laughed at his confusion. My mind was all over the place. “I thought she walked out of that hotel room and never thought about me again. Turned out, that wasn’t true. She has a cat. She named the cat Handcock. That means she was definitely thinking about me. She didn’t look for me because she thought I gave her a fake name.”
He snorted. “You’ve heard that before. Hell, I wouldn’t believe it was your real name if I didn’t know your family.”
“I have thought a lot about what happened then, and I’ve mulled it over,” I said. “Back then, I was hasty. I probably could have handled things a little better. Things are different now. I’m doing what Peter said. I’m getting to know her. Every minute I spend with her is just further confirmation my instincts were right.”
“What do you think you’re going to do?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” I paused. My hand went to my chest without thinking about it. “I think I love her. Rather, I am falling in love with her. This is real. This is deep. It isn’t just sex, although that’s pretty fucking amazing. It’s more than that. You should have seen her today. She’s like my other half. She’s me in a much prettier body. She ran that ship like she’d done it a hundred times before. I honestly don’t think today would have gone as well as it did without her. When I think about all the years I spent being pissed at her, I feel true regret. All I had to do was Google her. I could have found her years ago. She and I could have been together this whole time.”
“So, it’s done,” he said. “You’re off the market.”
“I’m definitely off the market,” I said with a smile. “I don’t want to be on the market. I’ve got it too good with her.”
“You’re going to date her? Marry her?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Yes. I want to.”
“But?” he prodded.
“But shit, she’s my assistant,” I said. “All day I’ve been trying to reconcile the two. I don’t want to lose her as an assistant. She seriously kicks ass. But I don’t want to muddy the water between personal and professional. It’s going to make things weird at work. My staff is going to wonder why it’s okay to break the rules with her. They’re going to wonder if she got hired because there is a relationship. I don’t want to put her in a bad position.”
“If you two are together, she doesn’t need to work, right?”
“Macy isn’t like that,” I said. “I can’t say I know her really well, but I’m certain she would want to earn her own way. She’s pretty strong-willed and stubborn. And honestly, I like working with her. She makes me better. She makes the whole damn company better.”
He laughed and pulled a bottle from the refrigerator. “You are so sprung.”
“Fuck,” I said. “I am. I have to figure something out. I don’t dare bring this up to her. Things are good between us. I don’t want to rock that boat. We finally hit our stride.”
“If you work well together and can go home at night and have a good relationship, I don’t think your father would have a problem with that,” he said. “Your dad put those rules in place to avoid pesky sexual harassment lawsuits. It was a great rule for the old Jon, but I think this new Jon can handle his business.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate the confidence.”
“So, what are you going to do?”
