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The sight of her pink lips jarred me. I couldn’t explain it, but it was like deja vu or an out of body experience. Over in a snap, but a moment too long to go unnoticed.
Layla tilted her head. “Are you all right, Aiden?”
“Fine,” I said, my voice tight as a rubber band about to snap. “But I thought we had an understanding.”
Layla straightened at my tone, careful not to spill her coffee. “Did we?”
Though it would have been smarter to take a step back, I took one forward to make sure I wasn’t overheard. “Yes. I thought we both understood that any reference to our mutual acquaintance was off-limits in the office.”
Layla looked half amused, half bewildered. She took a step forward, too, bringing her far too close. “We do have that understanding, but I thought that since we’re alone…”
“We’re not alone; we’re in an office.” Again, my voice was far more brusque than I intended, but I was overcompensating, trying to cover the way my body reacted to her.
Layla studied me. She didn’t look offended, and she didn’t look particularly chastised either. Part of me was glad she wasn’t easily cowed—I liked people with a fighting spirit—but it would have been easier if she were. If there weren’t challenging sparks leaping out of her blue eyes. “Sorry, boss,” she said in a faintly ironic voice. “I’ll be more discreet going forward.”
I felt like an asshole, but worse, I felt like grabbing her by the arms and yanking her toward me. Hell, I’d take the scalding coffee on my chest if I could feel my lips on hers. Her body against mine.
“Good,” I snapped and made a hasty retreat before I could do anything we would both regret.
It was only back at my desk that I realized hiding in my office could only work for so long. As of two pm on Friday, the office was shutting down early and we were all taking a break from business to drink beer, eat hot dogs, and watch the Red Sox trounce the Mariners.
Almost every office romance had started at one of these games, or at one of our happy hours. Inhibitions lowered, any semblance of professionalism was left behind at the office, and the seeds that were planted in meetings and break rooms came to fruition.
It was going to be harder than ever to keep my distance.
* * *
On Thursday, I worked later than usual. I liked it when the office quieted around me, leaving just me and the work and the pounding music in my ears. I could feel the emptiness, the space, the freedom, no chance of Maureen popping in to tell me about the latest insane thing that Blake Morten had said. No one tapping at the door, asking if I wanted to grab a beer. And most importantly, no Layla. I’d only seen her in passing today, and I considered that a success.
At seven, I finally pushed my chair back from my desk, pulled off my headphones, and stretched my arms over my head, letting the tension of the day snap and crackle out of my spine. The company was growing—something I knew I should be grateful for, and I was—but the number of pain-in-the-ass clients we worked with was growing, too. Gone were the days when we worked with primarily plucky entrepreneurs or family run businesses. Our reputation had grown to the point that clients sought us out instead of the reverse, and I was beginning to think we needed to start being more discriminant about who we worked with.
Blake Morten, for example, might not have been our wisest choice. He may have been an up and comer, but according to Maureen, he was drinking his own Kool Aid. There were a few cardinal sins in the business, and believing your own hype was one of them. It made you smug, it made you lazy, it made you entitled. Apparently, Blake was all three.
“So cut him loose,” I suggested earlier when she came in. “We don’t need his business.”
Maureen had looked at me like I’d suggested we light a couple million dollars on fire and roast marshmallows. “I’m bitching here, Aiden. Not committing career suicide.”
Maureen trended dramatic. Maybe we’d lose Blake’s connections, but if he was that bad, did we want them?
“I want a fat bonus this year, so yes,” Maureen had answered.
I shook my head at the memory but grinned in spite of myself. This was why Maureen was indispensable. She kept me focused on the most important things. I’d made enough money, for me. I owned my apartment in the city and ten acres of land a couple hours outside of it. My plan was to work for as long as it was still stimulating, and then quit as soon as my heart stopped beating fast with excitement at the next challenge. Then I’d sell the apartment and build on the land. Retire to the life that never seemed within my reach as a kid growing up in a bad part of town, where there was more trash on the ground than grass. Graffiti blooming everywhere instead of flowers. Some of my friends had fantasized about the sleek penthouses on Millionaire’s Row, but I just wanted space.
It was ironic that I was thinking about space as I pulled my office door shut behind me and felt the telltale prickle go up the back of my spine. I knew Layla was on the floor even before I heard the sound of her footsteps coming up the hall from the elevator bank. Before she rounded the corner into the office space, her oversized purse slung over her shoulder, sunglasses pushed up on top of her head, breath coming fast. I hadn’t heard the elevator ding because she’d taken the stairs.
There were a few seconds where she didn’t see me standing there, and for once, my observation was one-sided. As always, when I looked at her straight on, her beauty smacked me in the face. Her lips were lush and full, painted a dark velvety red right now that she didn’t wear at work. She’d changed out of what she’d worn to work into a V-neck shirt that clung to her breasts and tucked into the waistband of her dark denim shorts. I hadn’t heard the usual click of her heels because she had changed into white sneakers, and her hair was down from the clip she’d worn it in.
“Oh,” she said, coming to a startled stop as she caught sight of me standing just outside my office door. Her hand smacked her chest. “You scared me!”
“What are you doing here?” I asked curtly, not bothering to apologize like I would have done if she had been anyone else. “It’s after hours.”
That was bullshit because we didn’t have hard and fast hours. Sometimes we all went to dinner and then came back to the office to finish a project. Layla arched an eyebrow at me like she knew it, like she’d heard about our work hard, play hard credo. “I’m not coming back to work,” she said, and finished the walk to her cubicle. She picked up her phone from where it had been lying beside her keyboard and waved it at me. “I just forgot this.”
I felt like an asshole, which was probably because I was acting like an asshole, but I still didn’t apologize. Layla dropped the phone in her pocket and put a hand on her waist, staring up at me with those same challenging sparks in her eyes from the other day. “Hey, can I ask you a question?”
I shrugged.
“Am I crazy or are you mad at me?”
