Just a Bit Bossy (Straight Guys 12)

Raffaele Ferrara. Satan in a Dolce & Gabbana suit. The horrible boss who had worked Nate like a personal slave for the past half a year.

He was free of him now.

Free.

The thought was… strange. It didn’t seem real. He didn’t feel the satisfaction, the closure he had expected to feel.

When Ferrara lifted his gaze from his computer, they just looked at each other in silence.

Nate moistened his lips with his tongue. “I’m leaving.”

The other man said nothing, his expression unreadable.

Swallowing, Nate crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you have the recommendation letter?”

Ferrara nodded, glancing at the piece of paper on his desk.

Nate walked over and picked it up. He read it with some suspicion, but it was a perfectly good recommendation letter. A great one, even.

Lifting his gaze, Nate peered at Ferrara suspiciously. “What about removing the microtransactions from Rangers 5?”

Ferrara shrugged. “I ordered the monetization department to tone them down and make the MTX mostly cosmetic. Removing them completely isn’t feasible—the game was designed around them.”

“But you promised,” Nate said. “You shouldn’t have bet on something you can’t do.”

“I didn’t promise it. I humored you.” A strange expression passed over Ferrara’s face. “Frankly, I expected you to quit within a few weeks. I didn’t know how annoyingly stubborn you were.”

Nate scoffed, but it wasn’t hard to believe, knowing Ferrara’s arrogance. He always thought he was right.

“Fine,” he said sullenly. “As long as they remove the invasive pay-to-win stuff, I can live with cosmetic microtransactions.”

Ferrara said nothing, just gazing at him with the same unreadable look.

Nate wet his lips again. “I guess this is it, then?”

He didn’t know what he expected, but it was oddly disappointing when Ferrara just nodded and turned back to his computer.

Right.

All right.

This was fine.

“Bye,” Nate said bitingly, feeling annoyed and maybe even a little upset at being dismissed as if he were nothing. Unimportant. Replaceable. Just a minor bug under Raffaele Ferrara’s expensive shoe. He probably wouldn’t even remember Nate’s name in a month. He didn’t know why that thought bothered him so much.

The bastard said nothing, still looking at his computer.

Nate slammed the door shut on his way out.

Chapter 10

“Nothing yet?” Maya said when she came home.

Nate shook his head, avoiding her pitying eyes. He didn’t look away from the video game he was playing, but it was hard to keep the confident façade when it had been his fourth job interview that didn’t result in anything but vague promises to call him back. Spoiler alert: they didn’t call him back.

“I don’t get it,” Maya said, plopping down on his bed. “I was so sure you’d got this. That job sounded perfect for you.”

Nate shrugged. “I guess there were better candidates,” he said.

His sister made a sound of disagreement.

Feeling a rush of fondness for her, Nate forced a smile for Maya’s sake. “It’s fine, really,” he said. “I’m not in a hurry to get another job. I have a pretty nice financial cushion after…”

“Sucking your ex-boss’s cock?” Maya said with a smirk.

Nate glowered at her but didn’t say anything. He knew Maya just wanted to rile him up and take his mind off any depressing thoughts.

Propping herself on an elbow, Maya glanced at the computer screen. “Don’t tell me you’ve been playing this game all day again.”

“Not all day,” Nate said, somewhat defensively. “I just need to make sure he really keeps his end of the deal and doesn’t put the microtransactions back.”

Maya rolled her eyes. “And what are you going to do if he does? It’s not like you signed a legally binding contract. Let it go. Forget about him. Move on.”

“You’re the one who keeps reminding me of him,” Nate grumbled, even though his heart wasn’t in it.

Lately his heart wasn’t really in anything.

He had to admit that ever since he’d quit his job, it was hard to summon much enthusiasm for anything. He must have gotten so used to the hectic, insane pace of his life as Raffaele Ferrara’s PA, that his normal life seemed… boring now. Dull.

It didn’t help that all his job applications had been rejected, and he had nothing to keep his mind busy with. So it totally wasn’t Nate’s fault that he still kept thinking about his ex-boss—sometimes. He thought about him only sometimes: only when he saw his expensive suits in his closet or wore the shoes Ferrara had paid for. Well, he also thought of him every time he saw his own dick and cataloged differences between his and Ferrara’s (his cock was just a little shorter, but nowhere near as thick as Ferrara’s).

The most embarrassing, weirdest part was, the sight of his own cock turned him on now. Like, who got turned on at the sight of his own cock? He was a weirdo, apparently.

And then it got worse.

That night, Nate was watching porn in his bedroom, the door shut and locked to prevent his sister from walking in.