Side note: the bathroom stall was exceptionally clean. I totally could see my reflection on the shiny jade toilet seat.
“So why aren’t you gloating?” fires the bearded Brandon suddenly, his eyes squinting my way.
I’m probably committing public relations blasphemy here, but I give him a shrug and wrinkle my face. “It was just a note-taking job. Rebekah will probably rotate through our whole lot, one at a time. What’s the point in gloating?”
Brandon draws his wide lips to one side, thinking, then shrugs too. “I guess you have a point. But I wouldn’t play it off so much. It’s still a big deal. If you get onto Mr. Gage’s radar …”
How about into his high-rise apartment? Or his pants? “There’s far, far more important experience to pick up,” I interrupt him, unable to hear any more about Mr. Gage or his big … radar. “We learn enough just by clocking in and performing our duties.”
“You mean our busywork,” groans Jimmy, rubbing his temple.
“Dude, you can’t be so flippant,” Elijah spits at me, giving me a nudge. “Hands-on experience with the boss is freakin’ priceless.”
You can say that again.
Brandon points at me suddenly. “I see what you’re doing.”
I lift a startled eyebrow. “Hmm?”
“You’re playing it cool,” he decides with a nod. “You’re acting like none of it is a big deal. Trying to throw us off the scent. Trying to act like you don’t want it, like you’re above it all, like you’re too cool for school … but you’re not fooling me.” Brandon chortles. “I’ll tell you, if Brady had gotten chosen …”
“Oh, fuck me, we are not talking about that insufferably self-absorbed penile implant,” Jimmy exclaims.
“He’s hot,” mumbles Ashlee under her breath.
“And he knows it,” Brandon tacks on. “He probably thinks he can bat his eyes, strut his shit, and steal Mr. Gage’s attention that way. What a tool. And he’s straight, on top of it all.”
Elijah crosses his arms and shakes his head. “Nah, I don’t buy it. He might be a total douche, but I doubt he’d stoop so low as to cock tease a gay man.”
“Doubt all you want,” mumbles Brandon, “but that’s exactly what he’s doing. And he’s shameless about it. That dude will stoop to any level, I swear it.”
“Still doubting.” Elijah sips his drink.
Suddenly I picture the annoyingly cocky Brady as he popped the toner into the copier with ease, making me feel like the biggest fool on my first day. Sure, he was trying to help, but I’m also fairly certain his inner dialogue went something like, “Loser. Can’t even replace the toner. I bet he’s checking me out, too. Homo.”
Now I have to picture him flirting with the boss, doing the exact thing that Benjamin just accused me of doing. Gaining favor. Playing the seduction. Being … dirty.
Suddenly Brady’s all I’m thinking about, and there’s nothing good there at all. Except his hair. Maybe.
Brady just became every high school bully I used to deal with my whole childhood, every straight guy I secretly longed for who only returned my nerdy, loser attention with a sneer, a scoff, or a derogatory word. My craving for their negative attention got so pathetic, even the three-and-six-letter F words became a hot (yes, a hot) part of my nightly fantasy when I was alone jerking off to an imaginary jock bully. “Hey, fag,” he’d grunt, his hot breath on my face as he’d shove me against the wall of the locker room wearing his varsity letterman jacket, tight jeans, and messy teenage hair. “Saw you staring at me all day, homo.” Of course I’d deny it over and over in a pathetic half whimper, my heart racing from desire and excitement rather than fear, and then he’d pull off my clothes in an attempt to either further humiliate me or get me off. I was never sure which way the fantasy would go; they so often went a hundred different ways every night, but they always started with an unattainable hot guy and a bunch of teenage aggression.
And they ended with a sticky mess in a wad of tissues or the end of a tube sock. How romantic.
But the time for bully fantasies has passed. The hot, off-limits jocks of my childhood don’t own my brain or my dick anymore. I’ve been proudly free of their influence since I went to college and found myself. Now Brady thinks he can be one of those unattainable cock teases? He thinks he can manipulate the boss with his model boy looks and his stupidly perfect hair?
I feel anything but turned on by him. That asshole is going to spend the summer trying to seduce my boss, and there’s nothing I can do about it. My boss, my idol, my Ben.
Wait. My Ben?
Did I … Did I really just say that?