The Boss (The Boss 1)

On top of all that, I didn’t know how much of our relationship was just sexy fun times, and how much was friendship. Was he the kind of friend I could be honest with, or were we still in the “be nice, and make sure you don’t fuck it up” stage?

He wasn’t the only one having difficulties separating the person in his mind for six years from the actual person in the new relationship.

Since I wasn’t going to broach the subject in an email anyway, I tried to let go of the hectic workday and focused instead on what I really wanted to say to him. I settled on:

Neil, I hope everything is okay. Don’t miss me. I’ll be here when you come back.

Call me if you want. If not, that’s okay.

I paused, my fingers tapping gently on the keys without actually typing anything. Clearly, text was not my medium when it came to men. He’d been pretty emotionally blunt with the “I miss you” talk. Was it okay to say something like that back?

I settled on, I’ll be thinking about you, and hit send. I forced myself to go to bed without waiting for a reply.

Chapter Twelve

In the week that followed, my contact with Neil was confined to short email messages, and that was fine by me. With as busy as things were at the office, I wouldn’t have had time for much else.

India, Jessica, and I worked into the wee hours on the weekend, then came in early and stayed late all the way through Thursday. I’d forgotten all about the party Holli had wanted to throw for me until I was leaving on Friday morning.

“We pushed it back to nine so you’ll only be an hour late,” she quipped as I headed out the door. I really hoped I could make it at all. I’d known that the beauty department was a busy area of the magazine, but I’d no idea how much planning and effort went into selecting how the products would be featured. I’d just been in the meetings where they’d shown Gabriella the page proofs and she had given a yes or a no.

By the time I got home— to an apartment full of people at ten o’ clock, as Holli had predicted— I was mentally and physically exhausted, but mostly caught up. At least, caught up enough that we were taking the weekend off. Which was its own kind of bummer; I was supposed to have spent the weekend with Neil. Work would have been a convenient distraction.

After a quick round of greetings and congratulations on my new position, I excused myself to change from work clothes to party attire. Then I rejoined everyone to get my socialization on.

The party was like most parties attended on Friday nights by exhausted working twenty-somethings. Music, booze, and talking. At the risk of making myself and all my friends sound old before our time, the days of pushing couches off fire escapes were way, way behind us. In fact, everyone had mostly cleared out by one o’clock, except for Deja. She and Holli were kind of semi-flirting on the couch, and I had started to feel like a bit of a third wheel. So when Holli suggested we all go out and grab something to eat, I turned them down.

“You guys go, I’ll stay here and clean some of this up,” I said, exaggerating my yawn. “Then I’m off to bed.”

“Don’t clean it all up,” Holli warned me. “I’ll be here tomorrow to help.”

After they left, I took a trash bag and started collecting red Solo cups. I was pouring out an unfinished drink in the sink when my phone rang, and Neil’s number was displayed on the screen.

Until I saw that number, I’d had no clue how much I’d been missing him. I scrambled to answer, breathless and drunk, praying I wouldn’t say something stupid, and blurted a loud “Hi!” into the phone.

“Oh, uh, hello. I wasn’t expecting you to sound quite so awake.” He, on the other hand, did not sound awake at all.

It was probably the exhaustion and the booze, but I almost burst into tears of relief at finally talking to him again. I kept it cool, thank god. “Holli had that party for me tonight, to celebrate my promotion,” I reminded him.

“Yes, of course. I’m sorry, I’d completely forgotten. Am I interrupting it?” he asked.

“No, not at all,” I assured him. “Everyone’s gone already. How about you, is everything okay?”

“Fine, everything is fine. I’m actually back in town. My flight just got in and I’m sitting outside the airport now.” There was a bit of a pause, as though he didn’t know what else to say, and then he asked, “I hate to bother you, but would you mind if I came by?”