“Open the front windows, will ya, Ash, my man?” Aiden calls out after he and Ally both open their windows.
“Feel free to bury your faces right here, ladies; let me mask that smell for ya,” he offers.
“Damn, you’re too far away,” Ally grumbles, flirtily. “Guess I’ll have to bury my face in Carly.” She leans in teasingly and rubs her cheek, like a cat, along my arm.
“Ooh, that’s what I’m talkin’ about,” Aiden’s face lights up.
I’m staring straight ahead, jaw tight, beyond annoyed.
“This feels like an HR skit in an anti-workplace-harassment video,” I mumble.
“Isn’t it great?” Ally retorts, eyes dancing with mirth.
Ugh. Just get us to work already.
He opens the doors for us, closing after us, then stands too close in the elevator, and walks too close to me all the way to my cubicle. I get so flustered that I almost trip on a floor mat just as we’re rounding the corner near Ally’s cube. He catches me, by the hips and steadies me.
By. The. Hips.
He then fits himself against the back of me.
“Fallin’ for me?”
I glare over my shoulder, red-faced. He’s wearing a stupid smirk.
I growl at him and he chuckles like he thinks my roar is cute. His eyes are on my mouth.
Five seconds after I’ve hung my bag over my hook, Ally’s head is popping up.
“What on earth is happening with you two?”
I shake my head and wave my hand nonchalantly.
Aiden’s in his office, on the phone, but he’s got a perfect view of us.
She’s standing there, waiting for me to answer.
“Not now,” I mumble, and she stares for a second and then I turn around and open the lid to my laptop.
“Lunch. My treat. You’re gonna spill.”
No, I’m not. I don’t say this though, I let out a little nervous laugh.
“Can’t do lunch today. Maybe tomorrow.”
***
It has been a great day. A productive day. I managed to avoid him all day long as well as avoid lunch with Ally. It was easy with him, since he seemed to be in a boardroom all day rather than his office with a view of me. Not so easy with Ally, who wasn’t easy to convince that I needed to work through my lunch.
I’ve gotten well acquainted with all the areas of my new job, I think. I’m ready to start wowing these people with my skills.
At 5:00, Ally informs me the cab is here and Aiden is coming, too. And I’m thinking, grrrr.
I’ve had my nose to the grindstone all day, ate lunch at my desk, and worked my patootie off. And I am in no mood for him. I want a long hot soak in that big soaker tub and to curl up with a good book and a glass of wine.
We’re in a different cab going home and it’s a nice, big pine-scented minivan so there’s room for us to spread out and breathe easy. Ally climbs into the middle row in the bucket seat behind the driver. I climb into the back bench seat. Aiden sits right beside me in the back.
Not the passenger seat up front. Not the separate bucket seat beside Ally. Not even the passenger side of bench I’m on. He’s in the middle seat in the center, his thigh plastered to mine.