His Temporary Assistant: A Grumpy Boss Romantic Comedy (Kensington Square Book 1)
Page 31
To whom it may concern:
Fantasies r free.
Unsincerely Yours,
Ryan G. Moon
Saturday 7:18 pm
Ryan G. Moon,
No, they aren’t, because mine about you cost me a night’s worth of sleep.
Sincerely,
Preston Michael Shaw, Esquire
Saturday 9:59 pm
To whom it may concern:
Did u use that picture 4 fodder 4 inappropriate activities? I should report you to HR. Is there a HR? Maybe I’ll report you 2 Daddy. That should be a fun mtg.
Unsincerely Yours,
Ryan G. Moon
Saturday 11:14 pm
Ryan G. Moon,
Sounds like you’re thinking about inappropriate activities yourself. I’d report you to HR, but I don’t work there anymore. Good try though.
Sincerely,
Preston Michael Shaw, Esquire
My phone rang two minutes after I hit send.
Steeling myself, I clicked the button.
“What? Are you kidding? Did you say that to get me to call? No, of course you didn’t. Why? Why would you quit?”
I shocked myself by laughing. “I’ve never heard you say so much in one breath before.”
“You barely know me.”
“I want to know everything. How you sound when you wake up and how you say goodnight. The food you pick for breakfast. How you decide which tea for the day. I want to watch you pick out a peeing llama.”
I couldn’t tell if the sound she made was a laugh or a sob. “Preston, you’re not changing the subject.”
There was no stopping my smile. “You called me Preston.”
“I’m worried about your mental health.”
“You should be. I’m not right when you’re gone.”
“Preston,” she said, softer now. “What are you doing to me?”
“When you’re ready to hear it, I’ll tell you.”
She took a shaky breath. “What if I never am? Then what?”
“I will wait.”
She hung up on me. And I smiled because I knew she was thinking about what I’d said.
She was thinking about us and what we could have.
All I was asking for was a chance.
Sunday 2:49 am
To whom it may concern:
I’m folded on my side in a couch-slash-bed with my knees to my stomach. My mom is the big spoon.
Unsincerely Yours,
Ryan G. Moon
Sunday 2:54 am
Ryan G. Moon,
Does she give good spoon?
Sincerely,
Preston Michael Shaw, Esquire
Sunday 2:57 am
To whom it may concern:
Nothing like u do. I never slept that gud in my lif.
Unsincerely Yours,
Ryan G. Moon
Sunday 3:03 am
Ryan G. Moon,
Are you buttering me up to evaluate my typo tolerance threshold? Just so you know, I can’t be swayed.
Sincerely,
Preston Michael Shaw, Esquire
Sunday 3:08 am
To whom it may concern:
Why did you quit? For real?
Unsincerely Yours,
Ryan G. Moon
Sunday 3:21 am
Ryan G. Moon,
You forgot your abbreviated form of speaking. I almost thought you were an imposter Goddess.
Sincerely,
Preston Michael Shaw, Esquire
Sunday 3:33 am
Miss Moon: Preston, tell me.
I finally called her half an hour later. I hadn’t known how to answer.
It was a hell of a thing to drop the bricks you’d carried around your whole life. To share that load with someone, knowing full well they might not want to keep toting them the rest of the way with you.
But I had to do it anyway.
“Hi,” I said quietly when she answered.
“Hi,” she whispered back.
“Are you going to hang up on me again?”
“Depends. If you make me cry again, absolutely.”
I smiled in the dark. “Normally, I would hate making you cry. But in this case…”
“Sadist.” I could hear her smile.
“Can you talk? I don’t want to keep your mom up.”
“She has headphones in with her Gregorian chant music. She uses that to reach her alternative aural space.”
“Okay.”
“That’s my mother, man. She’s on a whole different plane. Now stop stalling.”
I released a slow breath. “I never wanted to do divorce law. Not for one goddamn day. I finally just…stopped.”
She gasped. “You walked out?”
“I said I quit. I didn’t say I had a lobotomy.”
Her soft giggle was breathless. “Can you return the car? That’s a lot of thrusters for a guy without a job.”
“I never owned it.”
“What the fuck, dude?”
“You know what they say about assumptions.”
“I know your exceptional penis won’t save you from an asskicking when I see you in person.”
I grinned. “Let’s hope your mom doesn’t decide to kill the chanting.”
“She already knows about your penis.”
I choked. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“Oh, no. It’s a whole ritual we do when one of us has a new man. We detail it all right down to width and length. I had to guesstimate some of it, but when we salt the circle, estimates are good enough. I mean, for a first ceremony anyway.”
I’d coughed so hard my eyes were still watering. “I’m almost sure you’re pulling my…not penis.”
“But you’re not certain, are you? So, remember I know of things you can’t begin to imagine, Horatio.”
“Oh, I already knew that, Moonbeam.” I rubbed my chest. “Look at that, my lungs still work. I thought they’d seized up on me.”
“Serves you right. That means the grandpa car is still in commission?”
“Nope.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“Not particularly.” I lowered my voice. “So, how tight are your quarters there?”
“If you are even so much as insinuating I should touch myself while I’m in bed with my mother, you are a sick puppy, PMS. Truly depraved.”
It took everything I possessed not to laugh. “Maybe just a little?”
“Not even the tiniest bit in the history of small, infinitesimal things.”
“God, I miss you already. How is that possible?”
“Same way it’s possible we met on Monday. Did you quit because I left?”
“No. I quit Thursday.”
Her pause made me think our banter was at an end. I waited to hear the click that meant she was done talking yet again.
“I should’ve known you never would’ve slept in unless you’d already done something rash.”
“Hardly rash. I’d been thinking about it for years. I just finally pulled the trigger. And you’re the one who fucked me into a coma.”
“I’d say that was mutual coma fucking.”
“Yeah, but the belt was extra.”
“And you didn’t even need Jason Momoa to spot you.”
“This conversation is veering into disturbing places.”
“That’s what happens when we’re whispering at 4 am.”
There were other things I wanted to whisper to her, but that would be the coward’s way out. When I said the words, I wanted to say them in full sunlight with no place to hide so she’d understand that she wasn’t a passing whim for me. Not a game or a flight of fancy.
Forever didn’t have to take forever. Ours had happened in an instant.
“I meant it when I said I would wait, but....”
“But…” she teased.
“When are you coming back to me?”
“Yeah, you’re totally patient. Grant told me what you did for him, by the way. I didn’t expect yo
u to reduce your fee.”
“Neither did I,” I admitted, making her laugh.
“I have to get some sleep. Rainbow’s up with the sparrows.”
“Rainbow.” I snorted. “I’ll never get used to that name.”
“Wait until you have to get used to the wo—” She cut herself off. “Okay, night. Bye.”
I grinned. “Night, Moonbeam.”
Sunday 11:57 am
Ryan G. Moon,
Did you dream of me?
Sincerely,
Preston Michael Shaw, Esquire
Sunday 12:22 pm
Who dis?
Sunday 12:51 pm
Ryan G. Moon,
I talked to my mom on Friday. You were right.
Sincerely,
Preston Michael Shaw, Esquire
Sunday 12:57 pm
Miss Moon: I’m calling.
Out on the balcony, I glanced down at Smoky, who was batting a catnip palm tree with halfhearted interest as he eyed the phone in my hand. When her call came through, he sat up straight, all pretense of playing forgotten.
“She’s not calling you,” I informed him.
He promptly turned around and showed me his butt.
“Hey.” I leaned back against the railing and crossed my ankles with a casualness I so didn’t feel. “How’s things with Mom?”
“Tell me what happened.”
“No foreplay, got it.” Idly, I scratched my stomach through the baseball jersey I’d put on to wear to dinner at the bar with Bishop and my brother later. “I asked her straight out if she’d been with anyone else after my father. She indicated yes.”
Ryan didn’t reply right away. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too. For them, most of all. It’s a hell of a thing to live like that and to think it makes sense.”
“If they’re in agreement…”
“It’s still crazy.”
“No argument. Are you okay? I know finding out about your dad rocked you.”
“I’m getting there. Did you get some sleep?”
“Yeah. A little. Hard to sleep with your mom crammed in a couch-bed, but I made do.”
“Maybe try the chants?”
She laughed and I heard movement and voices around her. “We’re getting more of her wares ready for the fair. She does a lot of work with textiles. Yarn and stuff. It’s a huge one, lots of crafters and vendors.”
“Sounds like you’re busy then. I won’t keep you.”
“What about you? Do you have plans today?”
“Yeah, I’m meeting my best friend and Dex at the bar later. We have some business to discuss.” I rubbed my thumb over my phone and tried the full disclosure thing on for size. “We’re asking Bishop to take my place in the firm. No idea if he’ll bite, but he’s a good dude. He just got back from the South Pacific and—”
“Was there a discount going around or something?”
“Huh?”
“You know, April too. She texted me from Fiji. Said she ran into some snags, but she’s on her way home.”
I frowned. “I didn’t even make the connection. That’s odd. What are the chances?”
“Well, it’s not like the South Pacific is tiny.”
“No, but that it was at the same time.”
“Do they know each other?”
“No, not that I know of. Bishop never visits me at work, and I’ve never run into April when we’re out together, rare as it is.”
“Typical PMS. All business.”
“Until I discovered the varied uses for conference tables and desk chairs, you mean.”
“Your education was lacking,” she agreed. “Hang on.” She muffled the phone, and someone called out to her before she came back on the line. “Gotta go. My mom can’t find her bag of adult booties.”
I chuckled. “Do I want to know?”
“Probably not.” She paused. “We can talk more later.”
“I should hope so.”
“I mean about the situation with your parents. That’s rough. A lot to swallow.”
“It hasn’t been the best. But it’s done one good thing.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s made me really firm on what I don’t want…and what I do. I won’t make a promise I can’t keep.” When she didn’t respond, I cleared my throat. “I just wanted you to know that.”
“I never thought otherwise. Don’t have too much fun at the bar.”
“Afraid I’m going to get tipsy?”
“Just wear baggy jeans or something.”
I choked out a laugh. “Excuse me?”
“Your ass is entirely too pinchable.”
“You think? I’ve never been pinched when out and about.”
“I know. Later, PMS.” She clicked off before I could do more than grin dopily at my irritated cat.
He leaned forward and very specifically bit my big toe in my open sandal. Then he sauntered off while I stared at his ungrateful back end.
I spent the rest of disgustingly hot and humid afternoon doing paperwork in my chaise lounge on the balcony with some music playing and chilled iced tea. I wouldn’t be drinking much of the hot stuff anytime soon, but even the iced version made me think of her.
Hell, everything did.
Later, Ryan texted me a snapshot of a pair of bug-eyed llama potholders.
Miss Moon: These screamed PMS.
PMS: Did you buy them?
Miss Moon: Even better. I bartered a pair of booties for them. You’re welcome.
Smoky was sunning himself in a beam of sunshine on the railing. At my bark of laughter, he glanced over and sneered.
Elvis came on when I was just about to head inside and get ready to go. I grinned and cranked up the music, only to lower it again when my phone went off.
Bishop.
“Hey, what’s up? You on your way?”
“I’m still in Fiji. Shit went sideways. Needless to say, I’m not going to be at the bar tonight. Sorry.”
Only one word stuck in my brain.
“Fiji? You didn’t tell me you were there. And you said you met a woman?”
“Oh, I met a woman, all right.” His tone verged on furious.
“What happened? I thought you were in love and all that.”
“All that is correct. Until she ghosted me.” Static filled the line, and it sounded as if he dropped the phone. He came back on, sounding out of breath. “If I can’t find her, I’m catching a flight tonight.”
“You’re still looking? And um, just for curiosity’s sake, her name isn’t April, is it?”
That would be very, very bad if I wanted him to take my place in the law firm, and his new assistant had just fucked and ducked him.
I grasped the back of my neck. I did not want to think of my cool, competent assistant in that manner. I separated church and state so thoroughly that I’d barely even noticed she was a woman.
Didn’t work so well with Ryan though, huh?
That was an entirely different scenario. She’d only been a temp.
Even consumed with Bishop’s problem, I couldn’t help smiling like a fool. And now she was everything, assuming she ever stopped bartering adult booties and came back to me.
“No,” Bishop bit off.
My breath rushed out. “Thank God.”
More static. “Her name definitely wasn’t April. If what she told me was even her name. We only did first ones. Now I’m questioning everything.”
Momentary relief squelched.
“Okay, what did she look—”
A choppy voice on an intercom crackled across the line before Bishop swore. “Sorry, man, I have to go. We’ll reschedule that meeting in a few days. Whatever you need.”
“Sure, don’t worry about it. I’m sorry about this.”
Really sorry if my sneaking suspicion was right. But what were the odds?
Then again, I’d fallen in love in the course of a week with a complete stranger. A smart, funny, beautiful one who’d opened up the whole worl
d to me—both the logical one and the mystical.
There were a hell of a lot more forces at work than I could comprehend. All I could do was be grateful for them.
“Me too, Shaw.” Suddenly, he sounded so weary—and broken. I knew too well what that felt like. And I hated my buddy losing someone he’d found a connection with after all he‘d endured in the past.
We hung up.
I sat there for a while, just thinking. Wondering if there was some divine plan that made sense to someone at the controls, if such a being existed. I was more inclined to believe that now than I had in the recent past, that was for damn sure.
My phone buzzed a bit later.
Dex: Hey, assclown, did you forget me? I’m sitting here at the bar with two women who would be more than happy to soothe my sorrows at being stood up. And they can tie cherry stems with their nipples.
PMS: Is that even English?
Dex: Who cares? They’re hot and they have nipples and a willingness to let me enjoy them. So you have twenty minutes to get here or I’m going to let them take advantage of me.
PMS: I’m on my way. Don’t drink all the beer.
Dex: Not what I intended on sampling first, but fine.
I shook my head as I stuffed papers from the Donnelly case into my file folder. My brother was a horndog to the nth degree.
Hmm, maybe I should hand him Mary Donnelly to deal with. He’d said he could help out more. This divorce was only in the early stages, and Mary had warned me she had new “bombshell” allegations that were going to “fry that sucker.” Not exactly my preference, and Dex enjoyed the game of all of it far more than I did.