“I do. Believe me I do. If there was something I could do, Sunshine. Oh, you don’t know what I would do to fix it.”
The more he talked, the more confused I got.
“Just tell me it’s not a roomful of dead bodies. Or something creepy. Or a shrine of some other girl. Or something else illegal, or creepy, or gross.”
“It is none of the above, I promise. It’s just something that I can’t share. Okay?” I sighed.
“Okay.” For now. I was okay for now. Just the fact that I had a key was something. Now I had to get one made for him.
“Big step, giving me a key,” I said, tugging on his hair. “Does this mean I get a drawer?”
“Sunshine, you’ve already taken over half my dresser and most of my bathroom. You can have whatever space you want.” He was right. I had kind of started taking over.
“But I don’t mind. I like having to move your shampoo to find mine, or accidentally reaching for a toothbrush and getting yours instead of mine.”
“What about my tampons? You cool with those?”
“I am cool with your tampons.”
“Good.”
“Cool.”
The next morning he let me use my new key to lock the door when I left and I got a little thrill about putting it on my key ring.
At lunch, I ran to a locksmith and got one made for him since the only extra keys I had were in Sloane’s possession. She may have been great at making flan and lingerie, but she was terrible at not losing her key.
When I got back I saw Dad talking to Lucah and I immediately panicked. Dad had his back to me and Lucah was facing me so he saw the panic on my face and shook his head very subtly back and forth.
What did that mean? Did that mean things were okay? Did that mean I should panic? WHAT DID THAT SIGNAL MEAN? We hadn’t worked out our signals yet.
I had to walk by Dad to get to my office so I did it in such a way that he saw me out of the corner of his eye.
“Oh, Rory. Just getting back from lunch?” I put on a smile and walked up to them.
“Yes, which means it’s Mr. Blaine’s turn.” Dad and Lucah shared a look that I couldn’t decipher and then Lucah excused himself and headed off to lunch.
“What was that about? You trying to steal my assistant?” I joked, trying to make light of the situation.
“Oh, no. He’s all yours,” he said, and it felt like a double meaning, but that was probably just me. “No, I was just stopping by to see how things were going for him. He’s a bright young man you’ve got there.” Was it just me, or was Dad acting shifty?
“Oh, well, he’s a hard worker and never complains.” I was floundering and I needed to get out of there. He seemed to sense that as he cleared his throat and looked around.
“Well, I need to get back to work, but I’ll see you later?”
“Absolutely.” We had another meeting this afternoon and I was already not looking forward to it. Lucah would have to sit next to me and we’d have to keep our hands to ourselves. Most of the time I told him not to come with me just because it was too much temptation, but this one I was out of luck because there was so much involved that I needed to remember that I needed another set of notes to supplement mine and he took really good notes when he wasn’t trying to shove his hand up my skirt. Or maybe he could do both. I sure as hell couldn’t.
I texted Lucah the second I got back to my office.
What was that about? Every second it took him to respond freaked me out even more. I was probably being paranoid, but when you were having a secret love affair with a guy you were not supposed to be having a love affair with, then it kind of went with the territory.
Nothing. I swear. Just asking about the job. Relax, Sunshine :)
I couldn’t see his face or hear his tone via the text, so I had no way to tell if he was just trying to calm me down, or if it was really nothing. I’d have to ask him when he got back.
Love made you paranoid.
I was biting my nails and flinching every time someone walked by my door until Lucah got back. I motioned him into my office and he closed the door. I was willing to take the risk just to make double sure that we were still flying under the radar.
He smiled at me and shook his head.
“I told you that we were fine. I think he was checking up to make sure I was doing you justice and not slacking off. It was all work talk, honest.”
His voice was sincere and his face was too. Okay, crisis averted. Freak-out aborted.
I took a deep breath.
“You need to stop stressing so much. It’s not good for you.” He reached out and stroked my face just as there was a knock at my door. Crap, it was time for the meeting.
“Rory dear? It’s time for the meeting.” Mrs. Andrews’ voice made Lucah freeze with his hand on my face. Then he dropped it and we both got up. There was nothing to do but leave the office together. If we both played it cool, then no one would know anything.
“Be right there,” I said, and Lucah got up and opened the door open for me as I walked through. He followed a second later with two notebooks and pens, which, of course, I’d forgotten.
He followed too closely behind me and I knew that it was going to be a herculean effort to get through this, although Dad was in this meeting, so there would definitely be no funny business, even if I wasn’t already paranoid. I had to draw the line somewhere.
I actually did focus on the meeting and when it was over, I realized that Lucah hadn’t touched me once and his notebook was full of his small neat handwriting. My handwriting was terrible and I was jealous of his. If only you could go back in time and relearn how to write. But it was probably too late to do that now. Oh well. It just wasn’t one of my talents.
He was keeping his distance, and I knew it had to do with the fact that he thought Dad was watching him. It would have been kind of funny if it wasn’t so terrifying. We barely made eye contact for the rest of the day, which only made it sweeter when I unlocked the door to his apartment later and he kissed me like he hadn’t seen me in weeks.
“It is torture not being able to look at our talk to or touch you all day, but I felt like we were being watched, so I decided that your paranoia was warranted.”
“So you’re saying I’m right?” He laughed and bit the tip of my nose.
“Yes, I’m saying you were right.” I raised my fist in victory and did a little victory dance, complete with booty shaking and he clapped and urged me on.
“God, you’re sexy,” he said when I was done. Clearly, he loved me because only someone who loved me would think that display was sexy.