Chapter 2
Ray
"—and then he shit on Alex. Like, on his chest. While Alex was holding him."
I snort, pressing my phone tighter against my ear and leaning back against the brick wall outside the firm's office building. It's cold out here, and I probably should've grabbed my jacket, but I needed air that didn't smell like printer toner and stress. "Please tell me you got a picture."
"I got a video," Devon says, and I can hear the exhausted pride in his voice. "Alex just stood there with this look on his face, like he was trying to decide if he still wanted to be a dad. Gabriel thought it was hilarious. He was laughing his little head off."
"That's my nephew." I grin up at the sky, which is gray and kind of depressing, but whatever. "The kid's got taste. Alex needed to be taken down a peg."
"Alex is going to kill you when I tell him you said that."
"Alex loves me."
"Alex tolerates you." There's a muffled sound on Devon's end, and his voice goes distant. "No, buddy, that's not food. That's the remote. Give it—Gabriel, let go." A pause. "Sorry. He's eating everything that isn't nailed down."
"Sounds about right for a Garcia."
"Shut up." Devon sounds like he hasn't slept in weeks, which is probably accurate.
I can picture him on the couch with Gabriel on his lap and his hair sticking up in four directions, wearing one of Alex's old t-shirts because he stopped caring about his own clothes about two months into fatherhood.
I hear him settle back into whatever surface he's collapsed on, and his voice gets clearer.
"So what's going on with you? You never call me during work hours unless something happened. "
"Nothing happened." I pick at a loose thread on my jacket sleeve. "My boss is sending me to a conference. Some fancy mountain resort thing for three days. Lawyers and panels and a gala, which I'm pretty sure means I need to rent a tux."
"Your boss." Devon says it flat, the way he always does when I mention Miles. "The hot one you won't shut up about?"
"I don't talk about him that much."
"Ray. You called me last week to tell me he rolled his sleeves up."
"It was relevant to the story I was telling."
"The story was about a filing cabinet."
Okay, so maybe I talk about Miles a little.
It's not my fault the guy is distractingly good-looking in a way that doesn't make any sense to me.
I've hooked up with plenty of hot guys. Hot guys are not new to me.
But Miles isn't just hot. He's hot and mean, which shouldn't work, except it really, really does.
He told me to stop talking today and I swear to god my dick twitched.
I don't know what to do with that. I've never been turned on by someone who actively seems to hate me before, and I'm not sure that's it's healthy.
"Anyway," I say, because I can hear Devon gearing up for a lecture. "The conference. Three days at a resort."
"With the hot boss."
"With my boss, yes."
"In a hotel."
"That's typically where conferences are held, Dev."
He's quiet for a second, and I know exactly what he's thinking because I already thought it, about forty-five seconds after Miles told me to iron my shirt and be on time.
Three days in a hotel with Miles Covington.
Meals together, conference rooms together, probably some kind of shared space situation because the firm isn't going to spring for separate suites for a senior associate and his assistant.
I'm not going to pretend I haven't thought about it.
I've been thinking about it all morning.
What Miles looks like when he's not in full corporate-armor mode.
Whether he's different after hours, or if the suit and the attitude are welded on permanently.
What he smells like when he's not behind a desk with an air purifier blasting.
I've caught hints of him a few times—just traces through the suppressants. Something sweet and honeyed underneath all that ice, like warm paper and amber. It drives me insane in a way that I can't explain without sounding like a creep, so I just don't mention it. To anyone. Ever.
"Hello?" Devon says. "Did you die?"
"I'm here. I was thinking."
"About the conference or about the boss?"
"The conference."
"Liar."
The thing about Miles is that he doesn't make sense to me.
Every guy I've ever been into has been uncomplicated.
Fun. Someone I could flirt with over drinks and take home and have a good time with and then not think about too hard the next day.
Miles is not that. Miles is closed off and kind of scary and looks at me like I'm a problem he's trying to solve, and for some reason my stupid alpha brain has decided that's the hottest thing it's ever encountered.
He told me I was staring at him today, and I was.
I was watching his mouth move while he talked about witness depositions, which is not sexy, except it kind of was because he gets this intense, focused look when he's explaining something he cares about, and his lips do this thing where they press together between sentences, and I had a weird intrusive thought about what would happen if I just leaned across the desk and kissed him.
Nothing good, obviously. He'd probably file a restraining order.
But the thought was there, and it was persistent, and that's new for me.
I don't usually think about kissing people.
I think about fucking people. The kissing thing is different, and I don't love what that might mean.
"Just be careful," Devon says, and his voice has shifted. Not teasing anymore.
"Careful of what?"
"You know of what."
"I literally do not."
"Ray." He does the big-brother voice, the one that used to make me feel safe when we were kids and our parents were working their third jobs and the apartment was too quiet. Now it mostly just makes me feel like I'm being managed. "He's your boss. And you're—"
"I'm what?"
"You're you. You get attached."
"I don't get attached. I'm the opposite of attached. I'm, like, famously unattached."
"You cried during a dog food commercial last week."
"That dog was OLD, Devon. He was waiting by the door for his owner. That's sad. That has nothing to do with attachment."
"You also made his coffee this morning."
I open my mouth and close it. "How do you know that?"
"Because you texted me about it. You said, and I quote, 'I left coffee on his desk and he didn't even look at it, what an asshole.' That was at seven forty-five AM."
Okay, when he puts it like that, it sounds like a thing.
It's not a thing. I made coffee because I was already making coffee and it takes zero effort to pour a second cup.
The fact that I know Miles takes his black with one sugar is just basic observation.
The fact that I left it on his desk before he got in so he wouldn't know it was from me is—fine, maybe that's slightly more than basic observation.
"That's called being a good assistant," I say.
"That's called having a crush."
"I don't have a crush. I'm twenty-three, not fifteen."
"You're right. Fifteen-year-olds are less obvious about it."
I rub the back of my neck, annoyed because he's not entirely wrong.
Not about the boss thing—I'm not stupid enough to actually make a move on Miles Covington.
But the attachment thing in general. I play it cool, I keep things casual, I hook up and move on, and it works.
It's a good system. But yeah, somewhere underneath all that, I'm the guy who remembers how people take their coffee and checks if they've eaten lunch and worries when they look tired. I just don't advertise it.
Miles looked tired today. He had this line between his eyebrows that shows up when he's stressed about something bigger than whatever he's yelling at me about.
He drinks his coffee black with one sugar, and he always finishes it before ten and then doesn't eat anything until at least two, which is insane.
I thought about bringing him a sandwich once and then imagined the look he'd give me and decided I value my life.
"I'm not going to do anything dumb," I tell Devon. "It's a work trip. I'll carry his bags and set up his PowerPoint and try not to wrinkle my shirt, and that's it."
"Uh huh."
"I'm serious."
"You're never serious. That's your whole thing."
That one lands somewhere I don't love, and I go quiet for a second. Devon must hear it, because he sighs.
"I didn't mean it like that," he says. "I just mean—look, I know you took this job because of me, and I know you think it's just some placeholder until you figure out what you actually want to do. But you've been there six months and you haven't quit. That means something."
"It means I like having rent money."
"It means you're not actually the fuckup you pretend to be, and maybe you should stop pretending before people believe you.
" There's a thump in the background that sounds like Gabriel threw something, and Devon swears under his breath.
"You're smart, Ray. Genuinely smart. I just don't want you to—" Another crash. "Jesus Christ—hold on."
I wait while Devon deals with whatever Gabriel just destroyed, and I stare at the sidewalk and think about what he said.
The smart thing. People don't usually say that about me, and when they do, it's always with the qualifier.
You're smart when you want to be. You're smart but you don't apply yourself.
You're smart for someone who doesn't try.
Devon's the only one who just says it straight.
Miles said I was adequate today. Which, from Miles, might actually be a compliment.
When Richard Aldridge asked if I was any good, Miles could've said no.
He could've said I was a disaster, which is what he calls me at least twice a week.
But he said adequate, and then Richard told him to bring me, and for a second—just a second—Miles looked at me like he didn't know what to do with me.
Like I'd broken some rule he didn't know existed.
I liked it. I liked that I surprised him. I like surprising him in general.
Devon comes back on the line, slightly more frazzled than before. "Sorry. He pulled a book off the shelf and hit himself in the face with it. He's fine, he's just dramatic. Gets it from Alex."
"Gets it from you," I correct.
"Fuck off." But he's laughing, and I can hear Gabriel babbling happily in the background, and my chest fills up with something I can't name.
This is my family. Devon, who raised himself so he could raise me.
Alex, who showed up broken and angry and turned out to be exactly what my brother needed.
Gabriel, who shits on people's chests and eats remotes and is the most perfect thing I've ever seen.
I want this for myself someday. I don't say it out loud because it doesn't fit the image—the fun one, the fuckboy, the guy who keeps it casual.
But I do. I want someone who looks at me the way Alex looks at Devon when he thinks nobody's watching.
I want the mess and the noise and the kid who destroys my apartment.
"I gotta go," Devon says. "Gabe needs lunch and Alex is on a call. But Ray? Just... be smart about the conference, okay?"
"I will."
"And don't fall for your boss."
"Goodbye, Devon."
He laughs and hangs up, and I stand there for another minute with my phone in my hand, the cold air biting at my ears. I should go back inside. I've got a stack of files to organize and a conference to prep for and a boss who will one hundred percent notice if I take a long lunch.
The thing Devon doesn't get—the thing nobody gets, really—is that I'm not pretending with Miles.
I'm not playing dumb or being lazy or coasting on charm the way I do with everyone else.
I actually try with him. I stay late organizing his files the way he likes them.
I learned the Morrison case backwards and forwards because it matters to him, and I wanted to be useful, and when I said that thing about the AV setup today, it wasn't some spontaneous burst of genius.
I'd been thinking about it for a week. I just waited for the right moment because I knew he'd dismiss it if I brought it up over email.
He still called me adequate. But he didn't say no. Richard Aldridge is sending me to a mountain resort with him, which means someone in that room thought I was worth something, even if Miles would rather chew glass than admit it.
I push off the wall and head for the entrance. The building swallows me back into its fluorescent lights and recycled air, and I take the elevator up and walk down the hall toward my desk, which means walking past Miles's office.
His door is open. He's at his desk, one hand wrapped around his coffee mug—the one I left for him this morning that he apparently did drink, because it's empty now—and the other scrolling through something on his screen.
He hasn't noticed me yet, and I let myself look for a second.
Just a second. His jaw is set, and that line between his eyebrows is still there, and his blond hair has come slightly loose from wherever he usually keeps it slicked back.
He looks tired and precise and kind of beautiful, in a way that's got nothing to do with any of the uncomplicated, fun things I'm used to wanting.
Devon's voice echoes in my head. Don't fall for your boss.
Yeah. I should probably work on that.
I keep walking, but I'm smiling, and I can't really make myself stop.