2. Chapter 2
Chapter 2
By the time Paige sat down for lunch in her office, she was borderline exhausted, but also in an oddly good mood, due to the stream of texts she and David had exchanged throughout the morning, starting with one from him.
DAVID: Thanks for getting my day off to a great start!
PAIGE: You’re welcome, I guess.
DAVID: Also, you should know that during all the extra time I had this morning, I came up with another rule.
PAIGE: No more rules.
DAVID: You’ll like this one: all future FaceTime calls should be topless. What do you think?
PAIGE: I’m not sure. I’ll have to get back to you on that.
DAVID: Make it soon … and make it via FaceTime, preferably.
DAVID: I’m still thinking about your boobs, by the way. In case you were wondering.
DAVID: Have you been thinking about my respectable wood?
DAVID: It’s okay if you have been. It’s long gone, though.
PAIGE: I haven’t been, because I’m at work … thinking about work things.
DAVID: I’m at work, too, but I haven’t let that interfere with thinking about your boobs.
DAVID: #priorities
The last text came in as Paige was eating a crispy chicken sandwich delivered from a nearby deli, and actually made her laugh out loud despite having food in her mouth. She was trying to craft a witty reply when her phone rang. She knew from the distinct ringtone, “The Bitch Is Back”, that it was Jules, and she was calling to find out if the deal with David had been accepted yet. She’d been relentless, calling several times every day for the past week, getting increasingly annoyed with Paige’s indecision.
Which, in turn, increasingly annoyed Paige.
Without letting go of her sandwich, she answered the call, then activated the speaker phone with a tap of her pinky. Eating was the most important thing right then and she needed both hands to do it.
“Well?” Jules asked, in lieu of an actual greeting, her voice filling the office. “I swear to God, if you tell me you haven’t made up your mind yet, I’m going to—”
“I decided to take David up on his offer, so you can calm your shit,” Paige broke in, nipping whatever threat was going to be issued in the bud. They’d become increasingly ridiculous and outrageous, the last one being that Jules was going to ‘go Godzilla’ on Paige’s ass.
There was silence for a moment before Jules cleared her throat. “Oh. You did?”
“Yes.”
“Well, good. It’s about time.”
“I went over to his place last night and we—” Paige took a quick bite, before finishing with her mouth full, “—hashed out the details.”
“Details? Like what details?”
“Like …” Paige trailed off as a text came in from David, capturing her attention for a moment. Given the theme of all his previous texts that day, she figured it was going to involve either her boobs or his cock again, but surprisingly it didn’t.
DAVID: So, I was wondering what your work schedule was like for the next month or so. Specifically, all evenings you’re available.
“Like what details?” Jules repeated.
Paige’s attention was still mostly on David’s text, so she barely heard Jules as she pulled up her work schedule on the computer with one hand, while trying to still eat with the other. After that, she was forced to put the sandwich down in order to take a picture of her schedule and text it to David.
“Paige? Paige!”
Her name being practically shouted brought Paige back to the conversation with Jules. “What?”
“What’s going on?”
“Sorry. I’m trying to multi-task.”
“While we’re having an important discussion? What, exactly, are you multi-tasking?”
“David texted me, asking about my work schedule and I was taking a picture and sending it to him.”
“Is that for sex planning purposes?”
“Kind of.”
“What do you mean, ‘kind of’?”
“We’ll be … dating at first. So it’s for dating purposes, I guess.”
“You’re going to be dating?”
Jules said it like it was the equivalent of digging in the garbage for food. “Yes,” Paige replied. “You know, going out to dinner, things like that?”
“I know what dating is. Why are you going to be doing it?”
“Because David thinks it’ll make me more comfortable. He said if we just start … having sex … that it’ll be too much like how sex was for me before, when it wasn’t good. And he doesn’t want it to be like that this time.”
There was silence on Jules’s end for several moments and then she finally murmured, “That’s actually very considerate of him. And smart. He’s obviously given this a lot of thought.”
“He has, actually.”
Paige then proceeded to give a quick rundown of the ‘sexual baby steps’ she and David were going to be taking, as well as the ‘ground rules’ he’d laid out. At the last second though, she left out the part where they were going to ignore the elephant in the room—his relationship with Ashley. Paige was pretty sure Jules wouldn’t approve of that particular rule and debating it right then wasn’t something that needed to happen. Especially after Jules quasi-erupted after hearing about the masturbation mandate.
“I’m at a loss right now,” she sputtered. “Why in the almighty hell would you agree to not being able to masturbate when you’re alone? It’s barbaric.”
Even though Paige had been dismissive of David’s explanation earlier, she recycled it now. “We’re … priming the pump.”
“Priming the pump?”
“That’s what he called it.”
Jules groaned. “What a fucking idiot.”
At Jules’s assessment of David, Paige found herself defending him. “He said I’d thank him for it later—”
“I meant you.”
“Well, jeez. Thanks.”
“I really wish I’d been there when this deal was in the works. I would’ve negotiated better terms for you.”
Paige shook her head at the thought of Jules sitting at David’s kitchen table last night, being some sort of arbitrator. “What are you, Jimmy Hoffa? It wasn’t a Teamsters meeting.”
“If it had been, you’d have gotten a much better deal. At the very least, you’d still be able to use your vibrator whenever you wanted to.” Jules exhaled loudly. “Don’t you know anything about collective bargaining?”
Before Paige could respond to what was obviously a rhetorical question, another text from David came in.
DAVID: Keep these evenings open. Unless something comes up for either one of us, these are date nights.
This was followed by the picture of her schedule with approximately half of her available nights circled, which obviously corresponded with his. She assumed that’s when Jacob would be staying with Ashley, since they were all Wednesdays and weekends. The circled dates made everything suddenly very real to Paige, and as she wondered which one would be the first time they’d have sex, her heart tripped.
This was going to happen.
PAIGE: Okay. It looks like we’ll be seeing each other a lot.
DAVID: Yes, starting with tomorrow night. I’ll pick you up at 6:30 p.m.
“Paige? Paige!”
“Sorry.”
“Are you ‘multi-tasking’ with David again?”
“Yes. He was texting me about our date nights.”
“That’s sweet. Now tell him I demand you be able to use your vibrator whenever you want.”
“Yeah, no. I’m not going to—”
Another text from David came in, diverting Paige’s attention once again.
DAVID: I’m still thinking about your boobs.
Paige laughed before she could stop herself.
“What’s so funny?” Jules demanded.
Paige told her about the peepshow/FaceTime call with David that morning, but instead of being amused, Jules was aggravated. “Are you kidding? Why didn’t you ask to see his dick in return?”
Starting to smile at her friend’s outrage, Paige stopped as the validity of the question took hold. Why hadn’t she asked to see his dick? Especially after he’d bragged about having ‘respectable wood’. That had literally been the perfect opportunity and she’d completely wasted it.
She leaned back in her chair, so caught up in being annoyed with herself that it took her a few seconds to register the unwelcome scent of ChanelN°5 floating into her office. She knew it was a designer fragrance and Marilyn Monroe had sworn by it, but Paige had never liked it, and disliked it even less now that it seemed to be triggering headaches following her concussion five months ago.
Slowly, Paige turned to see her boss, Linda, standing in the doorway with perfectly styled hair and flawless make-up. How long she’d been there, Paige didn’t know, but if the disapproval emanating from Linda was any indication, she’d probably heard the ‘ask to see his dick’ comment.
Hopefully not more than that, but the way this day was going it was a real possibility.
Paige kept her expression as neutral as she could, despite the intense dislike she felt for the other woman. Everything about her rubbed Paige the wrong way—especially the non-existent work ethic Linda had. It was extremely unusual for her to arrive at The Main Event before 10 a.m. and extremely unusual for her to stay more than five hours, during which she carved out time for lunch. She also displayed an appalling lack of appreciation for those who actually did work—and worked hard—to ensure the success of her business.
“Hold on for a moment,” Paige told Jules, before addressing her boss. “What can I do for you, Linda?”
A soft snort of disgust emanated from Paige’s phone, thankfully not loud enough for Linda to hear.
“I need to discuss some changes that need to be made for the Chamber of Commerce dinner on Thursday,” Linda said, before adding pointedly, “but I can see you’re busy with a personal call.”
The not-so-subtle reprimand for being on a personal call during her lunch break (there was no way Linda didn’t know Paige was on her lunch break, given there was a half-eaten sandwich on the desk) made it a struggle to keep her neutral expression from evaporating. She’d already put in seven hours of work, which had been preceded by a crappy night’s sleep, waking up at the ass-crack of dawn, and orgasm denial … and she still had five hours to go before the day was over.
Paige cleared her throat. She wasn’t ready to be out of a job just yet, so telling her employer to shove an AK-47 up her ass and pull the trigger until the magazine was empty wasn’t a good idea, but a little attitude could be thrown her way.
“I should be done with my personal call in about ten minutes, which is when my lunch break is over,” Paige said, her even tone at direct odds with her anger. “Why don’t you come back then?”
This time, it was a soft chuckle that emanated from Paige’s phone, and at first she thought Linda must have heard it by the way her expression tightened. However, Linda’s gaze never strayed from Paige’s face, and the two of them engaged in a bit of a Mexican standoff. It was clear Linda didn’t like being dismissed, nor did she seem to know how to respond to the almost pleasant nature of it.
“What’s happening?” Jules whispered.
Paige picked up her sandwich and took a bite, maintaining steady eye contact with Linda the entire time, until she conceded the win to Paige and stalked out of the office without a word.
Paige waited for several seconds to make sure Linda was no longer within earshot before announcing her departure. “She’s gone.”
“Good riddance. Jesus, what a cow.”
“You should’ve seen her face. That passive aggressive shit really works.”
“I told you it would,” Jules said. “You know, I really wish you’d just tell her to go fuck herself, though. Then tell her to fuck herself again and quit.”
“I will. Today’s not that day, but trust me, that day will come.”
“Hopefully sooner rather than later. I want to scratch that off my bucket list.”
Paige had long ago gotten used to Jules’s bucket list including things she wanted for Paige, so all she said was, “Me, too.”
“Oh, and when you do? Give me a call and put me on speaker phone so I can hear it.”