8. KYLE
8
KYLE
I didn’t want to blank him, I didn’t want to be short with him, but the situation felt immediately too much for me and I just had to get a distance from it.
I could see it in the way his face fell when I was speaking to him, or the way he looked after me when I went out to lunch, like a little lost puppy. I could see that I was hurting him, and even though I didn’t want to, I just did it anyway, which obviously makes me a complete and utter prick.
The entire day threw me off balance and the only way I felt like I could regain my footing was to push him away. I’ll apologise once I get my head around it all. I’ll have to. That is if he doesn’t quit.
I try and shake it from my head as I make my way home. I just had to get out of there. I hadn’t planned to leave early but I ran it quickly by Taylor, told him I wasn’t feeling great, and he told me to go home and to maybe work from home tomorrow so… I guess that’s what I’ll do.
When I wake up the next morning, there’s a feeling of dread weighing heavily on my chest. Even though I’ve already made the call to not go in to work today, I’m going to be emailing with Larry, and he’s going to be feeling some type of way about me not showing up for sure. He’s going to think I’m avoiding him… which I am. I’m the worst.
I get to my desk and send an email to Maria telling her I won’t be in as I’m not feeling well, and then I shoot one off to Larry.
Hey Larry,
Not going to be in the office today, not feeling too well, but plenty of tasks for you to be getting on with. Can you check my calendar for the rest of the week and early next week, and make sure my rooms are booked in? We’ll need catering for some of the externals. Let me know when you get to this.
Peter will be able to help if anything is confusing.
K
Immediately, I feel the anxiety squeeze in my chest. It’s times like these I’d probably go to the gym to work out my frustrations, but if I go to the gym I might bump into Larry, and then… well, that’s how we got into this situation in the first place.
I do a quick home workout to get the blood pumping, and have a quick shower before sliding to my desk just as the clock hits nine a.m. I start my day… I respond to emails… I take my client calls… I keep myself as distracted as possible.
I email Larry a few more times, trying not to be too short with him, trying to just be a decent human being. But every time his name pops up in my inbox I remember the steam room, I remember him looking up at me from between my legs, I remember his gorgeous body and his fantastic arse and cock and?—
Get it together, Kyle.
My phone buzzes next to me. I have a message from my friend Mike. He’s a writer so we live very different lives. I check the time. It’s nearly noon. He’s probably just woken up, night owl that he is.
MIKE
You free for lunch or anything? Bored out of my skull working from home. I can come to you.
I pick the phone up and dial his number.
“Bloody hell, wasn’t expecting a call back. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Mike says. “I thought I’d be chasing you up on this.”
“I’m not in the office today,” I say. “Taking a day at home.”
“Aww, poor baby, are you sick?”
I hesitate. I’ve lied to the entire office, but I can’t bring myself to lie to Mike.
“Not exactly,” I say.
I can practically hear the cogs whirring in Mike’s head. He knows there’s gossip and his antennae have immediately gone up.
“Okay, I’m going to need details because you’re currently keeping something from me and baby I am hooked.”
I laugh. “Well, I may have done something really stupid.”
“Okay,” Mike says. “I’m waiting for the part that means you’re having to work from home.” He gasps. “Unless the stupid thing has something to do with someone from work. Who did you fuck?”
“Mike!” I snap. “I didn’t fuck anyone.”
“Oh, so it’s some kind of boring gossip?” Mike asks.
I sigh. “I went to the gym yesterday morning and… there was this really cute guy who was absolutely giving me the eye. Turns out we’d been chatting on Grindr the night before and he was new in town and…”
“And…” Mike is clearly salivating and is clearly not helping.
“We hooked up in the steam room.”
“Slut!” Mike exclaims. “Look at you go!”
“Well, yes, that part was hot, but then I get to my office and I meet my new assistant and…” I trail off and leave Mike to fill in the gaps. It takes a second but he puts two and two together and clearly comes out with four.
“Jesus Christ, you fucked your assistant.”
“I didn’t fuck my assistant!” I hiss, like someone nearby will hear and report back to Taylor exactly what I’ve done.
“Fine, you hooked up with him, though,” Mike teases. “What happened? I want details!”
I fill Mike in on the details and he practically has an orgasm over the phone while I’m telling him.
“I can’t believe you’re hooking up with random guys in steam rooms and I feel like I’m in the driest spell I’ve had in my life,” Mike says. “Not fair.”
“Well, you left the corporate world to write your little fantasy books, Mike,” I say. “We can’t all have random hookups who turn out to be our assistants. Christ, what a mess.”
“Maybe I need to join the gym.”
“Maybe you need to help me!” I can hear my tone getting snippier.
“Fine, fine, fine,” Mike says. “I’ll ignore your little jab at my hopefully soon-to-be wildly successful writing career that nearly cost you an invite to my incredible book launch when I actually finish edits on this book, and I’ll help you.”
“What am I supposed to do? I have to work with him; I’m his boss. This is such a power imbalance!”
Mike considers this. “Well, it’s only a problem if you want to do it again,” Mike says. “Because if it’s a one time thing and you’re not going to do it again, then you’ve got no issue. You talk to him about it, and you both move on. Wait, you’re working from home because you’re hiding from him?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, so then we really do have a problem.”
“What problem?” I ask.
“Well, you clearly like him,” Mike says. “Or at the very least you like him enough that hooking up with him again isn’t totally off the table. The problem is, you’re now his boss and HR would have a fucking field day.”
“I don’t… I don’t think I… I hadn’t really thought?—”
“You can’t lie to me, Kyle, even if you’re lying to yourself.”
I consider it. I thought I was just trying to avoid an awkward situation but… I don’t know. He’s really hot and totally my type, and clearly knows what he’s doing, but… I can’t. It’s wrong. Maybe that’s what makes it so appealing.
“I was an arsehole to him yesterday.”
“Trying to push him away? Classic tactic,” Mike says, tutting down the phone at me. “You couldn’t be more of a cliché if you tried.”
“Alright, alright,” I say. “So what do I do?”
Mike takes a second, takes a breath. “Well, I’d double check that HR manual before you make a move on your assistant,” Mike says. “But I think we both know what it’s going to say.”
“Yeah, I think we do.”
“Which means you need to do the grown-up thing here and maybe just let it go,” Mike says. “Besides, you said he’s new to town, so he probably doesn’t know anybody. I know you’re his boss but there’s nothing to say you couldn’t make his life here a little easier.”
“You think I should just be his friend?”
“I think that’s probably for the best,” Mike says.
I think back to how I was with him yesterday, how much of a prick I was. God, I was awful. He must hate me.
“I’m going to need to start over, clean slate, because yesterday… I wasn’t at my best,” I say. “It caught me off guard, and the only thing I could think to do was get the hell out of there and distance myself.”
“Oh good, cold-shoulder Kyle, that’s not at all intimidating,” Mike says.
“What?”
“He probably feels like shit because you did that, just so you know.”
“Oh, good,” I say, dryly.
“Sorry, babes, just the truth,” Mike replies.
“Seriously?”
“How old is this lad?”
I try and think. I’m not totally sure. I can’t remember the age on his profile exactly. He looked to be in his twenties, maybe a little older. The younger generations just seem to be getting younger and younger, which makes me feel older and older. Very unfair.
“Mid-twenties. Twenty-five I think?”
“Okay, so you’ve taken this young lad who likely hasn’t had many jobs before, is maybe not even that experienced sexually, and you’ve cold-shouldered him because you felt uncomfortable.”
“I didn’t want to get in trouble.”
“Then you should have spoken to him about that,” Mike says. “You’re a grown-up, Kyle, you’re not a kid anymore. Brushing things under the carpet isn’t going to help you in the long term.”
“Long term?”
“He’s your assistant,” Mike says. “And if he’s going to be successful as your assistant then he’s going to need to be able to assist you. He can’t do that if you’re brushing him off and giving him the cold shoulder. You’re setting the poor lad up for failure.”
“God, now I do feel rotten.”
It hits me harder than I thought it would. I don’t know what I’d thought would happen, what I’d thought the consequences of this were going to be.
“Do you want my advice?” Mike asks.
“I feel like you’re going to give it to me anyway.”
“I’ll hang up this phone,” Mike says with a chuckle. “Then where will you be? Fending for yourself with your twinky assistant.”
“He’s not twinky!”
“Oh yeah, you’re not into the twinks,” Mike replies. “Probably a little bit cubby then. Chubby? Hairy? Gym bunny, maybe?”
My cheeks are on fire. “Shut up and tell me what I’m supposed to do!”
Mike takes a moment before he starts to speak. I’m holding my breath.
“Look, when you go in to the office tomorrow you have a chance at a clean slate.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Well, you’re off sick today, right? So you go in tomorrow and you can act all friendly and nice with him and chalk it up to a bad sickness day. He’ll understand. And then you just take it from there.”
A fresh start from tomorrow. It would have to be enough. I’ll fix things. It’ll be fine. It would have to be.
“And then I talk to him about it?”
Mike considers this. “I think that’s a judgement call, really,” Mike says. “If you feel like you need to, then yes, talk to him. But if you can just draw a line under it and keep moving forward, then that’s even better.”
I know I’d prefer to draw a line under it. I don’t really want the awkwardness. But it’s an option.
“Now, all this advice has got me feeling hungry,” he says. “How about as payment you take me to dinner?”
I laugh down the phone, even though I know Mike isn’t kidding. Lunch will definitely be on me.
“Okay, how about I meet you at Dean’s in an hour? Give me a chance to finish up here, then I’ll freshen up and get dressed.”
“You’re doing your work naked? You really are a slut, Kyle.”
“Stop picturing it Mike, or you’ll be late.”
“You flatter me.”