Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Rowan
The good thing about holidays is that you get bigger chunks of time off work, so if you accidentally make a move on your insanely hot boss in his space ship car, you can hide from him a little easier.
I’ve spent the past week actively trying not to flirt with Colt.
When he asked me what I had planned for New Year’s Eve, I made something up on the spot, a total lie.
I told him I was going to a friend’s house to watch the ball drop, but I really just spent the night in my room, watching reruns of old sitcoms. I don’t even have any friends whose names I could have used when I lied; I’m really lucky he didn’t ask.
Walking into the office, I take a confidence-boosting breath and round the corner to Colt’s office, stepping inside wearing a smile.
“Happy Monday, C— Mr. Fowler!” I call to him as I walk in.
Looking up at me from his desk, a warm smile crosses his face that reaches up to his honey-tinted eyes, making them sparkle.
“Happy Monday, Rowan,” he says, “and happy new year.”
“Oh! Happy new year.”
I shrug off my coat and hang it up. When I turn around, I catch Colt’s eyes trailing up my legs, and it sends a shiver through me. I bend a little further than I need to to set my purse down on the ground and reach for my water bottle – the one he gave me.
Turning to him, fighting back a smirk, I ask, “Did you get a new year’s kiss?”
“I— uh,” he stammers. “Rowan—”
“Was it with Mr. Davis?” I tease, “it’s okay if it was, I won’t tell the boss.”
In a breath, he goes from looking at me like I’ve grown two heads, to laughing so hard I think the windows might shake from the deep, booming sound.
It settles easily into my top three for best sounds ever, and I can’t help but join him, practically doubling over as our laughter feeds off of one another.
“What the hell is going on in here?” Mr. Davis asks, poking his head into the office.
We stop laughing for a second, each of us looking at him and then back to each other, and we burst back into laughter. Mr. Davis pinches the bridge of his nose, shaking his head, and he walks away, leaving us alone in our chaos.
By the time we calm down, I’ve completely forgotten what was so funny in the first place. I wipe tears from the corners of my eyes, taking a deep breath, and reach for my water bottle to take a sip from it.
“You have a great laugh,” Colt tells me, looking at me with a softness to his eyes that sets a raging swarm of butterflies loose in my stomach and sends heat flooding to my cheeks. “I don’t think I’ve heard you laugh like that before.”
“I don’t think I’ve heard you laugh at all,” I tease.
“Har, har,” He says sarcastically.
I force myself to look at anything but those soft, honey eyes, landing on a stack of papers. I pick them up and, trying to hide a smile, I say, “I’m gonna go get these copied for you.”
Realizing that he’s probably looking, I make sure to sway my hips just a little more than usual as I walk out of the office.
Dangerous game, I tell myself.
·
Leaning against the wall, I press the START button on the massive copy machine and watch as the pages shoot out.
When I started here, I hated the way the room smelled while the copier was working, but now the smell of machinery and ink has become comforting for me.
I like having to come in here so often, now.
Emmett walks in, carrying his own small stack of paper, and gives me a nod in greeting. “Hey,” he says.
“Oh hey. How have you been?”
“I can’t complain,” he tells me as he sets down his papers and starts sorting through them. “Hey, listen, I’m sorry I—”
“It’s fine” I tell him, waving him off. “We’re friends. Or coworkers.”
“Friends is good,” he tells me.
Several awkward minutes pass while we work at our own machines, the sounds of rustling paper and whirring machines the only sound in the room.
Somehow, the silence is louder. As my pile of copies finishes, I push myself off of the wall and straighten the papers before collecting them and heading out of the room.
Within four steps, I feel it coming. A blanket of ice wraps itself around my body as the hallway gets longer in front of me and I start seeing double.
Shit. Not here. Please.
I shift the huge stack of paper into one arm and use the other to support me, bracing myself against the wall as I carefully step down the hallway, aiming for the large office at the end of it. The one that keeps pulling farther and farther away from me.
Just a little further. You can do this.
I push myself the last few steps until I cross the threshold of Colt’s office. I bounce the papers in my arm and shakily breathe, “Take them.”
“What’s that?” He asks, focused on his screen.
“Colt,” I pant as white creeps into the corners of my vision.
He breaks away from what he’s doing and looks at me, I assume ready to scold me for using his first name at work, but his features immediately flood with concern, and he jolts out of his seat.
The last thing I see before my vision sweeps into nothing but whiteness is Colt Fowler taking a step toward me.
·
With the world still far away, I feel something on my head. Combing? No, stroking. Soft, repetitive strokes accompanied by an equally gentle voice.
I slowly open my eyes as blurry light floods my vision, and I put together that I’m looking up at the ceiling tiles of the office.
I groan, and hear a deep, soothing whisper in response. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
Colt comes into view and I realize that my head is in his lap, and it’s him that I feel stroking my hair.
“Was it bad?”
He shakes his head. “You didn’t hit anything.”
I turn my head, looking around and trying to get my bearings. “Your door is closed,” I point out.
“You needed privacy.”
I could probably sit up now and be fine, but I don’t. He’s so solid and warm, and being here in his lap is comforting. I’d stay here forever if I could.
“Is this you being pushed too hard,” he asks, “or is this your normal?”
“It happens, just not often.”
“Am I pushing you too much?” He repeats.
I shake my head, not completely unaware of the friction I’m creating on his lap.
He nods his understanding and just tells me, “Okay.”
I let a few beats of silence pass before saying, “You’re the first person who’s taken care of me. Really racking up the prince points, Mr. Fowler.”
“I don’t like that.”
“Sorry. Colt,” I pretend to correct myself, teasing him a little bit.
“I mean the fact that I’m the first person to help you…and it’s Mr. Fowler, at work.”
Heat roils through me at the authority in his voice and I can’t help but grin.
“Are you okay to sit?” He asks.
I adjust my head so that our eyes meet as he looks down at me. “I have been since I woke up,” I tell him, throwing a slight purr into my words.
His throat bobs as he swallows. “Rowan…”
A knock on the door pulls our attention from each other as Mr. Davis cracks the door, poking his head into the room. His eyes scan over the office – from me laying with my head in Colt’s lap, to the papers scattered all over the floor and the chair rolled away from the desk.
I quickly sit upright, putting a hand to my head at the ache of the sudden movement, and Colt’s hand finds its way to the small of my back.
“Uh, Fowler?”
“The door was closed,” Colt explains with that same authority dripping from his voice, “because Miss Caldwell had a medical event and needed some privacy. Close it on your way out, Davis.”
“Right,” he says, not sounding entirely convinced. “Talk to you about this later, yeah?”
He dips his head back out of the room, shutting the door behind him.
I’m not sure if he’s talking to Colt, to me, or to both of us, but I shiver regardless, only warming again when Colt’s hand mindlessly makes small, soothing circles at the small of my back.
I find myself leaning into his touch, wanting his hand to move, to touch more of me.
To hold my face in his hands. To hold me.
After a few minutes, Colt stands and grabs my water bottle, brings it back and sets it in my hands. I take a long drink of it, feeling myself blush as he watches.
“You—” I stop myself from saying what I really want to, instead opting for, “Thank you. Again.”
Those eyes that had hardened with authority when Mr. Davis came in melt back into that gentle softness they had when I woke up, and a smile creeps across Colt’s mouth.
“Next time that happens, come in here and lay down or something, okay? You could have gotten hurt.”
“I promise.”
He pulls the cuff of his sleeve back to reveal his watch, checking the time. “Are you hungry?” He asks. “Lunch orders should be going out soon.”
“Yeah,” I laugh, “and I’m supposed to take them.”
Grabbing his phone from his desk, he says with a grin, “Perks of having your son work for you, you can give him chores.”