Chapter 10
Wesley
When Pierce asked me to go to his office, I wasn’t expecting this. He has two sandwiches on his desk and asks me to take a seat.
“I thought we could have lunch together,” he says.
Cautiously, I take a seat opposite him. He’s taken his suit jacket and tie off. The first few buttons of his shirt are loose, and the cuffs of his sleeves are rolled up. He looks relaxed, which is the opposite of how he seems to feel because I can see the pulse on his neck and how he’s moving very stiffly.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
He looks at me. “Yes. Why do you ask?”
“You just seem a little tense. Also, we’re having lunch together.” I point at the sandwiches, and he chuckles as he picks one up.
“Yes. We are. I just thought that… you know, we don’t have to have sex every time we’re alone together, and I happen to have made an extra sandwich, so I thought…” Pierce’s eyes are unsure. They dart between me and his lap, and out of instinct, I reach out and cover his hand with mine.
“It’s okay. We can do whatever you want here. You’re the boss,” I smile, and I see his shoulders relax as his lips turn up.
“Yeah, I am.” He takes a deep breath and hands me one of the sandwiches. “Well, if you don’t mind having lunch with me, I’d like the company.”
I take the sandwich from him, my hand tingling from the contact, and say, “I don’t mind at all.”
After the first bite, Pierce hums like he’s just remembered something and gets up from his desk, heading to a mini fridge in the corner of his office. He opens it with his free hand, pulls out two small bottles of milk, and brings them back with him.
As soon as my mouth is free of peanut butter, I ask, “You have milk in your mini fridge?”
Pierce chuckles. “Well, it comes in handy when peanut butter is your favourite food.”
“Ah, so it’s not just peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It’s anything peanut butter?”
He nods. “Yes. Peanut butter cookies, Reese’s peanut butter cups, just a spoonful of peanut butter. I love it all. What about you? What’s your favourite food?” he asks as he leans back in his chair and takes a sip of milk.
I think about it for a moment and then say, “Chocolate.”
Pierce’s brow raises, and he nods in approval.
“Yep. I’ll eat anything chocolate. I once had a triple fudge cake for my birthday three years in a row. Thankfully, my mother made sure I didn’t eat too much at once so I wouldn’t end up hating it. And now, once in a while, I’ll get a chocolate bar or something, and I savour it. I break it up, put it into a bottle, and take a few out at a time to eat.”
“That’s a good sense of control you have there.”
“Yeah, you can thank my mother for that. My mom taught me that balance and moderation can be good for you, and my dad taught me that sometimes it’s okay to break the rules and have too much of something as long as you don’t make it a habit.”
I shrug, trying to keep things casual. This is personal stuff, and once again, I’m just sharing it with him. I could’ve given him a bullshit answer, and I didn’t even have to add the stuff about my parents, but I did anyway. It’s almost like the sort of spell makes me want to tell Pierce everything about me.
“Those seem like good lessons,” he says.
“What lessons did your parents teach you?” I ask, wanting to know more about this man. I wanted another chance to get to know him more, and I feel like I’ve been given one.
His chewing slows, and the vibe in the room darkens. Maybe parents are a touchy subject for him.
“You know what, you don’t have to—”
“No,” he interrupts. “It’s fine. I think my mother taught me that sometimes you have to make hard decisions in life. To trust someone. To leave someone. To take a job somewhere. Things like that. And even though you’re scared, the fact you are scared and don’t want to do it is probably the reason you should.”
I nod. I get that. I left my home for this job. My family and friends, too, because I thought this would be good for me—for my life overall.
“And your dad?”
Pierce’s fist clenches, and I really regret asking now.
“My dad taught me that not everyone who is blood-related to you needs to be in your life.”
Pierce leaves it at that and continues eating his sandwich. The air in the room is heavy, and I desperately search for something to lighten it up. A joke. A comment. Anything. It’s not that his vulnerability bothers me. In fact, I like it probably more than I should. This is just my move. Things get dark, and I want to lighten it up.
“You watching the game today?”
Pierce pauses, the sandwich halfway to his mouth.
“What game?” he asks.
“Uh…”
Yeah, man. What game? What plays in July? Oh! Baseball.
“The baseball game.”
“Oh, I thought you meant the vulnerability game where I say something that reveals too much, and you get uncomfortable.”
“I’m not uncomfortable,” I quickly say.
“You aren’t? Because you seem like it.”
I shake my head. “No, it’s not that. It's just this thing I have when dark subjects come up, and that silence that happens. I feel the need to fill it with something light. What you told me doesn’t make me uncomfortable. The fact I made you tell me does, and afterwards I don’t know what to do.”
Pierce finishes his sandwich and milk before taking the wrapper and bottle to the garbage.
“That’s good to know. Also, you didn’t make me do anything. You’ve never made me do anything. I decided to tell you, and I’m also deciding not to regret it. Which is to say that I am… trusting you… not to tell anyone that.”
I shake my head as I stand up. “I promise I won’t.”
“Good,” his tone is final, and he reaches for my wrapper and bottle. I hand them to him, and he throws them away.
Afterwards, he turns me to me, hands in his pockets, and says, “Well, thank you very much, Wesley, for this. I really enjoyed your company this afternoon, and I hope you have a good shift tonight.”
We stand there in silence, neither of us moving. What do I do? Do I shake his hand? Give him a hug? A kiss?
I settle on a nod and turn around to head out the door with a smile on my face because Pierce Donnelley enjoyed my company, and that makes me so fucking happy.