“He won’t be mean to you, honey… Probably… I hope.” I will knee him in the balls if he’s mean to my niece.
“Well hello there,” says an all too familiar voice in a very unfamiliar tone. “Are you training a new assistant for me, Cooper? Because I also happen to be a highlighter person. This could work out very well.”
I look away from my monitor and find Declan smiling at Piper. Smiling with his supernatural amber eyes. Like an actual human. I can see his teeth, and there is a heretofore unseen dimple in his left cheek.
I don’t understand what’s happening.
“Cooper?” He stares down at me quizzically. “You okay?”
“Are you okay? What’s happening to your face?”
“It’s smiling, Coop.” He knows I hate it when he calls me “Coop.” He holds his laptop to his chest and gives Piper a cool little wave. “Hi, I’m Declan,” he says to her. “And you are?”
“Piper. Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Um. This is my niece. Piper, this is my boss, Mr. Cannavale. How was your meeting?”
“It was not terrible. Can you get Victor on the phone for me? And ask what’s-his-name’s assistant for the by-laws for the—”
“She just emailed them to you. I’ll get Victor, and then Holly will be covering my desk for the rest of the day so I can take my adorable niece shopping.”
“Oh great. Sounds fun.” He winks at Piper and then flashes me with the kind of smile that makes me check his hands to make sure there aren’t any knives in them. Because he looks all kinds of stabby. “Can I talk to you in my office for a second?”
Eye roll.
“I’ll be right back, Piper. Why don’t you start packing up your bag so we can go.”
I follow Declan into his office and shut the door behind myself.
He drops his laptop onto the leather sofa and turns back to face me with a wide stance, his arms crossed at his chest. “You’re going shopping? At five o’clock? Today?”
“I told you this morning and yesterday evening and two days ago. As I just said, Holly the floater will be covering for me.”
“How long were you planning on shopping for?”
“She’s Christmas shopping for her friends and parents. It’ll take a couple of hours, at least.”
“But you’re coming back afterwards, right?”
“To the office?”
“Yes, Cooper. To the office. Where you work. For me.”
That’s it. My arms are crossed in front of my chest now too. “You’re asking me if I’m coming back to the office after seven tonight?”
He shrugs. “I’ll still be here.”
“And Holly will stay until you leave.”
“Who?”
“Holly. The floater.”
“What’s a floater?”
“Someone whose job it is to cover an assistant’s desk when said assistant is unable to cover it herself.”
“For instance, when said assistant is shopping with a family member in the middle of a workday?”
“Five pm is hardly the middle of the workday, and you know what—I have made the proper arrangements for you. My niece rode the subway on her own from the Upper West Side, and now I am going to get Victor on the phone for you and then I am going to take my niece Christmas shopping.” I turn on my heels for like the ninth time today and walk away from him before he tells me to come back after dinner.
I can feel him glaring at my back. Or possibly slightly lower than my back. I leave the door open, but he doesn’t say anything else. Except when he calls out to Piper to tell her to have fun shopping. Which is so annoying.
Piper is just a silent pulsating heart-eyes emoji face all the way until we exit the building onto Madison Avenue, when she finally exclaims, “Sheeeww. Your boss’s butt is perfect!”
“Piper! Shhh!” It’s so cold, I can see our breath.
“It is! Have you looked at it?”
“No. He’s my boss. Come on, Fifth Avenue is this way.”
“You should check it out. It’s perfect.”
“I doubt it. Should we go to H&M first?”
“You’re right. It’s too flat.”
“It’s not flat!”
“Aha! You have looked at it!”
“Only when it was unavoidable. Stop talking about my boss’s butt.”
“But it’s the best one I’ve ever seen IRL.”
“Don’t say IRL. Say in real life when you’re not texting.”
“WTF are you so grumpy and bossy RN?”
“Piper, I’m not the grumpy, bossy one. Declan is. Do you want to grab something to eat first or after we shop a little?” Now I’m just mad at him for being nice to my niece. And for having such a hot butt. What a dick move.
“He’s a hottie with a body. He must do squats all day long.”
“Oh my God—why don’t you watch a Shawn Mendes video on your phone or something to wipe my boss from your memory.”
“Shawn Mendes seems so young to me now. I want to look at grown-man abs. Have you seen Declan with his shirt off? I bet he has abs.”
“Everyone has abs.”
“I want to see Declan’s abs.”
“Stop calling him Declan.”
“But he told me to.”
“We don’t all have to do what he tells us to do. At least I’m paid to do it. And even then, I don’t do everything he tells me to do—because he’s not right about everything.”
“You seem to care an awful lot about him.”
“No I don’t.”
“I would do literally anything he told me to do. I would lick him like a candy cane.”
“Piper.”
“Just sayin’.”
“You have no idea what you’re sayin’. Seriously, you have to stop saying things like that. Have you ever kissed a boy?”
“Yes. In spin the bottle at Shoshana’s b-day party last month. I bumped noses with Drake G, so our lips didn’t really touch, but I still count it as kissing.”
“Piper, you shouldn’t talk about licking boys, and you really shouldn’t talk about licking men.”
“Okay. I definitely think you should lick him, though.”
“You definitely shouldn’t talk about me licking my boss—I would never.” I might think about it, but I would never. In real life, I’d rather lick
