“I-I’m okay,” she stammered, tearing her gaze away.
“Good, good, glad to hear it.” Then Aaron looked at the floor and groaned. “Oh, man, look at all your stuff. It went everywhere. Here...” He crouched and started picking things up. Or trying to. His big hands fumbled with the tiny paper clips and miniature markers scattered all around him.
“Oh, no, you don’t have to do that, I’ll get it.”
Lucy fell to her knees beside him and started raking together her pens and highlighters, snatching up hair elastics and tubes of lip balm, tossing handfuls of stuff into the bag with a carelessness that would’ve normally made her break out in hives. But running into Aaron like that had rattled her. She was too nervous to slow down and arrange everything properly, let alone stop, until she heard him say, “Oh, hey, you’re having a Halloween party?”
She looked up to see him holding up her planner, smiling at the orange sunburst in the middle.
“Oh, um, actually Jessica is. At her new bookstore.”
“Yeah?” Aaron looked intrigued, one eyebrow cocking.
“Yeah, it’s part of this big book release thing…” She hunted around for the postcards Jessica had given her. Finding one, she held it out to him, but he didn’t notice. He was too engrossed in the planner, gazing at the pages in something like awe. Or maybe horror.
“Wow, you’re really organized, aren’t you?”
Lucy bit her lip.
“Like, really, really organized.” His eyes grew as he flipped more pages. He looked up and caught the mortified expression on her face. “Not that I didn’t already know that,” he added quickly, “and not that there’s anything wrong with it, either.” He grinned, closing the planner and passing it back to her. “I guess that’s part of what makes you such a good assistant. I know I couldn’t get through a week without you around to keep me in line.” He winked as he pushed to his feet and extended a hand to her.
With her face on fire, Lucy tucked the notebook into the bag. Hoping he wouldn’t notice the nervous tremor in her arm, she slipped her fingers into his and let him help her up.
“I, uh, I’d better get back to work,” she said halfheartedly. In reality, she’d have stood in that hallway for the rest of her life if it meant he’d keep holding her hand like this. His touch was electrifying, making her blood hum, and she was convinced she’d never felt anything nearly as exciting before. She wondered if he felt it, too. She doubted it, since he didn’t look electrified in any way. He just looked cheerful, and vaguely amused—the way he usually did.
“Ah, yeah,” he said, “that boss of yours—he is a bit of a taskmaster, isn’t he?”
Lucy chuckled nervously.
Maybe it was how discombobulated his touch made her feel, or the silly ideas Jessica had put into her head earlier, but she found her mouth springing open and the words tumbling out before she could stop them. “Would you like to come to Jessica’s party, Aaron?”
“What?” he paused, blinking as he looked down at her.
Oh, no! Had she actually said that?
Why had she said that?
“To, um, Jessica’s party. Would you like to go? G-go to it, that is? Would you like to come?”
Aaron blinked again, a slight furrow appearing between his brows before his smile returned. “Are you asking me out, Lucy?”
To her consternation, she thought she detected a laugh in his voice. Her face blazed anew. “N-no. No, of course not, I would never ask you out!”
Oh, geez.
“I mean, of course I would. If I could. If I thought you would say yes.It’s not that you aren’t super-attractive or anything, it’s just…”
Oh, my WORD.
She sighed, briefly closing her eyes to get ahold of herself. When she opened them again, she forced herself to look at him evenly. “I just meant it probably wouldn’t be appropriate,” she said primly. “Since you’re my boss and everything. You know.”
She was only being honest here. Jessica could maybe afford to be flippant about the subject, but it was a genuine concern for Lucy. It seemed like every other week there was another required training course for Acray-Sys employees about avoiding workplace harassment. Lucy needed this job. She couldn’t afford to get caught up in any sexual misconduct scandals. Especially since she was highly unlikely to even get any sex out of it first.
Aaron’s confusion faded into understanding. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “About that. I can trust you to keep a secret, can’t I, Lucy?”
Lucy’s ears perked up. A secret? What secret?
He still hadn’t let go of her hand, and now, before she could answer, he tugged her into his outer office and shut the door behind them. He led Lucy to her desk, turned her around to face him, and, raising a finger to his lips, said, “Shh, don’t tell anyone, but I’m not going to be your boss for too much longer.”
It took a second for his words to register, and then Lucy gaped at him. Again, she thought about how much she needed this job. She’d spent over a year only working part-time temp jobs around the city, so that she could help her mom take care of her dad after his stroke. She didn’t regret helping her family in the least, but the break in steady employment had set her behind on her bills. Her parents had saved up a lot of money over the years; they’d have given her some if she’d asked, but she hadn’t wanted to. Their goal had been to retire early and move to Italy, and Lucy hadn’t wanted to stand in their way. Now her dad was a lot better, he and her mom were off living the dream,
