Accidentally Amy(20)

She opened a PowerPoint file and started talking. “As we both know, you are my boss at Ellis, which means we cannot have any sort of romantic relationship - or contact - whatsoever.”
“Correct,” he said, even though he didn’t like the way it felt in his mouth. He did like the big red X she'd put over their names on her slide, though; that was pretty funny shit.
“Since that is non-negotiable,” she said, advancing to the next slide, “We can never be alone together.”
Blake coughed out a laugh. “That seems a little extreme, don’t you think?”
He regretted it the instant he said it, because she looked embarrassed. But before he could backtrack, she said, “Do you trust us to finish this meeting in your car? Or at my apartment?”
Holy shit, she was right; they could never be alone together. He’d been staring at her mouth since the moment she’d sat down, remembering the way it’d felt to kiss her. “Touché,” he said. “You’re right.”
She nodded very seriously. “So rule number 1 - we’re never alone.”
“Okay,” he said. “I read the entire Ellis employee handbook last night,” she said, rubbing her lips together like she needed Chapstick, before adding, “And there is no rule that says an executive cannot be friends with a subordinate outside of work.”
Blake tilted his head and watched her resolute face. I read the entire handbook. Thirty seconds ago he would’ve made a joke about it being her job to read the handbook, but now it sunk in – she’d read the entire handbook to prepare for this conversation.
“So if you’re interested in pursuing a casual friendship - and it’s totally fine if you’re not - I have some ideas on how we can keep it within the rules.” Her blue gaze moved from her computer to his face, and he wondered if it were possible for him to say no to her, when she was giving him that eye contact, even if he wanted to. Which he didn’t.


    Izzy
Izzy looked at him, feeling like a total derp.
She felt like she was begging him to be her friend, and as much as she didn’t want to do that, she also knew she’d regret not throwing it out there. Just in case he did. Because the truth of it was, Izzy felt like she didn’t know how to make friends.
Maybe she had at one time, but she clearly didn’t know how to do it as an adult. In high school, she had the friends that she’d always had, since kindergarten. In college, she’d immediately started hanging out with her dorm-assigned roommate, who’d been her bestie for all four years. But when she moved to Omaha after graduation to take a grown-up job, things were different.
She had a lot of nice co-workers, but she’d never put herself out there to make those relationships anything other than workplace acquaintances. Like, how did that work? Hi, can I play with you guys? The idea of doing that made her too anxious, so she’d just said goodbye to those people every day at five and went home.
Rinse and repeat until now.
Thank God her cousins were fun. It was pathetic that at the moment they were her only friends, but that was, in fact, her reality.
But she’d connected with Blake in such a natural way. She was totally herself and had a blast with him, and she didn’t want to lose that.
His eyes were on her face, intense enough to make her nervous, and then he said, “Keep talking, Iz."
Iz. Oh, God. She cleared her throat and said, “I come to this Starbucks every morning. Mostly at seven, if I wake up on time. So if you ever want a coffee on a weekday and happen to be here, and we run into each other, it’s totally acceptable to sit down and have a coffee together, right?”
His mouth twitched, like he wanted to smile, but he gave a nod, instead.
“Now,” Izzy said, encouraged that he was staying with her. “I go to The Bookworm after work every Tuesday to look at new releases. If I ran into you there and we happened to chat while book shopping, well, that would be absolutely above-board.”
“Agreed.”
“This way, nothing is a lie. If we see a co-worker, we actually did run into each other so it’s completely legit.”
Blake did grin, then, and said, “They have an incredible happy hour at Upstream that I often hit after work on Thursdays. I usually belly-up to the bar and have a pizza for dinner, and if you happened to show up on the stool beside me, also eating, that would just be a wild coincidence.”
Izzy couldn’t be cool - she beamed at him. “I love Upstream!”
He grinned back. “Same.”
They spent the next ten minutes sharing their habitual schedules, tossing out a handful of occasions where they might possibly run into each other. Izzy created a spreadsheet and added them all, emailing a copy of it to Blake (his personal email, of course), just in case he wished to reference it at a later date.
“So we should probably cover texting next,” she said, taking a drink of her PSL.
“You have texting rules. Of course,” he said, and his small smile reminded her of Edward in Pretty Woman when he was negotiating Vivian’s payment.
“Well, I think that if we both agree to never discuss work, never discuss people from work, and never text during working hours, then texting is probably a feasible form of communication.”
“And phone calls?” he asked, his dark eyes twinkling with amusement.
Izzy was happy he had asked, because she really liked talking to him on the phone. Which was weird because she was an avid phone-talking-hater. “I think the same rules would apply, don’t you?”
“Same rules,” he agreed, nodding yet again.