The Billionaire Boss Next Door(49)

“Don’t wah-y, about it Ah-nold.” I give him a friendly slap on his bare shoulder, and the smacking sound reverberates around us. “I’m just singing. A song. About bones. It’s an old one. You probably don’t know it. Almost no one knows it. No one but me. I know the big bone song.”

Nice save, Greer. Obviously, I do my very best thinking under the influence.

I should probably drink more often.

“What?” he asks again, before adding, “Are you drunk?” His eyebrows pinch together in what seems a whole lot like judgment.

My personality spawns another side—one with absolutely no sense of self-preservation.

“Don’t be so judgy, Junior. Everybody enjoys a little bit of wine every now and then. It might not cost one billion dollars a bottle like yours does—”

He rolls his eyes.

“But it’s flipping del-i-cious!” I singsong, even adding a bit of jazz hands to pizzazz it up a bit.

“Look, how about I help you get into your apartment, and we’ll talk in the morning?”

“Fine,” I agree. “We can talk in the morning. But you better put that lightsaber under some heavier fabric before we go to commune with the Lord. It’s impossible to focus when that thing is just swinging around like it owns the joint.”

Just one side of his mouth hitches up, but I think he might actually be smiling.

Wow. He looks goooood with a smile.

“Commune with the Lord? You go to church?”

“On Sunday? As in, tomorrow’s Sunday? Of course. It’s just that sometimes—most times,” I muffle under my breath, “I sleep in a little too late or get stuck in traffic or come down with a cold or—”

“So, you don’t actually attend church. You just pretend to plan to so you feel better about yourself.”

“I don’t know.” I shrug one lazy shoulder. “That was a lot of words that just came out of your mouth, but hey, they sounded good.”

“Come on,” he says with a laugh. I fall into a trance in his eyes like he’s the snake in The Jungle Book. “Let’s get you to bed.”

“Yes, sir,” I agree. Bed with him sounds mighty fine.





Trent



It’s funny how a night can start one way and end in completely another.

At seven p.m., fresh drink in hand, I settled onto the couch and stretched out an arm across the back, the plans for the hotel and a stack of expense sheets stretched across the surface of my coffee table.

I haven’t had time to get a TV for my apartment yet, and besides the grandfather clock ticking audibly from the corner of my living room, there wasn’t anything but the silence from next door to seep through the walls and into my place.

I hadn’t heard her all night, and against every ounce of my judgment, I couldn’t help but wonder where she was.

Does she spend all of her Saturday nights out or only the occasional one to let loose?

Is the stress of this job going to be too much for her, and perhaps most importantly, is she going to distract me this much the whole time?

Annoyed with myself, I grabbed my phone and sent a funny meme about a blowfish in the group text with Cap and Quince, but neither responded, and the loneliness became even more painful.

Frustrated, I decided to busy myself with the task of unpacking more of my boxes and trying to make this place have at least a semblance of actual residence.

I’ve been living out of a suitcase like a vagabond since arriving here, and this was exactly the kind of desperation I needed to change that.

I sorted and piled, I tucked and folded, I arranged and rearranged. It took nearly four hours, but finally, I had a closet full of clothes, a medicine cabinet full of toiletries, and a kitchen with at least a few random supplies.

With only one box left, I fully expected to finish the job and be rewarded with at least a pathetic sense of accomplishment.

But expectations are often much different from reality, and the Walter White mask at the very top distracted me.

Stupid thing in hand, I wandered the apartment looking into the chemist’s face like he could somehow take me back to that night.

To recklessness and spontaneity and a kiss with a stranger I still think about.

It was the first time in years—hell, maybe ever—that I’ve acted out of instinct and hormones at a work function rather than sticking to a carefully crafted plan.

It was the first time I’ve been so amused by a woman that I let go of all thought of rationality and responsibility.

It was a dick thing to disappear so quickly, without even the exchange of a name, but the pressure of my dad’s judgment was too much. And the fear of losing the NOLA project became too vivid in my mind.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t fantasize about it.

Which is exactly how I ended up in the shower with my hand to my cock, giving myself something I needed more than I even realized.

I’d only just come when I heard a loud bang on my door.

Quickly, I jumped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around my half-hard dick and hips and went to check it out.

Fast-forward twenty minutes and one extremely drunk employee, and here I am now. In Greer’s apartment, doing my best to lift her dead weight into her bed, while trying to keep my towel secure around my hips at the same time.

It’s a fucking task.