I'm not going to pretend I haven't thought about it. I've been thinking about it all morning. What Miles looks like when he's not in full corporate-armor mode. Whether he's different after hours, or if the suit and the attitude are welded on permanently. What he smells like when he's not behind a desk with an air purifier blasting.
I've caught hints of him a few times—just traces through the suppressants. Something sweet and honeyed underneath all that ice, like warm paper and amber. It drives me insane in a way that I can't explain without sounding like a creep, so I just don't mention it. To anyone. Ever.
"Hello?" Devon says. "Did you die?"
"I'm here. I was thinking."
"About the conference or about the boss?"
"The conference."
"Liar."
The thing about Miles is that he doesn't make sense to me. Every guy I've ever been into has been uncomplicated. Fun. Someone I could flirt with over drinks and take home and have a good time with and then not think about too hard the next day.Miles is not that. Miles is closed off and kind of scary and looks at me like I'm a problem he's trying to solve, and for some reason my stupid alpha brain has decided that's the hottest thing it's ever encountered.
He told me I was staring at him today, and I was. I was watching his mouth move while he talked about witness depositions, which is not sexy, except it kind of was because he gets this intense, focused look when he's explaining something he cares about, and his lips do this thing where they press together between sentences, and I had a weird intrusive thought about what would happen if I just leaned across the desk and kissed him. Nothing good, obviously. He'd probably file a restraining order. But the thought was there, and it was persistent, and that's new for me. I don't usually think about kissing people. I think about fucking people. The kissing thing is different, and I don't love what that might mean.
"Just be careful," Devon says, and his voice has shifted. Not teasing anymore.
"Careful of what?"
"You know of what."
"I literally do not."
"Ray." He does the big-brother voice, the one that used to make me feel safe when we were kids and our parents were working their third jobs and the apartment was too quiet. Now it mostly just makes me feel like I'm being managed. "He's your boss. And you're—"
"I'm what?"
"You're you. You get attached."
"I don't get attached. I'm the opposite of attached. I'm, like, famously unattached."
"You cried during a dog food commercial last week."
"That dog was OLD, Devon. He was waiting by the door for his owner. That's sad. That has nothing to do with attachment."
"You also made his coffee this morning."
I open my mouth and close it. "How do you know that?"
"Because you texted me about it. You said, and I quote, 'I left coffee on his desk and he didn't even look at it, what an asshole.' That was at seven forty-five AM."
Okay, when he puts it like that, it sounds like a thing. It's not a thing. I made coffee because I was already making coffee and it takes zero effort to pour a second cup. The fact that I know Miles takes his black with one sugar is just basic observation. The fact that I left it on his desk before he got in so he wouldn't know it was from me is—fine, maybe that's slightly more than basic observation.
"That's called being a good assistant," I say.
"That's called having a crush."
"I don't have a crush. I'm twenty-three, not fifteen."
"You're right. Fifteen-year-olds are less obvious about it."
I rub the back of my neck, annoyed because he's not entirely wrong. Not about the boss thing—I'm not stupid enough to actually make a move on Miles Covington. But the attachment thing in general. I play it cool, I keep things casual, I hook up and move on, and it works. It's a good system. But yeah, somewhere underneath all that, I'm the guy who remembers how people take their coffee and checks if they've eaten lunch and worries when they look tired. I just don't advertise it.
Miles looked tired today. He had this line between his eyebrows that shows up when he's stressed about something bigger than whatever he's yelling at me about. He drinks his coffee black with one sugar, and he always finishes it before ten and then doesn't eat anything until at least two, which is insane. I thought about bringing him a sandwich once and then imagined the look he'd give me and decided I value my life.
"I'm not going to do anything dumb," I tell Devon. "It's a work trip. I'll carry his bags and set up his PowerPoint and try not to wrinkle my shirt, and that's it."