Page 94 of The Guy Who Became My Grumpy Boss

“With what?” Ashley demanded.

“You guys.”

“Nope.” Ashley retrieved my phone and held it out. “We’re all busy Wednesday night.”

I glared.

She grinned.

“I have to muck out the stalls on Wednesday night,” Brooke announced.

“At your fiancé’s barn where he pays people to do that?” I shot her an incredulous look.

“Yup.”

Nanette raised her hand and put the back of it to her head. “I feel morning sickness coming on.”

“At night?” I asked.

She fluttered her eyes and sank back in the chair.

Other excuses began to tumble out of my friends.

“I have an estate to look at.”

“Logan asked me to go visit two restaurants.”

“I’ve got tuba lessons to teach.”

I rolled my eyes.

Brooke grabbed my hand. “Darlin’, you like this fella, and it’s not just because we’re all involved with someone. You’re stubborn enough not to go with the flow again.” She tapped the side of my phone. “This might be the real thing. Don’t let it slip through your fingers.”

The others were still making up excuses about being busy.

Was Brooke right? Had this wonderful thing between Peter and me evolved naturally?

I’d known him for a year and had kept my distance because he was my boss.

I thought about it for a minute. At first, I’d simply used him as a fantasy that was too good to be true. He was everything I wanted in a guy, but having a relationship with him was off the table because I worked for him, so I had plenty of what-if daydreams and that was that.

Then I’d started noticing things about him. He seemed to be at ease with people, until he wasn’t. It had taken me a while to figure out that he crumbled faster the more he’d had to socialize in a day or when something or someone caught him off guard.

The fact that he preferred to have visual aids in reports so he could look at something besides the speaker had been an accidental discovery that I’d tested over the course of a month. I doubted he’d even noticed me using more slides, but it had made our meetings better, and I’d subtly spread the word that he was a visual learner so others would do the same.

I’d adjusted my schedule whenever I’d needed to and had done my best to make sure Danger Zone was less grumpy.

If I kept looking through that lens, then maybe I had changed for him.

However, I needed to look at things from his point of view.

Until recently, he’d shown his appreciation for me by always being respectful and, in many ways, conscientious about what was going on in my day. He’d had the tire fixed on my car. He’d brought coffee in for me more than once. I knew he’d fought for me to be left out of demanding assignments so I wouldn’t get overwhelmed and work twelve hours a day.

In the last week, he’d included me even when I knew he was mentally exhausted, he’d apologized to me after he’d been short, and he’d protected me.

These are all new things he’d done for me.

Relationships were two-way endeavors, and if I kept an open mind, instead of delving into my past hurts, then I’d realize that we’d both changed for each other.

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