Page 40 of Where We Fall

Even seeing my mom went a lot better on Sunday morning. She was in better spirits. I had a sweatshirt packed in case I got cold in the hotel, so I put that on. With baggier clothes and my hair up in a messy bun, I was once again the daughter she recognized. The reality of what I might have to do from now on with her made me a little sad. I wish she wasn't so triggered by a woman looking beautiful. My father leaving her for someone younger really messed her up.

It would've been nice if she could have gone to therapy and worked through those issues.

When I called Zoe last night to tell her what happened, it took an hour to convince her I wasn't lying. I still think a part of her feels I'm trying to pull one over on her. It's not just a little bit out of character for me, it's light-years away.

Instead of getting the space that he might feel like he wants or needs, based on how much he avoided my presence all morning, we're going to be working closely again. He's due in my office any minute to go over the first phase of testing. I'm oddly excited to see him, and not that nervous. It's more of an anticipation.

I finally get to have some time with him again. You would think that I would be insecure about him avoiding me, but his look of appreciation this morning was unmistakable.

A soft knock at my door startles me from my thoughts.

"Hi." I smile when I see Marcus standing there. "Come on in."

"Hi, Lexi," he says with a faint smile. The first words he's spoken to me since my mouth swallowed his cum. "Where do you want me?"

Images of him pushing me down on the desk and taking me from behind begin to flood my brain. I'm not normally the dirty-thinking type, but Marcus is bringing a new side out of me. A side I want to explore.

"Um, I thought we could just pull up a chair behind my desk. I wanted to start with running through the program with you."

He nods his head and brings a chair right next to mine. When he takes a seat, his scent drifts through the air. My body responds to it, thinking about what he smelled like when I was touching his naked chest.

"I meant to tell you that I talked to the team about getting you some help around here. Mia will talk about it with you in further detail, but it's safe to say you can begin looking into hiring someone to work underneath you."

I look over my left shoulder at him. "Wow. Thank you. That'll be really helpful actually."

His eyes fall to my lips then drag slowly up to my eyes. "Don't mention it," he says with a strained voice.

I can't believe he did that. He's full of surprises.

"Well, I guess we should get started." I turn my computer screen towards him, and he leans his body closer. "This is the overall new design of the order form. I gave everything a drop-down menu so people couldn't type anything they wanted and we'd have to manually verify the details with them. It should take some confusion out of it."

"It's a good design. Nice and clean. Not overcrowded."

"Thanks. I tried to keep it simple. The first thing I want to make sure is that when I fill out this test form, it goes to your email for approval."

He pulls his laptop out of his briefcase and opens it up. "Got it. Let me just get into my email."

Once he has his laptop resting on the corner of my desk, I continue. "So, the customer will start here by using this drop-down to identify their customer number. If they are a new customer, they will have to reach out to us to provide them with one. This will ensure that we don't have customers not yet through our onboarding process putting in orders."

I continue down the form, pointing out the parts that are going to make it automated, and how it connects to the other systems. He follows along, asking detailed questions and providing great feedback. That's one thing that I've noticed while working with him. He may get a rep for being the ladies' man or the fun-loving goofy one, but when it comes time to work, he puts in effort and is intelligent.

"Alright, let's go ahead and submit this one and see if it comes up in your email," I tell him.

Once I click submit, we give it a couple seconds before his email dings with a new notification.

I hold my breath, hoping his approval will do what it needs to on my end. This part can be a nightmare to find the issue, and I don't feel like working late tonight. My constant overtime could be a thing of the past once I hire someone else. He will never know how much it means to me that he made that happen.

"Ok, I just approved it," he says.

We both go back to my screen as I work my way through the logs to find the test submission so we can see if it says approved or not. As he leans over my shoulder again, he feels closer this time. I can feel the heat of his body. I strain my eyes to the left to try and see where he is, and I'm hit with a look of pure torture on his face.

"Are you okay?" I ask him.

I catch his eyes glance back down to my lips, and I wonder what he's thinking. All I know is that it's starting to feel really fucking hot in here, and I don't think it has anything to do with the temperature of the room. It is this man sitting next to me, looking at me like he's about to do something I've wanted him to do again since Saturday night—kiss me.

He takes me by surprise when his forehead hits my shoulder, and he groans. "No, Lexi. I'm not fucking okay."

I'm not sure what to say. This is not what I was expecting.

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