Page 20 of It's Only Make Believe

“I promise,” I say.

“Good enough for me,” Justin says. He stands up. “Let me go and get us some shots. It’s not a celebration without a tequila shot or two, is it?”

I laugh and shake my head. I would normally say no to a shot when I’m already feeling quite drunk, but after the conversation about Louisa, it’s nice to be back laughing and joking and I don’t want to say no and start another awkward moment between us.

While it’s annoyed me a bit that Justin can’t see the good in Louisa and what a good friend she has been to me, I must admit I also think it’s kind of sweet that Justin has my back like that and tries to look out for me if he thinks someone is using me. He really is a good friend to me too, just in a different way. Still though, I look at him now and I really can’t see what I found attractive about him before.

Don’t get me wrong, he’s far from ugly or anything like that. He’s tall and he has a nice physique and a tan. He has jet black hair which he wears longish, gelled back off his face. He is always dressed in the latest fashion, most often designers I could only dream of wearing, and I think maybe that’s the problem. He’s kind of showy and that’s really not me. I also think now that he’s a bit too pretty for my tastes. That’s the difference between him and Luke. Justin is pretty in an almost feminine way, but Luke is handsome in like a rugged, manly way.

I tell myself to stop thinking about Luke. Nothing can ever happen and now I won’t even be working directly beneath him so I will likely not even see him around much, and I can let my crush on him go. It feels like more than a crush though. When I think of myself not seeing him around much, it feels like there’s a hole in me that only he can fill. I tell myself I’m being melodramatic, that I’m only thinking this way because I have been drinking, but I really don’t believe that’s the case for a second.

Chapter

Fourteen

LUKE

It’s been three weeks since Louisa went to work on the web development team. I would like to say I don’t think about her much at all now, and that the time has passed in the normal way. But if I did that, I would be lying. The time has dragged so much when my day isn’t broken up with little sightings of her and I haven’t stopped thinking about her. If anything, I believe that I actually think about her more now I don’t get to see her all of the time.

I wake up on a morning and I imagine how it would be waking up next to Louisa, how her slim warm body would feel in my arms as I fucked her. I imagine how it would be having her sneak into my office through the working day and steal kisses and more. And I imagine what evenings would be like, where I would lay her down on my bed and eat her out and make her come until she is begging me to fuck her, and then I would oblige her and make her come again. Thinking like that never fails to make my cock hard for her and at home, I jerk off,imagining that my hand is her hand, picturing her gorgeous face, her small, perky breasts. But at work, it isn’t something I can do anything about except stay behind my desk and hope no one has a reasonable request for me to stand up. So far, I haven’t been caught, but it’s only a matter of time before it happens. No one will know it’s because I’m thinking of Louisa, but it will still be embarrassing enough on its own. I have got to get her out of my head before that can be allowed to happen.

That’s going to be even harder than usual for the next few minutes, because I have Karl scheduled to come up to my office and give me the weekly update on Louisa’s progress within his team. So far, Karl has reported that she’s fitting in well and she has completed everything he has asked her to do to a high standard. This week, he’s letting her have a bit more freedom and I’m interested to know how that’s gone. If she’s going to revert to the image Enrique painted of her, then it’s going to be now when she thinks no one is holding her reins.

Karl arrives for the meeting and sits down. We chat for a bit and then I move the conversation around to the reason he’s here.

“How are things going with Louisa?” I ask.

“Take a look for yourself,” Karl says. He nods towards my computer. “May I?”

“Go ahead,” I say.

He swivels the screen around to face him and then he turns the keyboard around and after a few seconds of him clicking around and his fingers dancing over the keys, he turns the screen back to face me. He is showing me a mock-up of one of the screens from the app. Everything is exactly as we discussed, and it looks perfectly fine, but I wouldn’t expect any less from anyone who has a degree in web development. It’s not that Louisa isn’t doing her job – she is – I just expected more with Karl wanting to show me the page instead of just saying she had completed itto a high standard or whatever. It turns out he isn’t finished yet though.

“That’s pretty good, isn’t it?” Karl says and I nod. “Keep it in mind while I show you this.”

He turns his focus back to the computer for a moment and then he turns the screen back towards me again. The screen shows the same page, but a different version of it. The color scheme fits everything we discussed, but the fonts are different, and the images used aren’t of the aesthetic that we discussed either. It’s edgier and I have to admit I prefer it. But I don’t see what it has to do with Louisa’s progress. But then again, Karl isn’t obsessed with her like I am, and he might be taking this opportunity while he has my attention to ask my thoughts on changing direction slightly with the look of the app.

“What do you think?” he asks.

“I prefer the second one. I know it’s not what we signed off on, but seeing it against our original idea, it kind of makes our original one look a little bit drab,” I say. “Do you prefer the second one, or the original one?”

“The second one by a country mile. If you are in agreement, I’m going to have a team meeting later on today and brief the team on the changes and what we are aiming for going forward,” he says.

“I am in agreement,” I say.

Karl nods but he doesn’t volunteer any information about Louisa so I guess I will have to bring it up.

“So, Louisa then? How’s she coming along?” I ask. “Has she impressed you now that she is working with less hand holding?”

“I guess I didn’t make it clear. The first layout of the app page was Louisa’s work following the template I gave her,” Karl says, and I nod. I did understand that, but as good as it is, it’s hardly her having free reign. “The second layout of the app page was Louisa – in her words – just trying something to see if I liked it.”

My eyes open wider. He was right. He hadn’t made that clear at all. In fact, I’m still not sure I have understood correctly.

“Wait. You’re telling me Louisa did that second layout without any input from you or the team?” I say. “And now we’re basing the look of our whole app on her idea?”

Karl grins and nods his head.

“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying. I know it’s early days yet, but if you want my opinion on this woman, I say forget the internship. Give her a permanent contract now before she has a chance to look around and slip away,” Karl says.

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