Page 32 of Boss with Benefits

"Why?" she asked. "You want to keep me close and make sure nothing bad happens?"

I shrugged because, yeah. That was exactly right.

She shook her head, still chuckling. "I accept. I've missed it."

Rachel bounced down the steps of the station as if a bomb in the shape of a new grandfather and deceased birth mother hadn't just exploded in her lap.

"And tame that anaconda in your pants," she shouted up the steps before disappearing.

Several commuters rushing out of the subway entrance looked at my crotch.

I ground my teeth. I'd hoped she'd forgotten the whole I-got-a-hard-on-in-the-middle-of-our-fight thing, but nope. Leave it to Rachel to remind me in the middle of a crowded subway station.

16

RACHEL

Isat on the swinging hammock chair in the lounge of Dreamary with my laptop open, scrolling through comments from Lexi’s podcast account. She recently hosted a controversial episode about poly relationships, and the comment section was out of control.

Coming back had been a welcome relief. Except things were weird with Derrick. I thought after everything that happened the other night, we’d have a closer bond, but he’d been all hot and cold. One minute worrying over me like an overprotective dad, the next giving me such a wide berth it felt like he was ignoring me.

“I have an idea,” I said as I flagged another troll.

Lexi set her espresso on the coffee table and sat on the pink sofa adjacent to the swing.

“I think you should have an ‘Ask Lexi’ segment on your podcast.”

Lexi looked up from the email she was typing. “I’ve thought about it. I even pitched it to my producer. But in the end, I decided not to move forward. It’d be more work, and I’m already overwhelmed.”

“I can manage it,” I said. It would be nice to take on something that used more of my brain. Scrolling through comments and social media posts got tedious after a while. “I’ll set up an email account, go through the requests, and pull questions for your producer to cull. You could do the segment once a month. And we could video it and post it on your socials.”

“Alright. I’ll talk to my producer. If they okay it, you can move forward.”

I clapped my hands. Damn, it felt good to contribute and be respected.

Suddenly my chest tightened, and I rubbed it with my palm, releasing the tension. These little attacks had been happening all weekend. I had tried to stay busy and not think about Hao or my bio mom, but I worked at the Pilates studio yesterday and all it did was remind me of the encounter, which I replayed a thousand times.

“You okay?” Lexi asked.

“Dehydrated,” I said and sipped from my water bottle.

I had told no one what happened. Not even my mom. Derrick texted several times to check in. I told him to stop being a nag and go choke his snake.

“Why is your face all cringy?” Lexi asked.

“Oh, I was thinking of something stupid I texted to Derrick. Maybe you can psychoanalyze it,” I said, half joking. “I keep making sexual jokes. Why do I do that?”

“Are you attracted to him?” she asked.

“No. He’s an Adonis but I’m not crushing on him.”

“Then it’s a power thing. It makes him uncomfortable, right?” Lexi’s fingers flew over her keyboard, not pausing as she spoke.

“Yeah. He gets all squirmy. Plus, er, I may have thrown his ED in his face.”

Lexi shot her head up. “What?!”

“I know.” I groaned. “Who does that?”

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