Page 6 of Sending Nudes to My Boss

It must be confusing for him, being my older brother and yet also sort of my friend. Ever since he married Katie, my lifelong best friend, he’s been hanging out with the both of us more. He gives us our space, of course. But any time I go to their house for a girls night, Darren crashes the first fifteen minutes, catching up with me and stealing some of our food before disappearing upstairs.

“Are you going to tell Mom and Dad?” I ask him.

“You’re a grown woman,” Darren replies. “What are they going to do? Punish you?”

There’s that word again. Punish. My brother and my best friend don’t seem to notice the way my cheeks heat up at this word. I’m thinking about William again, and the way he offered to carry out whatever punishment I could think of.

My mind went to the gutter immediately. I thought of Christian Grey, of leather whips and handcuffs. Of my bossglaring at me with those icy blue eyes while he teased and tormented me.

Where the hell did all of that come from?

I haven’t crushed on my boss like that since the early days of working for him. Before all of our verbal sparring, when I realized he’s a jerk who would never be interested in me the way I was interested in him.

Since then I’ve gone on lots of first dates and the occasional second date. Trying to…I don’t know? Make my body forget that it’s attracted to William?

Sometimes I think this has worked. And then I make the mistake of looking directly at him again and poof. All progress is lost and I’m back to being hopelessly lovesick…or in this case, hopelessly horny.

Katie walks into the room holding a bag of tortilla chips and a bowl of homemade guacamole. She looks at my big brother – her new husband – and clears her throat.

Darren glances at her and rises from the table.

“That’s my cue to go,” he says, giving my best friend a kiss on the cheek.

I watch them with barely contained envy. I’m glad they’ve found one another, and I’m genuinely happy for them. But honestly, my brother and best friend falling in love has served as a frequent reminder of how I’m lacking that kind of thing in my own life.

“Go,” Katie says to Darren. “We need girl time! I’ll text you when the enchiladas are done and you can come down and fix yourself a plate. Then we need you to disappear again.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Darren says. “I get it, no boys allowed.”

Katie nods approvingly. My brother looks at me.

“If you need anything,” he says. “Let me know. I won’t mention the arrest situation to Mom and Dad, but you should know they’ll probably find out anyway. This is a small town.”

“I know,” I sigh. “I’m just…trying to figure out how to explain myself.”

He nods.

When Darren is gone, Katie looks at me.

“So,” she says. “Heather, again?”

“Heather, again,” I confirm.

“God, what is her deal?” Katie groans. “It’s like her sole purpose in life is to spread misery wherever she goes. I don’t know why.”

“Because she’s a miserable person,” I reply. “Miserable people go out of their way to spread more misery. And that’s exactly what she’s done. She gave my photography business a bunch of one-star reviews under different profiles.”

“How do you know it was her?”

“It was something she said at the bar,” I explain. “A phrase she said. ‘Your photography business is an utter failure.’ An utter failure. That’s the same phrase that the reviewers used over and over again.Utter failure. It’s been repeated way too many times for it to be a coincidence. So when Heather said ‘utter failure’ to me in the bar, that’s when I realized it was her. She’s been trying to sabotage me for months.”

“What a bitch!” Katie says.

“Yup.”

I load a chip with a healthy dose of guacamole and salsa, then shove it in my face. Tonight I’m eating my feelings, filling up on Tex-Mex and homemade margaritas.

“Katie?” I say when I swallow my oversized bite.

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