Page 13 of My Forbidden Boss

I paused, thinking back.

“Actually, I’m pretty sure it was two days… maybe three.”

A trickle of Brandon’s laughter wafted from my room, accompanied by the sound of hangers being slid back and forth.

“Eventually, I just started. It was annoying, slow work, and my spirits were low, knowing that it was going to get a whole lot worse before it could even begin to look anything like what might pass as a house, let alone anything close to a home.”

In the living room, whatever space not already allotted to the stacks of tubs, bins, bags, crates, and boxes waiting to be unpacked, was quickly surrendered to the resulting mess of those I’d wrestled loosely into a pile. I would split one open and unveil its contents, unable to simply rely on whatever rushed scribble I had jotted down on the outside while packing my stuff back in Chicago. Next would come extracting and sorting, then stacking and restacking the boxes as needed, consolidating the initial boxes' contents into those belonging in one room over another.

“Soon, I was practically swimming in a cyclone of discarded packing paper. The sea of shredded scraps from the torn wrappings was aimlessly strewn about until they formed their own tidal wave over everything but the ceiling. The thin, crinkled sheets, wadded and crushed, began to pile up, eventually stacking together into flimsy hills, filling every corner and crevice. It was like being trapped in some kind of dismembered, brown piñata graveyard.”

Brandon’s laughter was honest and pure. His head appeared in the doorway, apparently only so that I could see the levity in his expression as he cackled at my misfortune before disappearing again into my room.

“After probably spending far too many hours without a break, wading through the cardboard and gradually becoming more and more buried, I refused to resurface until at least some of my life’s jigsaw pieces started to resemble the picture I remembered being on the puzzle box. I must have lost my mind for a minute or two because I clearly recall talking to myself while I worked.”

I rubbed my temples and sighed dramatically as Brandon reappeared, leaning in the doorway with an armful of garments draped over one arm. He giggled quietly but otherwise kept quiet, obviously content to simply listen to my tale of travesties.

“Somehow, I had managed to become both energized and, at the same time, too exhausted to continue. It was like having a superpower, except my newfound super-strength was totally unusable since I had simultaneously contracted the power of super-weakness.”

He laughed, then I joined him. With the chaos mostly behind me, I was happy to share the memory for someone else to enjoy vicariously.

“I was completely addled, but I just smiled, finding the whole fiasco quite funny for the first time; I felt like I was ice skating or water skiing.”

I sighed, adjusted my seating position, and continued.

“A step taken sideways around a bin brought a familiar click from somewhere beneath the swaths of paper. I smiled gleefully, knowing that the crackle of tiny explosions was soon to be stomped out.”

He looked confused but correctly read my tone to realize that it couldn’t be anything too mind-blowing. “Explosions?”

I let my voice drop and ramped up the suspense as much as I could without busting out laughing.

“Row after rewarding row, the plastic bubbles began to burst under my touch. No matter how many I stomped, there were always more lining up, longing to be popped.”

His eyes widened, but I somehow managed to keep my face straight.

“Without hesitation or remorse, I used them up one by one, discarding whatever broken pieces remained when I had finished satisfying my own selfish urges.”

Brandon’s laughter rolled, merry and free, as he clapped in congratulation.

“Just to clarify, I’m pretty sure that my brain saw one too many boxes left to go through and just snapped. There I was, climbing around alone in my maze of boxes, chattering away like a crazy person… all because I was literally drowning in all of the stupid packing paper. I’m never moving again. I mean it! If I absolutely have to, I’m pretty sure that I am just going to sell what I can out of my stuff and donate whatever is left.”

“I don’t blame you! At least you won’t have to even think about that as a possibility any time soon.”

“Yes, well, it was around that time when I realized there was a slight possibility that I might have bitten off a teeny bit more than I could realistically chew, but I was committed. So, I just kept at it… even after losing my mind a little.”

Brandon smiled. “Yes, you did. You are a warrior, miss lady.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I gave up and quit dozens of times. It never lasted very long, though. I would storm out of one room in frustration and escape into another… only to be looking at a stack of boxes I had been gathering, the bins I had been neglecting while I went through the ones in whatever room I had just given up on.”

He smirked and looked down, using his fingers to step through the clothes over his arm.

I stood and walked over, taking Brandon’s hands.

“In short, I don’t know how I could have ever done all of this without you. You’re an angel.”

He smiled and cooed, then blushed and waved me away as I pecked him on the cheek.

“Eeew. That’s enough of that. Here, take these back in there and try them on. You can keep telling me about your sabbatical in Box Land, but we have a mission here. And keep your cooties to yourself! You can’t work your she-magic on me, witch.”

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