Page 55 of My Forbidden Boss

“Yeah, that was good for me. You?”

I nodded, curling the crease between my lips up to my gums and puffing out my cheeks.

“Me? Oh, yeah. Totally satisfied. That was terrific, honey. Thanks a million. I owe you one.”

She smiled meekly, brushing a loose strand of hair back from her eyes. “Sometimes, I guess that I kind of get carried away. Sorry.”

I shook my head passively, watching her take a careful bite of some kind of Rangoon from the plate. “Don’t apologize. For one thing, you shouldn’t have to. I like that I’m getting to see you be yourself. But the second thing is, don’t apologize when we both know full well that you have no intention of changing.”

She smirked and laughed, covering her mouth with her hand as she finished her bite. Only a moment later, her muffled voice confessed behind the napkin at her lips.

“You caught me.”

I nodded knowingly. “Damn right, I did.”

Again, she giggled, washing down her bite with a large gulp of Riesling before voicing the rebuttal I just knew was on its way.

“Two things, Mr. Fleming. Both are essential components in your reeducation. First, this is the best pairing we’ve had so far.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded vigorously. “Granted, I know that it isn’t the most imaginative combination, but there’s a reason that it’s such a standard. The thing is… You don’t care about this at all, do you?”

I sharply looked sideways, worried that I had actually done something to warrant such a claim.

“What? Fuck that, I want to hear everything!”

“ Everything?”

“Well, I mean, you can talk all you want about the thread count of the tablecloth here in front of us if you really want to, I’ll probably just keep sitting here, wondering why it took you so long to declare us as certified date attendees, but you want to keep talking about food? Wine? Sexualized school teachers? Are you kidding? Show me the dotted line, doll; I’ll sign up right now. That’s like talking jockstraps with offensive linemen. Honey, listen to me, that’s like talking gum under the desks with an angry room of high school janitors. Tisha, I’m serious… This is like porn stars and lube, pirates and eyepatches, penguins and the little rocks they give to each other.”

Tisha was laughing too hard to speak. I waited, stifling my own chuckles as best I could, but she showed no signs of letting up. I shrugged, took a big gulp of wine, and kept going.

“Now, Tisha, baby, I should tell you that I’ve always been more of a beer guy, but that’s just how I grew up. I know I can change. I promise I’ll learn to talk palates and grape must… I’ll even leave behind all that other nonsense, junk leftover from my life before you… stuff like ethics, linguistics, personal hygiene, and basic fire safety. All that pointless crap just takes up a bunch of space in my brain, spaces that could instead go toward even more essential wine trivia!”

I dropped my voice, whispering to Tisha and intermittently glancing over my shoulder as if sure that we were being surveilled.

“Plus, I haven’t said anything because I didn’t want to upset you, but I met this gorgeous blonde bombshell, and, well, she thinks I’m dumb as a rock, but hey, I figured that I’ve never had to take a sympathy pass before, so if she sticks around, she can at least claim me like a pioneer settler or something. She can stake me with a flag and be all proud, like, ‘Adios, bitches. This dumbass is my dumbass now. Sure, he’s slow, but he squats a quarter of an imperial ton when he’s not stuck behind a desk all week.’ Anyway, Tisha, I really hope you don’t get too jealous, but this other girl is super into all these stupid alcoholic grape juices… I think she called them ‘wines’ or something. She’s kind of nuts, though; she swears that these wines have genders. I’m starting to get the feeling that she’s… you know… one of those recovering food whores or whatever, specifically the ones who prowl the alleys outside really nice restaurants, trading all kinds of dirty sexual favors for even the smallest taste of their fancy foods. And if the food has a bizarre name or if it comes from some piece of an animal you wouldn’t sneeze on for a dare… Oh, man! You’ll just have to check out the videos online, but I’m definitely getting a hefty hunch of crazy food girl vibes. So, I was thinking, maybe I’ll offer her some more fancy food, then we can talk about that, and meanwhile, she can shed some of her insane alcoholic grape drink knowledge my way.”

Tisha sipped her wine, coughing laughter back down her throat.

She smiled beautifully, her face flushed and alive, failing to realize just how wild her hair had strayed from the neat twisty bun thing atop her head.

“Hollis… I… I don’t even know where to begin.”

I beamed and made a show of snobbery, turning up my nose and cleaning my nails on my jacket breast, pretending at my own expense that Tisha had meant it as a compliment.

She giggled, and I smiled, dropping the act in an instant. “Don’t worry about where to begin, Tish. I feel almost entirely secure in guaranteeing to you the complete absence of anything worth responding to within whatever the hell I just said. Cheers!”

We laughed and raised our glasses together, falling into a comfortable silence as our shared inebriation only further enkindled the growing fire I felt between us.

Enjoying the tranquil atmosphere and watching as our next course was placed on the table, I found my gaze straying ever-distant from the magnificent mountain peaks and softly swaying trees.

Trisha was glowing, presenting a youthful vibrancy that made my whole body tense. With the dying sunset behind the rocky mountain slopes, she appeared somehow even more ravishing than before, a feat I wouldn’t have even contemplated being possible.

“Hollis?”

“Yeah?”

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