Chapter 7

I feel the heat return to my cheeks, genuinely taken aback by the girl's intelligence at such a young ages. It makes me feel funny even talking to them at their age level.

“I’ve known your dad for a while. We met a few years ago, and now we work together.”

Bea sighs, and Tris sits back on her butt. The eldest sister sighs, though, in what sounds like relief. “Good. You’re not here to be our new Mommy.”

I cough once, then twice. No, that’s absolutely not what was going to be happening, but I didn’t imagine hearing a seven-year-old talking so maturely.

However, as shocked I am hearing her say these things, my curiosity can’t help but become piqued by her sentence. Derek’s love life?

I mean, it’s normal for people to gossip in the real world, right? I’m but a mere mortal and I thrive on the human connection where I share information with others.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to know more about the man that has become my neighbor, right?

Raising an eyebrow, I ask the girls, “Do many women want to be your new Mommy, girls?”

The two girls exchange a glance before nodding and confirming the truth. “A lot of them,” Tris says quietly.

“But we never liked any of those ladies,” Bea comments, scrunching her face up as if she smelled some bad food.

Interesting.

Then, Bea questions me as if this is a game. “Is our Daddy really a tyrant at work? Does he scare people with his loud voice?”

She reaches her arms out and roars like Godzilla, making sounds with her mouth as she stomps across the wood floor.

I can’t even stop myself from bursting out laughing at Bea’s thoughts about her own father. Seeing him as this huge, intimidating monster? That’s how it felt the first few weeks that I worked in the office.

I imagine Derek’s serious face imitating a monster, and I laugh harder. His girls start laughing, too, though I know they don’t see what it is I do.

Still calming down from the laughing fit, I wipe away a tear under one of my eyes, pushing some baby hairs from my face.

“No, girls. He’s very professional. Your dad is the best kind of boss. He’s one of the best bosses I’ve ever had.”

It’s not a lie, and it’s not an exaggeration. It’s the truth. Working with Derek has made me feel like I can do anything in this field. I can learn from my mistakes without fears of firing, and I received promotions faster than I know what to do with them.

“Really?” Tris asks me with wide eyes.

I reach out my hands to each little girl, and they both take them as we start to head back over to their place. Bea gives a series of interesting knocks, which I interpret to mean that it’s his daughter’s returning.

“Our Dad is really a good boss?” Bea reiterates for her sister.

Nodding, I smile wider. “The very best boss there ever was.”

“Don’t you know this is how they get along?” Bea asks me, before looking over at her sister. “If Dad hears it, he’ll give her a raise!”

We all turn to the door as it opens wide with Derek standing there, and I realize by the look in his eyes he’s heard everything we’ve just said.

—————

“What?!” Annie shouts, the majority of the pub halting in their conversations from the outburst. “Your hot boss is your neighbor?!”

I look around, shushing Lily for her raised volume. I feel the heat in my cheeks rising, wishing that I could melt away into the floor.

“Keep your voice down!” Annie tells our friend, shoving her arms into Lily’s. “You want the entire country to hear you?”

“If my boss was this hot and living next to me, I’d be screaming every night to gain his attention!”

“Lily!” I whisper-yell. “Ew!”

“It’s not ‘Ew,’ Esme! You’re missing the absolute golden opportunity in front of you!”

I roll my eyes. I haven’t mentioned Natalie just yet, and that fact alone is all I need to keep my distance from Derek outside of work.

Lily does a little dance. “A female subordinate living next door to her male boss? That’s a gold mind!”

I roll my eyes a second time. “You two spend way too much time locked in fantasy worlds while the rest of us are trying to just survive.”

“Oh, come on now, let us have some fun,” Annie insists, bumping her arm with mine to show her concern for my mind.

“Can you just spare me?” I beg. “I saw our spokesperson for one of our newest products coming out of his room.”

The girls are silent immediately, and I know they’re listening. “I don’t have a chance with him even if I wanted to. There’s nothing there, I swear.”

But just because I say it doesn’t make it true.

Lily takes a sip of her drink before she speaks. “You never know.”

“I think I do,” I respond.

“When he came here after your first text, he wasn’t here like you’re just his underling. Mr. Derek looked at you the way most people stare at water while dehydrated: with incredible thirst.”

I let my jaw fall open to Annie’s words, refusing to believe what she’s said. “Look, you guys might think there’s something between us, but I’ll continue to be living in the real world over here. Derek doesn’t like me, and there’s nothing going on.”

But that’s not true, is it?

“Hot guy and beautiful woman, you can imagine how happy they probably are in bed,” Lily states, very blasé. “Meanwhile, I haven’t had sex in a month, and I’m fucking ravished.”

“That sounds like an issue you should handle,” Annie retorts. “I don’t know how you’ve lasted this long.”

That’s when my best friends turn their attention back to me, and I watch as each of them refuses to drop their eye contact.

This is not how I wanted to tell them about my sex life. It’s mostly non-existent at this point, which in hindsight, should have been a damn warning bell in my head.

But there’s no getting around it. The two won’t drop a topic of conversation no matter how hard I try.

“You really have to interrogate me about my sex life?” I groan.

“Always,” Lily states. “What else are we going to bother you with?”

A third eyeroll. Must be a record for eyerolls in a single conversation.

I look down at my hands, picking at my cuticles as I slowly draw out my time.

“Technically…six months,” I say quietly, feeling a bit embarrassed. God, I’m pathetic.