Because he’d been insistent that some of it needed to be setaside for his portion of the down payment fund. It was sweet, but if we weren’tcareful, we’d end up buying a mansion just to make sure everyone got to chip inwhat they thought was fair.
“No problem.” Sean nodded and I could see him mentallymaking notes. Even though he drove me nuts, I knew he’d do a good job. “Howshort term are we looking to stack them?”
“Let’s see about making about a quarter of the funds comedue in one year. The rest can be more long term.” By that point, we should knowhow long we wanted to rent.
I liked the house we were renting, but with both familiesnow asking about the future and when we were going to buy a house, I couldn’tsee dragging our feet. Hell, even Ryan’s mother thought stability would be agood thing for us.
Whatever that meant.
Though since she was being supportive, even if she was a bitweird about the whole thing, I wasn’t going to question it.
“But he’s flexible. It’s literally been sitting in cash forseveral years.” That had even Sean wincing.
“Are there any goals we need to keep in mind?” Sean lookedat my desk, searching for something. “I didn’t get any notes about what hewants or the questionnaire you usually have new clients work through. Do youhave that?”
No, because we’d talked over everything in bed the othernight after he’d fucked my brains out.
“I’ll get that just to make sure I have everything in line,but we had a long conversation about what he wanted.” That had Sean leaningagainst the door again and his smirk was back. “I’ll iron out the details withhim and bring back the written paperwork next week.”
That did not chase the teasing grin away.
“So we’re just going to ignore the fact that you gotanother…what…roommate?” He raised one eyebrow and before I could say anything—becausemy brain wasn’t moving quite fast enough—he spoke again. “No one is going tobelieve that unless you mention the gossip in just the right way.”
Huh?
“I…have you seen the paperwork for Mrs. Bronson? She’sconvinced she mailed it back to me but—”
“No, that’s just a terrible attempt at changing thesubject.” Coming farther into my office after he stopped me in my ramblingtracks, he gave me a curious look.
Shutting the door, he walked over and plopped himself down onthe chair in front of me. “So let’s try again because I can’t hide what I don’tknow.”
Hide?
“I’m not sure—”
He stopped me again. “No, you’ve finally gotten interestingand I’m just not going to let that go.”
Sean leaned forward, studying me. “Besides, I’m your admin.It’s my job to make sure you don’t fuck up.”
It wasn’t how I would’ve described his role, but knowingsome of the other people around here, it was probably fairly accurate.
“I’m not fucking anything up.” I tried to sound confidentand channel Dare, but Sean just raised one eyebrow.
He was even more annoying when he was interrogating me.
I’d rather deal with the flirting or the disdain.
After a few seconds, I broke. We both knew it would happen,so he didn’t even smirk as I started to speak. “I’m in a relationship with Ryanand Dare. Dare’s in the process of moving in, and it’s very serious. He knowsI’m not ashamed of him, but I have no intention of talking about my personallife at work.”
I’d seen how that turned out and I didn’t want any part ofit.
“That’s it?” He looked disappointed.
He was so strange.
“I was hoping for something juicy, but I guess for you, thisis.” Sean cocked his head and leaned back in the chair as I tried to decide ifI was offended or not. “Alright, we’ll handle things like the Christmas partywhen we come to it.”
His mind was thinking faster than mine, so I just let himkeep going. “I think we can arrange for you to be out of town for it and we’llsubtly claim family issues or something. One of the things everyone knows isthat you never talk about them, so gossip is that it was the gay thing.”
