Deciding to leave Landen to his mood, I shook off my thoughts, then got back to work. However, ten minutes into doing my job, my F-W-B’s voice broke my concentration.
“You know, you really shouldn’t encourage them.”
I looked up from my computer. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s not a good look for Edison to have to drag Lansing out of your office,” he said, and I was momentarily stunned. “Just something that you should consider.”
I leaned back in my chair, then eyed him as he stood near the door. “So, somehow, I’m supposed to be responsible for policing what the mechanics do, is that it?” I asked coolly. Now, while I had no problem with people being in a bad mood because I’d been there before, I wasn’t going to allow Landen to take his bad mood out on me.
“I’m just saying that if you kept your door closed more often, maybe the guys would get a little more done around here.”
“Well, since I don’t feel that I should be responsible for the decisions made by grown ass men, maybe you-as theirsupervisor-should take control of your crew and lay down some new rules,” I suggested, annoyed with his attitude. “Same with Edison.”
“Because if the choice is between their boss and a beautiful woman, they’re going to choose their boss?” he snorted.
I wasn’t sure how Clint being dragged out of here by Edison had become my fault or my responsibility, but I wasn’t appreciating where this conversation was going. Landen Rush might be the best sex that I’d ever had, but he wasn’t the only available dick out there.
“Speaking of rules, I think that we should probably establish a few of our own,” I told him, feeling him out.
Landen immediately straightened his back. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I watched silently as he shut the door behind him. “And what are these rules that you think need to be established?”
Trying to look confident, I sat with my back straight, staring at him like we were in a serious business meeting or something. The only problem was that I had just thrown that out there to see how he’d react. I hadn’t really thought about any specific rules.
Good times.
“Well, for starters, no assumptions,” I said, tossing out the first thing that I could think of.
“Meaning?”
“Like if…I don’t know,” I stammered a bit. “If we…we run into each other at a bar or…Timothy has another one of his barbecues, I don’t want there to be an automatic assumption that we’re going to end up at the hotel just because we hung out together earlier.”
Landen nodded his head slowly, and something told me that he was trying to hold back his irritation. Whatever was going on with him, he truly was upset about something.
“Also, since we’ve never been friends outside of this place, if I decline an invitation from you, or you decline one from me, we don’t have the right to ask why. Our personal lives will not be included in this thing between us. No questions asked, basically.”
“Anything else?” he asked, and I wasn’t sure if I was making things better or worse.
“Even though we’re being safe, we need to be safe with our other bed partners as well,” I added, seeing as how we hadn’t spoken about monogamy.
His chin came up at that one. “So, no assumptions, no questions, and safety while we’re fucking other people. That about right?”
“Unless you have anything to add,” I replied.
“I don’t really have anything to add,” he said. “More like…an amendment to one of your conditions.”
“Which is?”
“Instead of making sure to also use condoms with other people, how about we just call this whole thing off if either one of us finds someone else that we’d rather be with?”
I ignored that pang in my chest, but mainly because it was easier to live in denial. I had sworn that I could do this without developing any feelings, and I was going to fight that fight until the bitter end. I was not going to prove Landen Rush’s skewed views right.
“Actually, that sounds better,” I lied. “It sounds safer.”
Landen gave me a terse nod, then reached back to open the door. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him what was wrong, but that seemed like overstepping now. Before Monday, I wouldn’t have thought twice about asking what was wrong, but his attitude today had changed that.
