embarrassment. “I wanted to prove I knew what I was doing. At my last job I worked my ass off and was rewarded for that.”
He nodded slowly. “Every job and every company is different, though. With new situations, you might need to adapt.”
“Maybe, but it could also be my personality. I’m always butting heads with my parents about my life decisions.” My voice cracked a little. “What can I say, stubbornness runs in the family.”
His grin melted my heart a little. “Does it work? The arguing and standing up to people?”
I shrugged. “I’m a Korean girl working in gaming, against my parents’ wishes. And I haven’t been fired . . . yet. So I guess?”
“Well, you’ve taught me something. I should butt heads with people more, especially my uncle and my parents, so I can live my life more the way I want.” He placed his elbow on the table and rested his chin on the back of his hand. Then, he leaned toward me, nudged my arm gently with his, sending more electric tingles through my entire body. “You’re a good role model.”
Tilting his seat as he leaned over more, his cushion toppled to the side, causing him to collapse into me. In one unfluid motion, he elbowed my ribs as he fell to the floor.
He barked out a nervous laugh. “Sorry about that, boss.”
Right.
I was his boss.
And all these feelings I had? Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Shoving my laptop in my bag, I barked, “There are some important production meetings I need to attend. Send the files to Ian. He’ll be happy because we finished early, so now you can go to the golf tournament with him.”
I scooped up all my shit and took off down the hallway. In the faint distance, I heard Nolan say, “You know, I actually hate golf. With a passion.”
Once I got to my desk, I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath. I felt a little bad about my golf comment, but Nolan was a distraction. He and I couldn’t be together. Period. I was too busy to date anyway.
Asher was out at an off-site meeting, so I closed the office door and drew the blinds. No more disruptions, interruptions, or diversions. Especially from the intern.
Chapter Ten
The fluorescent lights on my side of the floor burned bright the next morning, but the office was eerily silent, like I’d accidentally walked in wearing noise-canceling headphones. I thought I had the place to myself, but Asher sat at his desk, drinking a fucking Starbucks latte. He ignored me, as usual. I couldn’t believe he beat me to the office again. Did he sleep here or something?
Well, I could give him the silent treatment, but that would be awkward since we were the only two people on the entire floor and we still needed to work together on this game launch. So, I went with the olive branch approach. “Good morning,” I said, with as much exuberance as I could muster at 6:15 in the morning.
He looked up. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t see you. Too busy entering hundreds of Jira tickets for your dev team. You know, to build all the hundreds of things you painstakingly listed in your annoying Game Design Document for us to do for your little game?”
Snide jerk. So what if I ran a tight ship when it came to project management, and everyone’s deliverables and tasks were focused and clear? I’d been told by numerous people that my documentation was comprehensive and dummy-proof. Everyone, especially me, had been working long hours, but he was acting particularly whiny, more than his usual entitled self. And that petty shit needed to stop. Pronto.
“First of all, it’s not my little game, it’s Seventeen Studios’ title. I worked till two thirty in the morning, helping YOU with your Jira backlog. If you have a problem with me, say it to my face. Directly.”
His head jerked back as if I’d blown him backward with a gust of wind. His eyes widened and his eyebrows rose so high they almost shot off his forehead. Good! I’d surprised the shit out of him. Yeah, this wasn’t my first asshole rodeo.
“Whoa, holy PMS!” He laughed at his own sexist joke.
I glared and shook my head. “Well, if we want to throw around sexist terms now, okay. Here you go. Can you grow a fucking pair of balls and stop whining? Do your damn job.” This time his eyebrows jumped so high they went up past the brim of