Think Outside the Boss - Olivia Hayle Page 0,54

with encounters like this. God help me if he goes around saying that without context at school.

Freddie’s silence is shocked.

I clear my throat. “Joshua is biologically the son of my sister and her husband. After they passed, I adopted him.”

“I was tiny back then,” Joshua adds, helpfully holding up his index finger and thumb to indicate just how small he was.

“I’m really sorry about that,” Freddie says, and then doesn’t seem to think of anything else to say. I don’t blame her. Most people have the same response whenever Joshua wants to let them know. I always let him decide if and when, both with friends and adults.

I put a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you. We do all right, don’t we, kid?”

“We do,” he confirms.

“We also didn’t mean to keep you here. Are you heading somewhere…?”

Freddie’s smile turns rueful. “Just the grocery store. Good luck with your Christmas shopping.”

“We’ll probably need it,” I say. “Here’s hoping the stores won’t be full yet.”

Freddie smiles and takes a step to the side. “I’ll let you go, then. Enjoy your day.”

“You too.”

“I’ll see you at work,” she tells me.

It’s the last place we’ll see each other, with the floors and red tape separating us. As much as I’ve wanted to over the last couple of weeks, walking into the Strategy Department and talking to one of their trainees is verboten for me. All the power of the CEO, and yet I can’t choose which of my employees I want to talk to.

“We’ll talk later,” I say.

“Bye!” Joshua calls.

She heads past us down the street. Joshua peers over his shoulder before tugging on the sleeve of my jacket. “She’s really nice.”

“I think so, too.”

“She’s your friend, right?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

He gives me a solemn two-eyed wink, not yet having mastered the art of using only one. “I get it, Dad. You want to become her best friend first, before you tell her you like her.”

My mouth opens, my brain drawing a blank. He’s using my own words against me. Clever kid.

“But you have to talk a bit more,” he advises me, dropping my sleeve. “You were too quiet!”

With the startling revelation that my kid just gave me advice about women, I follow him down the street, wondering if the world has completely turned on its head.

Joshua and I return to the apartment late that afternoon, carrying bags of stuff. Scented candles, gift cards, toys for Linda’s kids, a book on knitting for my mother. Joshua heads to his room as soon as we get home and leaves me with my thoughts. And like all roads lead to Rome, my thoughts take me to Freddie.

The idea of her regretting the night in Boston is a sharp pain sliding between my ribs, lodging somewhere between soft tissue and my pride. It hurt that she’d rushed out like she did. But it hurt more to think she wished it had never happened at all.

Joshua is sound asleep when I call her that evening. She answers after the third eternity-long signal. “Tristan?”

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

“Are you busy?”

She clears her throat. “No, I’m not.”

“Laundry’s all done? Grocery shopping?”

“Yes,” she says, sighing. “Of all the people in New York, I run into you two. What are the odds?”

“We’re pretty great people to run into.”

“You are,” she confirms.

I close my eyes as I ask the question, as if it makes it easier to imagine her face before me. Easier to picture what her eyes will look like as she replies. “Do you want to meet up tonight? I’d like to talk to you.”

The pause is excruciating.

“Okay,” Freddie says.

Blessed relief sweeps through me. “The deli?”

Another pause, this one more delicate. “Yeah. Or you could come to my place, if you’d like?”

“Absolutely. I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll buzz you in.”

My nerves are on fire as I pull on my coat, as I let Marianne know I’ll be out. The brisk winter air doesn’t cool me down either.

Freddie’s pull is undeniable. My feet take me to her apartment door without conscious thought, my mind spinning possibilities in kaleidoscopic patterns.

She opens the door in a pair of black sweatpants and a sweater, her dark hair unbound around her face. “Hi,” she murmurs.

“Hey,” I say, a hand on the door. “Can I come in?”

She lets me in. The simple sound of the lock sliding in place behind me sends hot, erotic anticipation through me. Can’t be helped.

I reach for her, powerless in the face of her nearness. Her hands are warm in mine. “I know the other