The Boss & The Assistant - Rewritten Edition of "The Boss"

Chapter 17 - Emerson

 On Sunday, Lafayette hired a moving team to help move all of my furniture first thing in the morning. I didn't have a whole lot of actual personal possessions. I only had two totes worth and then all of my clothing. At my parents' house, I had a lot more stuff I always wanted to move into my apartment. Even though my new place was a studio, it was still spacious, so I figured maybe I'd actually be able to bring more of my stuff.

Lafayette forced some of his furniture onto me, which I appreciated. When walking into the apartment, we first entered into the kitchen and the tall counter made a nice, natural divide from the kitchen to what I deemed the "living room" area. A small table fit in the center of the kitchen, but I also had two barstools to put at the counter as well. In the living room, I put my new pull-out couch against the wall, a quirky rug, a coffee table in the center, a conjoined lamp and side table next to the couch, and then a small, comfy armchair perpendicular to the couch. I put a long, storage TV stand against the other wall across from the couch and put the TV that Lafayette gave me on that.

To divide the living room area from the bedroom area, I put a four by four cube storage unit behind the armchair and then my bed on the other side. I used the unit with some cube boxes to hold different stuff and then used some for decor items I planned on buying. I put my wardrobe across from the bed. The wardrobe was pretty big because I had a lot of clothing. I had to store some underneath the bed as well. Lastly, I put my desk against the window that looked out onto the city.

It was well into the evening when I finished getting everything set up to a comfortable position to stop for the day. So we ordered Indian food and ate in my new living room.

"Thanks for all of your help," I said.

"It's not a problem," he said.

A part of me still worried that he was mad at me and hated me and was planning to fire me. I was also embarrassed for being so drunk on Saturday. I barely remembered anything. I remember crying in an Uber with Owen and then waking up in the middle of the night at Lafayette's. Everything in between was a blur. "You promise you don't hate me?" I asked.

Lafayette sighed, looking at me, trying not to smirk at my irrationality. "I promise. I do not hate you. I've actually never hated you ever," he said.

"Good. Do you think I'm annoying?"

He stirred his chicken tikka masala and side eyed me. "Not generally."

"But right now you do?" I asked, smiling.

"Maybe a little. Can I eat now?"

I nodded. "Of course."

We ate and watched another episode of the latest show we were binge watching. I tried to not think about how we weren't going to be able to do this anymore. But I couldn't not think about it. So I started to get mopey. It didn't take long for Lafayette to notice.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "I promise I'm not mad at you."

"No, it's not that," I said. "I'm just bummed. It's been fun watching shows with you and eating dinner with you. I mean, I know we shouldn't do this anyway because obviously some boundaries have been crossed, but still..."

"I know. I'll miss it too. I haven't hung out in a casual way with anyone in a long time," he said. "I haven't just relaxed with anyone in forever. Relaxing is hard for me."

I sighed deeply. "I don't have many friends, so it sucks that we can't be friends," I said.

"Em, we...I..." He bit his bottom lip, thinking, looking really cute. "How about, once or twice a week we stay a little late at the office, like we do so often, and we eat dinner and watch something? Maybe Tuesdays and Thursdays we can stay late, but Monday, Wednesday, and Friday you are out of the office before six. Sound good?"