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

Chapter 18 - Lafayette

 After a long and tiring weekend, going back to work was almost refreshing. Emerson blocked Richard's number on my work phone, and luckily he did not have my cell phone number. I had Emerson reschedule a lot of my meetings, because I didn't want to overwhelm him or myself by being busy. Everyone could survive by postponing a meeting. Plus, I wanted to meet with my therapist, Cheryl, later in the day. She was able to squeeze me in for a re-consultation. I hadn't gone to see her in a few years, but I finally made the lunge to see her again. Therapy had always been hard for me, mostly because opening up was hard. I knew she was there to listen. It's what she was paid to do. Still, it was not easy.

And yet, for Emerson, it was easier to open up to him. He wasn't my therapist, though, and he wasn't paid to have me dump my traumas on him. I know he said he was always there to listen, but it wasn't fair for him. We had already gotten too close. I cared about him. He cared about me, but he shouldn't care about me. I didn't deserve his care or his kindness. I didn't deserve that from anyone. It sounded dramatic, but it wasn't. It's just how it was for me.

Em usually got lunch with Sasha on Mondays. Instead of eating by myself, I decided to see if anyone else would want to get lunch. I didn't really want to get lunch with anyone other than Emerson, but I wanted to prove myself wrong.

Michael was sitting on the edge of Emilio's desk when I went in, tapping the doorway. "Well good afternoon," he said, eyeing me over his shoulder. Even when he greeted me he sounded like he was being sarcastic.

"Hi," I said. "Do you guys have lunch plans?"

"No," Michael said.

"I want to go to the food truck festival," Emilio said, making Michael frown. "But someone doesn't like food trucks."

"I could go to a food truck festival," I said, smirking at them.

"I just feel like they aren't clean," Michael said.

"Well you don't think anything is clean," I said.

"Just because it's affordable doesn't mean it's unclean," Emilio said.

"That's not-"

"That's so classist of you," I said, making Emilio laugh.

"Oh my god, we're not in middle school. We can go to the stupid festival," he said, huffing.

"Should I see if Carla and Marion want to go?" I asked.

"They're on vacation," Michael said. "It's their anniversary week dipshit."

"So testy, mi amor," Emilio said, kissing his cheek, making Michael soften up even though he still rolled his eyes.

We put on our jackets to brace for the chilly autumn afternoon. The food truck festival was only a few blocks away so we walked there. I couldn't help but think about how nice it would be to go with Emerson. There were a lot of people, almost too many that it was kind of annoying, but I tried to keep cool.

We started with some Mexican street corn as we perused the street. I settled on a corn dog next while Michael begrudgingly ordered the same tacos as Emilio. While they ate their tacos, I ordered a mac and cheese from another truck. I walked back over to them where they had successfully claimed a table and chairs, leaving one for me as well.

"Did you hear about Marcus?" Michael asked.

"Marcus? No," I said. Marcus was an old boyfriend of mine from my early twenties. While I was roughly on good terms with most of my exes, Marcus and I hadn't spoken to each other in years. We started dating when I was twenty-two as we were starting the company. He was a model. We actually didn't get along that well at all, but the sex was good and we were a little too dependent on each other so we managed to stay together for a couple of years. We broke up about two months before the incident in the hot tub.