C.E.O x C.E.O

Ch. 18 - Wannabe Detective Baby Interlude

It's getting warmer. Tamara can feel it. She could almost grasp it. She knows she's getting closer to the answers she's been looking for, the question regarding those recent attempts on one James Artino.

Even so, despite the adrenaline she gets from piecing the puzzles of cases she has no right getting involved in, and despite the excitement she gets from soon being able to reveal the true culprit, she couldn't bring herself to smile.

Because this is serious. Tamara isn't doing this just to appease her own repressed childhood fantasies of wanting to become a detective. She isn't doing it to play hero or for praise or for anything with hoping to get something back.

If anything, she's doing this because she knows she can. And doing nothing when she could do something would've left her utterly devastated. She may not know James as well her boss or her new super close best friend does, but she knows him enough to know that he means something to the people around him, and that he's polite enough to bow and open the door for her, nice enough to return smiles given to him. That's someone worth protecting.

Plus, his relationship with her boss...

They're in love. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out. And it's no mere projection from all the Boys' Love comics Tamara read as a teenager. She does notice that it hasn't always been like this. From the moment those two met, Tamara has been aware of how much Dmitri seems to find James irritating. Her boss would never miss a chance to rant to her about him, ridicule him, propose to avoid him as much as possible.

But that all seemed to have changed seemingly overnight. It's a subtle change, nobody ordinary would be able to tell there's ever even a change between those two men. But Tamara could tell. It's a secretary's privilege to be able to tell.

She notices how Dmitri's been offering to be around James more, when he'd been so insistent in avoiding him in the past. She notices how their banter has turned from childish poking to obvious flirting. And most importantly, she notices their stolen moments.

Though, she'd rather not read into that last part. That's their business, albeit juicy.

Their shift in aura was made very clear when Dmitri had come back to his office late after the first party, the one held about a week before the one Middlemist hosted. Dmitri said he had driven home a drunken James Artino.

And Dmitri had spent the rest of the night sitting in his plush office chair and rubbing his temples.

"Tamara," He'd said then. "Y'know that dumb hormonal thing that hormonal teen boys do in high school where they bully someone 'cause they like 'em?"

"Yeah," She had answered with a raised eyebrow. "Why?"

"Is there like... an adult term for it?"

Tamara rolled her eyes. There he went again. "You should really stop labelling things like this as only a teenager's thing. Adults do stupid teenagery things too. They have feelings and weep about it. They stress out about a hefty workload. They contemplate things that they're probably not supposed to. They have childish wants and needs. Feelings aren't limited to teenhood."

"I know that," He sighed. "But we're not just adults, y'know. Yer a hot secretary with a rep and I so happen to be the boss of a hotshot real estate company. I can't waste my time thinkin' about puppy love."

"Well if it makes you feel better, you sleep around as much as a hormonal teenager."

"Hey!" He crossed his arms. "Unlike one, I know when to quit."

"Sure," She doubted it but decided not to show it. Instead she draped her arm over his shoulders. "Now what is this about you and puppy love?"

He only replied with a repressed chuckle. "Let's just say I'm findin' out a lot about myself."