Caught by the Boss ✓

34

HENRY/HECTOR

Before Leila, I didn't know what I was missing. Success filled me with temporary satisfaction. Every business deal made me feel like I was living life. But I wasn't. The late nights at the office were lonely. I was sharing my life with only the zeroes in my bank account. They didn't make me laugh. Didn't make my blood pump with lust. Didn't make me feel alive.

Only Leila gives me these things. Meeting her in The Machine was the best spontaneous decision I ever made. Leila is easy to love. She's like a magnet, and that's why I couldn't settle with another woman like Grace. That's why the dates with Grace felt so unnatural. She couldn't fake the innocent, quirky, confident light that shines on Leila.

I fall deeper for her every day as we work together at the office. The employees have discovered that we're dating and have been treating her differently, but she won't have it. She insists on not getting special treatment. She's so humble and down to Earth. All she wants is to make friends at the office, learn about business, and play with me in The Machine. It's our special place because that's where we fell in love. Every day after work, we put on our helmets and lay in bed together as we explore a new virtual world. But my favorite part is taking the helmet off and looking at her beautiful face. There is no better world than the one I live in. The real one, where I can touch Leila's skin.

Snow gently falls outside. The winter has been hard, but we always warm ourselves at home. Leila has filled every room with Christmas decorations. Dramatic decorations I've never cared for–tinsel, a Christmas three in every damn room, and cookies and milk for Santa. I suspect she keeps setting them down because she knows I sneak the cookies off the plates.

The most eventful part of the fall was meeting her family. Leila didn't drop any hints of my identity, so plenty of eyebrows were raised when I showed up, hovering over my petite girlfriend and wearing a pressed suit. Leila seemed the most nervous of them all. She must have kept many secrets from them, including how we met and the drama I dragged her through. That's why her family treated me warmly. They had no idea the pain I caused Leila.

Her thoughtfulness and strength made me love her even more.

"Hey, can you put this star on top of the tree?"

I clear my thoughts and turn to face her. She's wearing adorable fuzzy socks and my long-sleeve shirt that swallows her. She stands beside the eight-foot tree because I forbade her from using stairs after she nearly fell.

"I thought I told you that you can't set a Christmas tree in the kitchen? It's a fire hazard!"

"Please, this will be the last one!"

I groan. Bankruptcy by Christmas decorations will be a sad way for me to go.

I rise from the couch and enter the kitchen, setting the sparkling star atop the tree.

"Benefits of having a tall boyfriend," she says with a clap to her hands.

"I'm tall in height but short in temper. If you put another Christmas tree up, I'll..."

She giggles, because she knows I'm full of shit. She could turn the house into a forest if it pleased her and there's not a damned thing I could do about it.

"No more trees!"

She laughs. "Sucker."

I check my watch. It's almost ten o'clock. In a few minutes, we'll see who the sucker is.

I lean against the counter as she adds a few more ornament balls to the tree. She hums as she fluffs the leaves.

Then, right on time, we're submerged in darkness when the light goes off. Everything stops working: the fridge, our cellphones, the bright LED lights wrapped around the tree.