Unstuck (25 page)

“You look beautiful today,” I laughed a little. I knew my face looked like crap. Maybe my gray dress, black tights and riding boots looked nice but I didn’t. The tights were ruined from breaking in Patrick’s shoes by the pool.

“What do you want to do?” I looked up to him and he was smiling. He had a comforting smile.

“Now?” I asked and he nodded and I shrugged.

“Movie? Some pretzels and the amazing leather chairs?” I automatically nodded and we both got up from the coach and went out to the foyer to find Patrick in the door.

“Where are you going?” I asked feeling something new for me. I was scared, petrified to see him leave without me. I went with him almost everywhere these days.

“I’ll be back, Pepper. I need to get something,” he said opening the door.

“Do you need me to go with you?” I was suddenly fixing my hair and looking for my purse.

“No, go with Brian to do what you were planning. You need to relax, Lucinda. I’ll see you both later,” he said leaving.

“He shouldn’t go alone,” I said as Brian guided me to the T.V room.

“He is a big guy, Lucy,” he said as we went down the stairs of the theater.

“Yeah but…,” I said looking back expecting Patrick to come back and say that he needed me.

“But nothing, Lucy, we are here together and he was right you need to rest,” he placed me on a chair and went to look for a couple of movies we could watch. Watching a movie didn’t seem so appealing anymore.

“Lucy,” I heard Brian’s voice but I refused to open my eyes. I had fallen asleep before the movie began. I was tired but I also knew that my swollen eyes would look horrible. “Lucy, Baby,” he said again this time tapping me lightly on my shoulder. I gave up and opened my eyes.

“There you are,” he said smiling at me. We were in the leather chairs but in my sleep I’d found a way to lay down and have a decent nap.

“Here I am,” I said smiling back. Brian kissed my forehead before standing up.

“I have to go home. I still have some work stuff I have to go through,” I nodded and got up.

“Is Patrick back?” I asked as he grabbed my hand and we walked together.

“Yeah, he is in his office,” he said and I nodded. We walked hand in hand to the front door where we said goodbye.

“See you tomorrow,” I said after giving him a quick peck on the lips. He nodded and left.

“Feeling better?” I heard Patrick say from the office door.

“Not really,” I said shaking my head a little.

“I figured you wouldn’t,” he said walking towards me “that’s why I have you a surprise,” I smiled and I was sure my eyes light up because he smiled “But first go change put something comfortable on and meet me in the kitchen,” I nodded and practically skipped all the way to the pool house. I changed into yoga pants and a hoodie and went back to the kitchen. When I step into the kitchen I saw Patrick standing next to the breakfast bar that had, suddenly, turned into a sorbet bar. There were at least 10 different kind of sorbet, banana shakes and plate with berries, all type of berries.

“Patrick,” I said covering my mouth with my hand. I was going to cry but this time I was happy, touched; this time it was because he cared about me. Patrick didn’t see me as a simple assistant. “Thank you,” I finally said and went to hug him. I passed my arms around his back and hugged him like I was never letting him go. He was making me feel worthy of someone’s affection and that was important, very important.

“This is why you went out?” I asked finally looking up to him and he nodded “Thank you,” I said again.

“You already said that,” he smiled and I nodded. “Let’s go into a sorbet coma,” he said and I finally let go of him.

That night we didn’t eat dinner we feast on sorbet and shakes. It was delicious and comforting and I was happy again.

“How did you manage to do this all by yourself?” I asked him as we both sat on the kitchen’s floor while eating the last berries from a bowl.

“Well I didn’t do it by myself,” he popped a strawberry into his mouth “I took Mike with me so he helped, then I asked your guru,” I nodded appreciating the fact that he remembered that the lady at the sorbet place was my guru now “to choose a variety of sorbets that would go great for a bar and then I bought all the berries they had left,” I nodded it all made sense “then I went to my shakes place.”

“You have a shakes place, of course,”

“Of course,” he nodded like it was normal “and asked them for the banana shakes, I know you like them and then…,” he faked a gasp “I went to Wal-Mart,” I gasped, not fake.

“What?” I asked turning to face him.

“I did,” he nodded faking shame “I had to buy containers for all the shit I had just bought and since I knew I wouldn’t find them in here to Wal-Mart I went. Besides it was easier than asking Mike to go in there and buy the round plates to place the berries.” I laughed and then looked down to my hands.

“What is it, Pepper,” he asked and I looked at him.

“You went through all that for me.”

“Yeah I went to Wal-Mart for you,” he smiled “you are worth going to Wal-Mart for,” I smiled and nodded.

“Thank you, Patrick, I’ve never had someone that went to Wal-Mart for me,” what was I saying? What was I trying to do?

“Now you do,” he seemed kind of serious.

“Now I do,” I repeated and nodded while looking at my hands. When I looked up I saw Patrick’s green eyes too close. Our faces were inches apart and I wanted to find something, anything, a reason to look away but I couldn’t because before I could think of a good reason Patrick was kissing me.

PATRICK WAS KISSING ME. And I am not going to lie, I was kissing him back. I kissed him with some kind of desperation, afraid that all the feelings I was having were going to leave me and I needed someone to pass them on; someone to be witness that I was, indeed, having feelings. That someone was Patrick and I believe that he felt what I was passing on because he was kissing me with a passion I didn’t know was possible to convey.

And then, we stopped. He put his forehead against mine while his hands were at each side of my face. I didn’t open my eyes. I didn’t dare to look at him. Kissing my boss was wrong, but it felt so right.

“How did you find the sorbet place?” what? I heard myself whispering the idiotic question. I heard Patrick chuckling.

“I took a picture of one of the pints we shared,” he whispered back not letting me go with his forehead against mine.

I didn’t want to open my eyes. I didn’t want to face the consequences of what had just happened and I didn’t want the moment to end.

“What’s this?” I finally asked. We were still forehead to forehead, sitting in the floor and I assumed he had his eyes closed but I had no way of knowing that because I still had my eyes closed.

“Whatever you want this to be, “he said. I chuckled at that.

“What?” he asked finally letting my face go and I wanted to cry because I didn’t want the moment to end. I opened my eyes and he had a half smile on his face.

“Whatever I want this to be? We are not in a movie,” I said smiling. He laughed and looked at me again. I think I was shaking, I wanted to kiss him again and that was something new for me because never before had I felt any kind of attraction towards Patrick.

“So,” he said looking at me still smiling, not looking the least worried about the fact that he had just kissed his assistant, that his assistant had kissed him. That it wasn’t the first time it had happened. FUCK! I was officially panicking. “What do you want this to be?” he finally asked.

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I was shocked. I didn’t even know what I wanted from this.

“I’m with Brian,” I said. Fuck! Brian! I was a slut. Officially. Undeniably. A slut.

“I know that. I’m asking you what is it that you want to do about this kiss,” ugh! Could he stop smiling?

“I’m not a cheater,” I said.

“Again, I’m not saying that.” Arrogant mother fucker!!! I wanted to bitchslap him.

“What do you want me to do about it?” I asked. He wanted to play, bring it on!

“I know what I want to do about it. I’ve known for a while,” he said. “What?” I asked. What. The. Fuck? “I want to know what YOU want to do about it,” Oh fuck. Fuck was my new favorite word.

“I don’t know,” That’s all I could articulate. Patrick took my hand “Lucinda, you don’t have to tell me right now,” I didn’t? “You can think about it a week, two, a month, a year but the moment you tell me what you want to do with that kiss I will go through with it, it doesn’t matter if it’s exactly opposite of what I want,” “A year?” I looked at him in the eye. He seemed happy.

“Yes, a year. I want you to be completely sure,” he kissed my hand and I wanted to jump him right there but I was pretty sure that it all was product of the emotional day I’d had.

“Ok,” I nodded. He nodded.

“Good. Now, let’s put all the dishes in the sink. Sarah will have a lot to do tomorrow morning,” he said getting up from the floor and suddenly it was like nothing had happened. How could we go from talking about the future of our relationship, personal or career wise, to cleaning the kitchen? Living with Patrick was so weird.

Next Morning I woke up a bit earlier to prepare everything for work. I knew I was going to NY so I had planned to take the “scrapbook,”, as I called it these days, to work on it during the flight and the moments where I had to wait for documents or whatever I needed. I dressed in the most comfortable way, making sure I wore pants and a good jacket or coat because we were finally feeling the coming winter.

I tried to cover the bags under my eyes with makeup and it was almost impossible to do that. I hadn’t slept a lot. I kept thinking and thinking about Patrick, the kiss, my job and Brian. I felt something in me, something that I couldn’t put a definition on but I felt something about the whole situation. Was I attracted to Patrick? Hell yes! And it was all so new to me because I realized I was attracted to him yesterday. When he kissed me I was ready to jump his bones and take him to bed. That attracted I was but I still didn’t know what to do about it. I couldn’t just get over it and sleep with him. He was my boss. I definitely was not up to a relationship based on attraction and I had no fucking idea what Patrick wanted. I decided, before falling asleep, that I was going to think about it whenever the chance arrived and I wasn’t seeing this as a chore; if I did I wouldn’t be able to do anything else until I found the solution and that would definitely lead to a stupid decision.

I realized that the chance would arrive pretty often the moment I poured Patrick’s coffee. He looked so good on his black designer suit and green tie. Almost as green as his eyes. What the fuck? I was thinking all this shit all of a sudden? I told myself to snap out of the stupid trance his stupid eyes were putting me through and get on with my day. I managed to do so. Almost. Something close to that.

“Good Morning,” I said sounding almost normal. Something close to normal, like I said.

“Morning,” said Patrick. He talked and he hadn’t had his first cup of coffee. I poured a cup for him and looked at him looking at the papers. “You are in the papers again,” he said showing me a picture not exactly of me but I was in the picture.

“Let me see,” I said grabbing the paper and reading. It was a picture from Saturday’s gala. It was a picture of Patrick but you could clearly see me in the background waiting for him. They’d drawn a red circle around me. The article said that they’ve seen Patrick with me again and that they knew by then that I was his assistant but still they wondered. Ugh! Stupid people. “I still think that we should say something,” I said giving him the paper back.

“Nah, they’ll get bored,” he said placing the paper on the table.

“Breakfast?” I asked and he nodded.

“Miranda’s oatmeal,” he said and I nodded and went to order his breakfast.

Fourteen

The ride to the office was quite easy. Patrick was in a surprisingly good mood and we didn’t have any awkward moments so when he said, right before I left to the airport, that he was going with me because he needed to sort out something in the NY offices I was ok with that.

“Lucinda, were you planning to stay the night?” He asked me while we walked towards the plane and I was handling my bags. I laughed.

“No! It’s the project I’m working on. I figured I could use the traveling time and all the time I spend waiting in the office to do something productive,” he just nodded and helped me up the stairs and into the private airplane.

As soon as we were in our seats I took out my scrapbook (I really needed to stop calling it that) and worked on it; Patrick took his computer out and worked on some spreadsheets. After a while I caught looking at me.

“Are you stuck?” I asked him and he smiled and shook his head.

“Worried,” he said in a very serious tone.

“About what? Can I do something to help?” Would you like me to get you something to drink? Anything to help your boss right?