Page 34 of Protected By My Best Friend's Brother

I absently run my thumb over my bottom lip, reliving the kiss. Not the desperate, impulsive one outside O’Sullivan’s, but the intentional one on the dock – slow and deliberate, like he was memorizing every second. Like he’d been waiting years to do it properly.

My phone chimes with a text from him:

Found a misfiled sustainability report from 2019. Someone’s color-coding system is slipping.

I smile, typing back:

That was during my experimental phase with pastels. We don’t talk about it.

His response appears quickly:

I liked the pastels, though not as much as your current rainbow organizational system.

The compliment shouldn’t make my pulse quicken. It’s ridiculous that a man appreciating my file organization methods affects me this way, yet here we are. The fact that he notices these little things, remembers them, and values them makes me feel seen in a way I’ve rarely experienced.

“Earth to Emma!” Natalie’s voice breaks through my reverie. “You’re color-coding those sticky notes by shade again. That’s like next-level procrastination, even for you.”

I look down to find she’s right. I’ve created a perfect rainbow gradient of post-its, none of which has anything to do with my work. My hands apparently operated independently while my mind wandered back to the lake.

“I’m just organizing my thoughts.”

“Uh-huh.” She perches on the edge of my desk, careful not to disturb my chromatic masterpiece. “And would these thoughts involve a certain CEO and lake visit this weekend? The same CEO who’s been finding excuses to walk past your office every hour?”

Heat creeps up my neck.

It’s true. This morning, Lucas has walked by my office four times, each time with increasingly flimsy pretexts. The last time, he claimed to be looking for the water cooler, which has been in the same location for the past decade.

“I’m trying to work.”

“You’ve been humming all morning.”

“It helps me think.”

“You drew hearts in the margins of your sustainability report.”

“Those were efficiency diagrams.” I flip the report over, hiding the telltale doodles that weren’t part of any professional analysis. “Very professional, very technical efficiency diagrams.”

“Emma.” She gives me her patented ‘stop deflecting’ look, the same one she used when I tried to convince her that reorganizing the supply closet at midnight was a completely normal work activity. “What happened at the lake? And don’t say ‘nothing’ because Lucas has been walking around all morning with this ridiculous smile, even during the budget meeting.”

I fidget with a perfectly arranged stack of papers, aligning the corners with unnecessary precision. “Nothing! We just talked. And skipped stones. And he maybe said some things about missing me and being real with me and...” I trail off, remembering how close we’d been, how natural it felt to exist in each other’s space again. How he’d looked at me like I was something precious he’d finally found the courage to claim.

How right it had felt to be under that oak tree together, my head on his shoulder, his arm around me, both of us existing in a moment of perfect contentment.

“And?”

“And nothing! Because we’re supposed to be keeping things professional.”

“Right. Professional.” Natalie smirks. “Because professional colleagues definitely spend Saturday mornings teaching each other about cloud shapes.”

My phone chimes again:

Found clouds that look like efficiency matrices. Thought of you. Still terrible at cloud-watching without my teacher.

I can’t help the smile that spreads across my face. At the lake, I pointed out a cloud that looked like our sustainability workflow chart. Lucas laughed, saying only I could see organizational systems in random atmospheric formations.

“Wow.” Natalie grins. “You’ve got it bad.Scientifically speaking, you’ve reached level-four infatuation.”

“I do not have it bad,” I protest weakly. “I have it completely under control.”

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