Page 11 of Basil

Ibarely heard my assistant’s greeting or registered the morning buzz of the office as I headed toward my desk.

My usual routine—checking emails, reviewing reports, and grabbing coffee—felt…off because, for the first time in two years, Summer was absent from my life.

I exhaled sharply, dropping into my chair. Maybe I should call her. Maybe?—

“Hey, CEO, how are you doing?” Drew leaned against my office door, a coffee in one hand, a smirk on her lips.

“Hanging in there.”

“So, are we making the announcement today?”

Right, her promotion.

“Just got in, Drew, I need to talk to Jessie, and she’ll put a comms plan together.”

Jessie was our head of communications and my right-hand person for both internal and external PR and comms.

Drew walked in and closed the door behind her. She came to my side of the desk and leaned against it next to my chair.

“You okay?”

She stoodveryclose to me, her legs brushing against mine. Did she always touch me like this? This was a workplace, and sure, we were friends, but there were lines, weren’t there?

“Like I said, hanging in there.” I shifted a little away from her.

She moved closer, put a hand on my shoulder and kneaded. “How can I help?”

You can stop touching me, woman!

I rolled my chair and rose, needing the physical distance. Now that I had it in my head, I was starting to see that this touchy-feely behavior was not entirely acceptable. It was fine when we were in college, but we were professionals now, and I was the CEO of this company.

Suddenly, I felt compelled to know something. “I have a question for you.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“You’ve never kissed me on the lips before, why did you do it that night?” I’d been thinking all Sunday about this. Sure, I didn’t see a problem with it when it happened, we both were excited about the news of her promotion but as the hours passed with no news from Summer, I began to finally pull my head out of my ass andthink—see things fromherpoint of view, which I also realized I’d been failing to do when we were together.

She frowned. “Basil, we’ve always hugged and kissed.”

Had we?

She sighed. “Look, I get it you’re upset about Summer. But come on, you can’t be surprised that the relationship ended, can you?”

“What does that mean?”

I was thinking of marrying Summer,eventually. I knew she was it for me—but somewhere, somehow I started to get irritated with her, hoping she’d fall in line andthenwe could think about forever. But what was the line I wanted her to fall in? Accepting my friends? She did that. She never told me she wouldn’t meet them or that I shouldn’t hang out with them. She smiled and cooked dinner when they came over. The only times she had problems were when Drew got proprietary about me.

Other times, her problem wasn’t so much with my friends saying something as it was with me not saying anything to stop them. But they were just teasing, weren’t they?

“You dress like you’re from that old TV show…what was it?” Gareth asked.

“Little House on The Prairie,” Karen joked.

I had laughed along with the others. Later, Summer had said that hurt her feelings.

“Why? So, you dress differently than they do. What’s the big deal?”

“It’s not about how I dress, Basil. It’s about how they say what they do. But that’s not even the point because I don’t give two fucks what they think. It’s that you join them. Instead of saying, ‘Hey, my girlfriend looks great,’ you laugh with them at me.”

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