Page 56 of Loathing My Boss
Viktor.
Is asap.
“Youwrote the love letter,” I blurt.
His eyes close. “I…wrote it at three in the morning after three sleepless nights. I’d like to apologize for it as well. Not my best work. Nothing near what you deserve.”
Screwbest workand what Ideserve. He wrote me a love letter, and then I tore it up in front of him, while calling people who write love letters cowards.
I should submerge my airways in this soup and inhale. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
“I’m sure you had your reasons.”
I grimace, and the desire that he’d just pick up a chair andhit me with itreturns tenfold. Suffocating, I say, “Viktor…what…what in the world do you see in me?”
“You’re committed.”
“Yeah, I should be. Why does that appeal to you?”
He smiles, tender. “No one’s ever given me so much of their attention. You’re funny. Smart. Dedicated.” His smile falters, and he swallows, hard, lifting another spoonful of offensive soup to his lips. “I think you’re beautiful and kind…to people who aren’t me. Also, animals. I’ve seen you visit Kaleb’s fish. They come to you when you call, and you lie in the grass to talk to them.”
Weakly, I defend myself with a feeble, “I…like fish.”
“I noticed. I can’t stop noticing you. And I have tried. But I just can’t.”
“Because things have a tendency of blowing up in my vicinity?” I inquire, hopeful. My skin is starting to itch.
“Because you inspire and challenge me. Your Canva Whiteboards are art. You create a yearning for passion inside me that I don’t know how to quell. I’m much too stringent. My Canva Whiteboards would look like spreadsheets with pictures and color, assuming I even add pictures or know how to coordinate the colors beyond grayscale. Yours are beautiful chaos, murderboards of entropy. You are a vision.”
He’s mentioned my Canva Whiteboards, like he knows the emotional attachment I have to them. This is a direct assault on my heart. Which is why I am stiff, and operating at the same mental capacity as a jellyfish. “Do you find me attractive?” I blurt, brainless.
He stiffens, averts his gaze. Heat swells in his cheeks. “Yes.”
“I do not understand.”
“I…like your eyes.”
“My—” I swear, ahem, of thefecalvariety. “—brown eyes? The most common eye color in the world?”
“They’re big, and deep, and lovely,” he murmurs. “Ilike them a lot.”
Still maintaining the aptitude of cranium-free sea life, I say, “Do you think I have childbearing hips?”
A swear hisses from his lips, and he focuses his attention on his food. Squarely. “I’m not certain you want me to detail the more intimate things about you that I find attractive in public.”
I blink, glance toward the chatting guests blissfully enjoying their grilled cheese and soup, without a care in the world. They are not paying attention to us.
I do not want to have this conversation in private.
“I am certain. Answer me.”
Pain creases his brow, and look at that? I’m hurting him even when I don’t mean to. Suffering, he says, “Yes. I do think that you have very…nice hips.”
“So you want children?” I ask.
His eyes snap open on me, lips parted, gawking.
The floret I scooped three centuries ago has surely gone completely cold. “It’s an important question, isn’t it?” I press.
