Page 90 of Loathing My Boss
Which is, perhaps, her only flaw.
Hilarious that it’s not even a relatable one.
Love of My Life:I do be begging your pardon, dearness. A *what* almost fell on you?
Crisis:A tree.
Love of My Life:Can I put you in a padded room, for a handful of reasons, but - primarily - your protection?
Crisis:No.
Hehe, I love her.
And…speaking oflove… I blink, pulling my focus off my phone to find—essentially—my fiancé. “Viktor?”
Muffled, Viktor murmurs something akin to a response into my skin while his arms around me squeeze.
I know I’ve already asked this a dozen times, but: “Are you okay?”
“Five more minutes.” He nuzzles. “I’m still recovering.”
Guilt pricks. “Viktor, are you su—”
“Yes,” he grumbles. “I’m very sure. So sure. Never surer.” Softly, he says, “You’re worth everything. Always. Forever. And, of that, I am completely sure.”
Okay. Can’t relate, of course, but…okay. I rest my head against his shoulder and kiss the stubble lining his jaw as some kind of penance for existing. “My retribution this time has to be a doozy, huh?”
He grunts.
I return my phone to my pocket, where it thankfully was before the tree destroyed his car. “Have you thought about it?”
His head lifts, and firelight gleams in his eyes. His amber irises crackle. “Yes. I would like you…to love yourself.”
My flesh goes cold at the mere notion.
“I want to perceive insufferable hubris that assumes it’s natural for me to weather the storms with you, because obviously you are worth more than any trouble you could possibly cause. I expect mornings filled with positive affirmations. I will be monitoring them. Closely.”
I shake my head, violently against everything he just said. “I don’t like that idea.”
“Then, love me, and let me love you so much in return it fills you to bursting, so you’ll have no place to cram all the mean words you tell yourself.”
Blushing, I bite an M&M out of my cookie, murmuring around it, “Don’t you have anything that feels a bit more…punishing?”
“I think, for you, this is verypunishing.”
Got me there. Ha ha.
Like a wave, gasps rise from the guests seated on other logs around the fire, so I move my attention off Viktor to find Kyran striding across the moonlit, star-filled, firescaped night. His long, flared coat flutters in a breeze, and he yawns, squinting at us with one ice blue eye that matches the iconic shade of his dress shirt.
“Ohmyword,” a voice on my left whispers. “Is thatFrost?”
And, indeed, it is.
Dropping his hand back into the pocket of his coat, Kyran—better known on the internet asFrostPlays—stops in front of us, taking in my position on his older brother’s lap. “Hey,” he says, yawns again. “I guess things worked out? Zakery said you were planning to kill me.” He cuts his fingers through his ink-dark black hair, which falls in straight strands just past his shoulders. “Is that still a thing, or am I forgiven since I’m picking you and Crisis up from camp?”
Viktor, still holding me, rises, glaring the few short inches down at his youngest brother. “We can talk about that on the way back home.”
“Wait,” I say. “What are we talking about? Are you guys fighting over something?” It’s mega weird for the Bachelors tofight. Tree-on-car levels of mega weird, even. Please don’t tell me I’ve spurred another disaster and will be the downfall of this family before I can actually join it.
