Page 34 of The Thorne at My Side
"Sure, but I'm not going to give it away."
"You’ll just give it up!" Sam whoops and lifts her hands for a high five.
I laugh as I clap my hand with hers. It feels very locker room to high five over sex but since I feel like I unlocked the secret to my sanity I want to celebrate.
“Twenty questions style?” Sam asks.
“Sure,” I agree as I rearrange the items on my desk to avoid eye contact with her.
“Is he someone we know?”
“Yes.”
“Dang, that doesn’t narrow it down much. Umm,” she starts rolling her nails on the desktop. “I’m going to Guess Who this… does he wear glasses?”
“Yes.”
“Really?” She readjusts in her seat, energized by her good guess. “Someone we know who wears glasses…”
I know that if I look at her she’ll somehow pick up on the name through telepathic channels. Instead I open one of my desk drawers and start thumbing through files.
“This is crazy but the only guy I can think of when you said glasses was Austin Thorne.”
I slam the drawer shut so forcefully that my pen cup topples over.
"No. Way." Sam says before she presses her lips together between her teeth and I see them starting to turn white. Her eyes double in size and I think they might explode.
"Sammy, breathe."
"Holy shit,” she exhales dramatically. “Austin Thorne? But you hate him? He hates you? Right? How did you pull this off?”
"It all started when we kissed a few days ago, and then I got your sex-as-a-stress-release idea in my head, and asked him to be my fuck buddy."
“Wait you kissed?!”
“Twice.” I grimace because maybe this is information I should have told my closest colleague slash only friend that’s forced to hang out with me because of our jobs.
“I don’t believe it.” Sam says, astonished.
“Well, believe it because, oh my god Sam, it was so worth it."
"Yeah?" Sam smiles slyly and leans forward towards my desk. I scootch forward too.
"He brought coffee and pastries but the coffee got cold whilewe got after it."
"And, it was good?"
"More than good. Like maybe the best I've ever had. I mean, I was so annoyed with him every time he spoke,” except when he was talking dirty, “but he met me stride for stride and it just, worked."
"But you're not dating right? I can't imagine that being good for either of you from a publicity standpoint."
"No, it's just sex, pre-arranged, and only until the election."
"This feels like such a good and bad idea all at the same time."
"I can't say I disagree."
"Wow, okay," Sam is quiet for a second as she leans back in her chair. "That's not what I expected when I came in here, but I like it.” She shakes her head. “Anyway, I wanted to talk about the timeline of releasing the partnership statement."
