Page 74 of The Back Forty
“Well, you seriously think you’ll be able to resist him now?”
“Yes. He was cold and weird last night when he got home from the fair after I told him why pursuing anything more with him was a bad idea. He totally shut down. I think he regrets going there with me, and he’s going to be mad the whole trip to Minnesota, just watch. It’ll be uncomfortable and horrible and nothing else will happen.”
“Maybe you’re right.” She stands and stretches. “I gotta go change. Got a couple bugs to squash before noon.”
I sigh. “Your job’s the best. Do you think they’d hire me with zero coding experience?”
She smirks. “Youloveyour job. You’re the happiest I’ve ever seen you. Don’t forget that. Don’t go spiraling just because you saw your boss naked. Don't discount how good you've felt since moving here and start looking for a way out. Whitewood Creek has been good to you and the Marshall’s are great bosses. Just focus on that and everything will work out.”
“He wasn't fully naked. Just bottoms-off. And he hasn’t seen me completely naked either. Just—”
She waves a hand. “Just your coochie. Got it.”
I chuck a throw pillow at her head.
She catches it and wiggles her brows. “There's still time for you guys to show each other your tits."
I snort.
"Are you going to meet with the new guy today?”
I nod, already dreading my meeting with Luca. “Yeah. We gotta go over the pitch deck for tomorrow. Lawson asked me to perform it, and for some crazy reason I said yes. Now I'm starting to wonder if that was the right idea.”
She gives me a soft, sympathetic look. “You’ll be fine. Just focus on the work. Maybe you and Lawson will both realize it’s better this way. Clean break. No awkward vibes. You two work amazingly well together. Perhaps there's a way to pretend like you both didn't lick each other's genitals.”
“Ugh, why did you have to say it like that? What twenty four year old uses the wordgenitals?”
“Or” she says, completely ignoring me, “you’ll realize Lawson isn’t Elijah. That he’s capable of being in a real, healthyrelationship just like you are. That maybe youalready havesomething real that you two have been slowly building over the last year. And maybe he knows how to leave work at the door when you're done and not stress you into another stroke.”
I sink back into the couch with a dramatic groan. “I don’t know. He lives and breathes his job. I mean, all his siblings talk about how he never takes a break and works the hardest in the family. He hired me so that he could get that break and yet," I wave my hands. "No breaks have been taken. He just flies around everywhere with me, doing the exact same amount of work as before.”
She smiles like she knows something I don’t. “Okay, sis.”
And then she walks away, leaving me in a swirl of confusion, denial, and the lingering memory of Lawson’s hands on my body yesterday morning.
***
“This is good. This is really, really good,” I say, tabbing through the last few slides on Luca’s pitch deck with a smile. “Like, I’m not just blowing smoke. You nailed it.”
He ducks his head a little, clearly flattered, his grin shy but proud. He’s still young, in his early twenties, but already sharp with an eye for detail. I knew I made the right call hiring him the second he walked into his interview with a portfolio cleaner than most senior execs I’ve worked with. There’s a quiet confidence about him, the kind that doesn’t try to prove itself too hard. Just delivers.
I’ve built more pitch decks than I can count. Startups, big tech, and now for the Marshall family businesses, and if there’s one golden rule, it’s this: know who you’re speaking to. Down to the tiniest detail.
Not just the business objectives but the human ones. What keeps them up at night, what lights them up inside and what is their biggest motivator. And Luca? He wove that in effortlessly, without me even telling him. Personal, smart, tight.
“So,” he says, eyes bright. “What’s next?”
“I’m going to tweak a few things just to make sure it’s in my voice,” I say, already mentally rewriting the opening transition and swapping one of the market slides. “Then I’ll give the pitch tomorrow in Minnesota and fingers crossed, we win the contract, and you get your first high-five from Lawson.”
He nods. “Cool. Can’t wait to hear how it goes.”
I shoot him a warm smile as I email myself the file, then slide his tablet back across the table. “You’ll be the first person that I call.”
And just like that, the whole boss mess is out of my head, for a solid two hours, even. That’s a personal best when it comes to my usual spiraling. I’ve been focused, present, doing the work I love, and tomorrow I’ll get up in front of a high-stakes client and deliver it with precision and polish, like I always do.
Except… Lawson will be there again. Watching. Judging. Maybe regretting everything that happened between us and the way I shut it all down.
I swallow hard. Because I’ve always wanted to impress him, professionally, I mean. Okay, that's a lie. I've basically always wanted to please him in every aspect of life. Because he’s smart, detail-oriented and takes pride in things most people overlook. But now it’s different. Now it’s…loaded.
