Page 106 of Sliding into Love
Leon and Maddox home in on me while their boy is preoccupied. Leon asks, “Why not accept the job already? Especially if you’re qualified and everything?”
“It’s complicated. I don’t want it to seem like we’re only working together because we’re dating. And I’d hate for people to think I’m being favored.”
“Well that’s bullshit,” Maddox interjects. “You had a job at the stadium before. You owned the whole damn thing, if I remember correctly.”
“I did.”
“Then you don’t have to prove anything to anyone. You already showed you’ve got the chops to do this. All you have to do is do a good job. You’re not going to do crap work, are you?”
“I’d never!” I argue.
He smiles.
Yeah, I walked right into that. I see it now.
“In that case, it sounds like you’ve got a new employee, Royce. Stop staring at our boy before I have to be mean.”
Royce immediately turns from Jake and reaches for me. I let him tug me into an intense kiss. It’s one I’m sure he wouldn’t have given me even just a few weeks ago.
We’ve settled so deeply into our bond. Our relationship is no longer a question I don’t know the answer to. He’s all in. So am I.
There's a beat of silence before Jake laughs. "You're going to work for your partner? That's either brilliant or a complete disaster."
"That's what Kenny said," Royce observes. “But my little menace is a professional. So am I. We'd treat it like any other working relationship."
"Except you're sleeping with each other," Jake points out, which would be rude if it wasn't so obviously true.
"That's irrelevant to work," Royce says, and they say it with such conviction that I almost believe it.
The conversation switches from there, moving more into what Jake’s men are doing to prepare for the upcoming hockey season. I listen closely, despite not knowing much about thesport. It just seems polite after how invested they were in our stuff.
Later, in the car on the way home, I finally say what I've been thinking all week.
"I'm scared."
Royce glances over from the driver's seat. "Of what?"
"Of mixing things up. Of seeing you at work and having it be different. Of you having to be my boss, in a way, or having me answer to someone you work with. Of bringing work stress home and having nowhere to escape it." I run my hand through my hair. "We've built this really good thing. I don't want to fuck it up."
Royce is quiet for a long moment, navigating through traffic with practiced ease. "I understand that," they finally say. "But Kenny baby, I genuinely believe we're stable enough for this. And more than that, I miss working with you. Not as enemies. Just with you. You made things better at the stadium. You still could."
"Royce…”
"Hear me out. The reason this feels scary to you is because you're imagining worst-case scenarios where work bleeds into home life and everything falls apart. But we're not like that. We've survived worse than work stress. Compared to that, sharing an office feels manageable."
I consider this. It's not wrong. We have been through a lot. And the thing about Royce is that when they're right, they're devastatingly right. But I need to know some things first.
"What if I mess up? What if I make a professional mistake, and you can't separate that from us?"
"Then I'll be annoyed at work, and we'll have dinner at home," Royce says matter-of-factly. "People work through professional conflicts all the time, Little Menace. Icompartmentalize well enough to keep work and personal separate when I need to."
"You're very confident about this."
"I'm confident about you," Royce corrects. "About us. And frankly, I'm tired of watching you organize my kitchen like it's a form of meditation. You need to come back to work. You need the stimulation. You need purpose. And you probably need to go air out your apartment. The food in your fridge might be taking over. Will it pay rent too?”
“Oh, fuck you. That’s too much.”
They're right though. God, I hate when they're right. But they are. The past few weeks have been nice in that low-pressure way, but they've also been empty in a way I didn't want to admit. I've been coasting. I've been avoiding. And Royce calling me out on it is exactly what I needed.
