And being a true gentleman, he fixes my showerhead after we dry off.
Now I’m feeding him pancakes and sipping at my coffee, completely content with my morning sex-a-thon, the fact that Matt is sitting in my kitchen, and that we’re talking about normal things. Oh, nothing too personal, but we’re not talking about business. We found we have a mutual love affair for Criminal Minds and Family Guy, and that we are not in alignment on reality TV. I adore Big Brother and Survivor—he thinks those shows suck brain cells out of your head. I then point out that he’s not getting any smarter by watching Family Guy.
Our banter is light and easy, and it’s hard to remember that he’s my boss and I’m his subordinate. It’s even harder for me to remember that this is just sex, and our conversation is probably nothing more than the passing of time so that he can eat his breakfast.
When he finishes, he helps me with the dishes, bumping his shoulder companionably against mine. But then he says he needs to get home and take care of some things.
I wait for him to say he wants to see me tonight, but he busies himself with putting his jacket on and grabbing his briefcase. When he walks to my front door, I finally blurt, “So… what are you doing this weekend?”
God… did that sound pathetically hopeful?
Hopefully not.
He turns to look at me with a tight look on his face. “I have plans all weekend, so I’ll see you in the office on Monday.”
His words have a finality to them. He’s not going to share what those plans are and, clearly, I’m not included. A deep pang of hurt hits me in the center of my chest, but I don’t let him see it. I keep my smile bright when I tell him, “Cool. Have a great weekend, and I’ll see you Monday.”
Kissing me on the cheek, Matt says goodbye and leaves without a backward glance. He doesn’t hold me in his arms and tell me he’ll miss me.
He’s already dismissed me from his mind.
My plans may not be with Matt this weekend—again, still smarting about that—but I do have plans.
I’m in the law library at Columbia doing a huge research project on how to pierce the corporate veil for Lorraine that’s due on Monday. Yes, I almost fell asleep just thinking those words.
Boring!
I could easily do the research at the office. Matt and Bill spared no expense on the online legal research software for Connover and Crown, but I love the law library at my alma mater. There’s something about the dark cubbies and green banker’s lamps on each table, emitting their soft glow, that makes me feel smarter. Like I can absorb the yawn-inducing material better. I’m always in my research zone here.
I’ve been at it for two hours, and I think I have most of my research collected. Now I settle in to read it in detail. I make frequent trips back and forth to the copier, and let my yellow highlighter mark the passages that apply to our case, or could poke a hole in our case.
That takes another three hours, and then I’m ready to begin typing a Memorandum that will summarize all of this work into an easy, twenty-minute read for Lorraine.
Yup… pisses me off that I’ll have probably seven hours of work into a Memorandum that Lorraine will be able to read in twenty minutes and be well versed in the law. Such is the life of a lowly associate attorney fresh out of law school.