Rylan shut
the door behind him, thunked his empty water bottle on the counter, and reached
into the cupboard for a glass. He was still thirsty. “You want some?”
“What? Oh,
water. Sure,” Miller said. “Thanks.”
Rylan poured
two glasses from the pitcher in the fridge. “So. You wanted to talk.” A better host
might have asked if Miller wanted to sit down, but Rylan didn’t want them to get
comfortable. The sooner Miller left, the sooner Rylan would feel at ease.
Miller took
a sip of his water and put it on the counter. “Yeah, I did. I do. I… fuck.”
“That’s how
this whole thing started in the first place,” Rylan muttered under his breath, but
Miller must have heard him, because he snorted.
“All right,
yeah, the elephant in the room. We had sex. Twice. Three times if you count Hawaii
as two separate events.” Miller shrugged and looked at his feet for a minute before
meeting Rylan’s eyes again. “I guess I just want to know how you want to play this
since, you know, we get our team tomorrow.”
Rylan already
knew the programmers, of course, and he thought Harriet had introduced them to Miller
as well, but actually working with someone, especially in a supervisory capacity,
was different. “As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing to ‘play.’ We had sex,
after work hours, it’s not going to happen again, and it’s none of their business.
I don’t really deal with the programmers much anyway except when we’re working out
bugs.” Part of Rylan’s job once subroutines actually started being written was
“play with this until it breaks.”
Miller nodded.
“Okay, sure, that’s reasonable. I’m willing to go along with that. But I have a
counteroffer.”
Uncertain,
Rylan busied himself taking a sip of water so he wouldn’t have to reply right away.
Eventually, though, he had to say something. “A counteroffer.”
Miller rubbed
at the back of his neck. “Yeah. Look, historically, we don’t get along great, and
that’s—whatever. But it turns out you’re a lot more pleasant to work with when you’ve
had sex, and it’s not like it’s a hardship for me.”
Jerking back
in surprise, Rylan managed, “You want to keep
doing it?” The possibility had never even crossed his mind. Or, well, it had, but not as an actual viable thing.
Miller gestured
in his usual exaggerated manner. “Yes! God help me. Have you seen you?”
Great, this
was about his looks again.
Then Miller
deflated a little. “Just, you have to admit, we worked a lot better together on
Friday than we have for the past two weeks. It was just an idea. Probably a really
terrible one.”
Well, yes
and no. But mostly yes. “I don’t really do one-night stands,” Rylan confessed awkwardly.
“Gee, I never
would’ve guessed that about you.” Miller rolled his eyes. “Seriously, you’re pretty
tightly wound, that was not a difficult deduction to make.” He paused for a minute
and his body language went sort of muted. “It’s—I’m not that different, to be honest.
Part of the reason I came here was to escape a horrific crush on my boss that was
never going to go anywhere and was destroying my love life. Such as it was.”
Suddenly Rylan
remembered his rude snarl in the elevator about Miller tagging along to Hawaii to
warm someone’s bed. Not his most shining moment. “And you think casual no-strings-attached
sex with me won’t?” Should Rylan be offended?
Miller shrugged.
“I don’t even know anybody in town yet really. Nothing to get in the way of. Besides,
we’re both adults. We’re going into this with our eyes open, and we can make a pact
that either of us can end it at any time, no guilt trips and no hard feelings.
As long as nobody at work finds out….”
God, this
was a stupid idea, worse than going to bed with Miller in the first place. Maybe
worse than fucking him over his desk. Miller was not worth compromising his values
over.
Right, keep telling yourself that.
Rylan gave
up. “There are going to be a couple ground rules….”
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