Overthinking
Anastasia
I can't sleep.
How can I when I was just kissed by Jake Keaton?
Not on the cheeks, not a chaste one either, but a full on kiss that made me feel things I’ve never felt before.
What is going to happen now? Now that I know what he tastes like, how good he tastes like…
Is it any wonder that the women he slept with were always reluctant to leave in the mornings? If he hadn’t pulled back, if he hadn’t stopped me . . .
Lord knows how far we would have gone by now.
Are we going to go back to what we were? Are we going to move on from the kiss?
Do I want to move on from the kiss?
I hate myself for feeling this way about my boss, especially when there is more chance than none that he doesn’t feel the same way but there is no stopping the scene from replaying over and over again in my mind’s eye.
Thankfully, Ree and Richie are not at home so I don’t have to explain why I was caught smudged between my boss and his car while we locked tongues like two teenagers on a prom night.
By the time morning rolls over, I have reached the conclusion that we need to have a conversation – Jake and I – because how else would we decide how to move on from last night?
Hence, I shoot him a text but it goes unanswered and by the time afternoon comes by and my entire texts still remains unanswered, my brain launches into self-sabotaging mode.
What if he realized that it was a mistake? I mean, it was a mistake but then . . .
What if he decides that after that kiss yesterday, workplace is going to be as awkward as hell so he is probably working on ways to fire me?
I know I’ve always bluffed about quitting but that was exactly what it was – a bluff, and hell would freeze over before I agree to work for Adam. Jake’s dislike for the man aside, Adam has a side to him I can't decipher and trust is not a strong word when it comes to the man.
My over imaginative mind goes over the choices available to me if Jake does decide to fire me. No company wanted me when I first came to New York and I don’t think that’ll change anytime soon so I either have to move in with my sister to find a job there or move back with Dan after I abandoned my life over there two years ago.
Ree and Richie comes back in time for dinner and then she makes her master chicken adobo for everyone and told me all about her day meeting Richie’s mom but I can't find enough enthusiasm to share with her because my mind is caught up in an over-thinking race.
Sunday drags on slowly with still no text from my boss and by the time I go to bed, my body is a ball of taut nerves in anticipation of meeting him the next day.
I don’t have to wait long because my phone shrills loudly by dawn on Monday morning and I grudgingly pick up the call and mutter a groggy ‘Hello’ before the voice on the other end has me sitting bolt upright.
“Anastasia.” His voice is a deep monotone.
“Yeah?”
“My place in fifteen,” he orders and I am taken aback.
“What?” I ask him, “Why?”
There is a small pause before he states, “Come do your thing.”
He is nowhere in the house.
No naked Jake with a whiskey in his hand and a smug smile on his face this time.
Only a whimpering dark haired lady on his bed gathering her clothes.
She startles when she sees me standing by the doorway.
“Who the fuck are you?”
He didn’t give me a timeframe this time around so I was able to dress in my office attire before rushing to his place and I look plain in my red corporate dress cinched at the waist with a tiny belt.
When I don’t reply the woman she asks again, “Is he fucking you too?”
“I’m his assistant,” I reply her. Jake Keaton, is twenty-seven but this lady seems to be at least five years older than him. She is attractive, dark-haired and leggy, but the person I thought I’d see next on Jake Keaton’s bed is the blonde girl I saw in his arms last week. The same girl who was with him during the charity event. Which is weird because I’ve hardly ever seen Jake with a girl more than once.
“Well, no need to call the security on me,” the lady said, throwing a rumpled gown over her head, I’m leaving.
I was wrong.
I am always wrong.
Jake Keaton is – oh god – I was just an available lips for him that night. Nothing else, nothing more. Of course our kiss didn’t mean anything to him. He went out and sought the first pussy he could find.
Jake and I didn’t have anything. There is nothing for us to talk about, that’s why my entire texts when unanswered.
Lawd, how much of a self-sabotaging idiot can I be?
The lady snaps her fingers, “You look like you’re about to cry,” she walks past me, “And I’m the one who just got dumped.”
I am late to the office because I had to give mysterious naked lady a lift downtown before driving all the way back to the headquarters and immediately I step out of the elevator doors, Shawn approaches me with a guilty look on his face.
“I’m really sorry about Friday, Anna.”
I scowl at him. I’m not exactly mad at Shawn but I’ve had a pretty shitty morning and the thought is not lost on me that if he had made it to the bar, I wouldn’t have had to go with Jake and the kiss would never have happened.
“It was a bummer that night,” Shawn explains, “my fiancée came over and we got into this really huge fight over some girl and she took my phone to read my messages and never gave it back.”
I open the door to my office and drop my bag on the desk. “It’s cool, Shawn,” I didn’t even know the dude has a fiancée, “I got home safe.”
He wiggles his brow, “I know. Barry from the boutique told me immediately I came in.”
I roll my eyes. “You fuck with rumors now?”
“I mean it isn’t a rumor if it’s the truth.”
“Have a nice day, Shawn.”
The adjoining door to mine and Jake’s office cracks open and Jake pokes a head into my office.
“My office, Anastasia,” he commands, then his gaze falls on Shawn and another layer of a frown clouds his face. “I don’t pay you to chit chat during work hours dude, beat it.”
Shawn’s head bobbles twice and he exits my office, with a “See ya,” mutter.
I exhale. I am so not ready for this now.
When I walk into his lush office, Jake is leaning against his table, his legs crossed at the ankles and his hand folded against his chest.
He is looking down at me with a hardness that I’ve come to associate with him and his mouth is pressed in a thin line.
“You’re late.”
My lips thin in annoyance. “I’m sorry I’m late Mr. Keaton. I had to go drop your lady . . . escort back before coming to work.”
He seems to mull it over. “Why didn’t you ask me to send a driver?”
“I’ve been texting you all weekend.”
His eyes harden. “I got your texts.”
I feel an embarrassed flush on my cheeks, my gaze dropping to the floor.
“Anastasia . . . what happened on Friday,” he walks up to me and tilts my chin so I am looking up at him, “what happened on Friday can never happen again.”
I step away from his fingers because suddenly there are tears stinging in the back of my eyes and I don’t want him to witness my sign of weakness.
“I got the idea this morning, Mr. Jake.”
“Anastasia…”
“I’m not that kind of woman, Mr. Jake,” I remark, looking up at him, “the women you prefer, I’m not like that. I’ve been damaged too much to be perfect.”