Page 9 of My Forbidden Boss
I tried to look serious and stern. “I get the final say on everything, though… right? I know that just sounded like a question, but pretend that sounded super-ominous and intimidating.”
He dismissively scoffed and smiled with a look that said, ‘sure, whatever you say.’ He reached again for my scalp, and I snapped my fingers in his face, wagging a finger between us as I leaned away from his passive appeasement.
“No, no. Listen. You are not dealing with someone ignorant of what this will turn into if I don’t stop it here and now. You just spoke to my parents, remember? Do you think that I didn’t put an end to that at an early age, making it a rule that I did it all on my own unless I invited them to participate? I am not your mannequin to dress up and parade around, okay? And don’t even think about sabotaging me so that all of the cute ones take a look at me and immediately turn to you. Got it? We are not forcing the straight ones to pull the ol’ switcheroo your way because you make me look worse than blue balls. Agreed?”
His chest swelled with offense taken, as if my preposterous propositions were inhaled directly into his respiratory system. “I never…! Tisha, I would never poach… Never! Well… not unless we’re talking about the culinary kind of poaching…”
I squinted, trying to understand. Pretty quickly, I surmised that I must have misheard him, but Brandon saw my expression and was happy to clarify matter-of-factly.
“I would never actively hunt on territory claimed by a friend. I won’t poach like that, but… poach an egg? … slow-cooking a big sack of balls in my mouth? Yeah, I’m going to gargle that teabag with more enthusiasm than a British whore with an oral fixation bordering on OCD. Don’t expect an apology, either.”
At that moment, it wasn’t even on my radar to anticipate the casual appearance of yet another sexual reference, let alone one with imagery vivid enough to reminisce a taste on my tongue. I gasped with my mouth twisted somewhere in the middle of being horrified, impressed, aroused, and embarrassed, all at the same time.
Brandon simply shrugged. “They say, ‘all is fair’ here, but… I promise no betrayal, bitching, or backstabbing. Not unless I saw him first.”
I slapped him on the arm, but Brandon just kept smiling. He even dropped another knowing wink, letting it fall like a friendly gauntlet between us.
He waved away the moment with a flurry of finality.
“Enough with the terms and conditions. I agree, alright?! Can I finger your follicles now? Oh, wipe that look off your face. I know it sounded weird. Don’t worry, you aren’t my type, lady. Okay, let’s see what we have to work with here. I’ve been dying to get my hands on your hair since I first saw you moving in. I should be given a medal for restraining myself this long. I was trying to be respectful… it’s all about consent, you know?”
I laughed and bowed my head obediently. “We’re going to need wine!”
Brandon nodded with a seriousness only previously observed accompanying the reading of a jury’s verdict. “Absolutely, Tisha. That goes without saying, but first, we must attend to business. Trust me, by the time we have you all ready to go, we will both be breezy, beautiful, and born again, ready to bash our way into that restaurant and beat the boys off with a stick… preferably mine.”
I giggled, and, feeling at home in a house I barely knew, we began.
Hollis
“What’s wrong, Dad?”
“Oh… Nothing, Hollis. I’m fine.”
“Dad, come on. You aren’t fooling anyone, least of all me. I’ll be thirty years old pretty soon. That’s a long time getting to know somebody. I can tell when something is up with you.”
My father, immaculately dressed in the suave suit that Ryan and I helped him pick out a few days prior, hung his head and looked at me sideways as if subconsciously trying to hide from everyone else filing into the restaurant.
“I just… I just wish that your mother had made it a little longer. I just want so badly for her to see this. Your brother and Harley… After all this time, it’s finally happening. They’re getting married. When she passed…”
His voice shook as he sighed and briefly closed his eyes.
“… she was already gone before they even found each other again. I know how much she would’ve just glowed, seeing it happen. I can see her in my mind, but the image is constantly fading yet still being drawn, so I can’t see it clearly. Pretty soon, all of you boys will have families of your own and… I just feel alone without her here to see it. I keep asking myself why it had to be this way. I know there isn’t an answer, but she and I started this whole thing together, this family. It was just her and I for so long, then all those years when you boys were still young… It was still her and I, together, trying to lead the way. It’s so strange not to be sharing it here with her as it all starts to end. I know it’s beginning again, with you boys leading the way yourselves, but still.”
I reached over and clasped his shoulder, wary of my father’s vulnerability and feeling a lot of the same emotions rolling off of him.
“Easy, Pops, this is just the rehearsal. Joe’s taking care of the speech after dinner, so don’t go getting all emotional just yet. Save it for the big day tomorrow.”
He nodded, but I could see from a quiver in his cheeks that Dad’s teeth were clenched behind his solemn frown. He caught me looking and made an effort to smile reassuringly, but it only highlighted the pain that was clearly holding him down. My own features must have conveyed my observation. He answered my concerned expression with a slap on my side and a quick smile, one much more convincing than previous. It was probably propped up by a genuine amusement that I would actually have the audacity to feel anxious for his sake.
“Oh, don’t worry about your old man, Hollis. I will be alright. Don’t tell me that you still doubt, after all those years, that I can handle pretty much anything. It may not always be the prettiest… but I always get the job done.”
I shook my head, then found myself nodding in agreement as he rightly suggested the overall proficiency in his abilities.
He looked back toward the room and kept talking, steering the subject to a stage more comfortable for him without me even realizing it.
“I will admit, I am glad that I won’t have to say anything. Joe seems like he was born for it anyway. Did you hear what Ryan said about it earlier? He said, ‘Most parents give their kid a rattle and a pacifier after coming home from the hospital… but Joe came out of the womb with a microphone already in hand and with it, he never needed either of the others.’ Doesn’t that sound just about right? Ryan said, ‘Hell, before the doctors could even hand him over and tell his momma that it was a baby boy, Joe was probably tapping the mic… performing his first sound check and getting ready to go to work using his charisma on the nurses.’”
I smiled and laughed. “Yep, I believe it. That sounds to me like nothing other than just an honest accounting… practically a play-by-play. Anything less than that just wouldn’t capture him the same way. That man was born to entertain.”