Employing Patience

Art: When it comes to regrets, I have none. My life is perfect. I own a bar, work hard, party harder, and smother my niblings in all the love they deserve. I don’t need to settle down, as much as my sister might want me to.

But then, Joey Manning walks into my office and leaves me all but begging to give him a job, and wanting to give him so much more.

The self-professed straight man is in my head, and while I know that I need to move on from him, my body isn’t getting that message. It doesn’t help that Joey is a grade A flirt who can banter with the best of them.

I’ve never had regrets. Not until Joey Manning.

Joey: The bills keep piling up, and the pressure to get my sisters through college before we’re evicted is always on the back of my mind. Whoever said life was for living, clearly forgot that living’s expensive.

My default mode is stressed AF and working myself to the bone, and there’s only one person who gives me a break from all that.

Art de Almeida.

My boss.

The one man I shouldn’t flirt with, but I can’t seem to stop. I want to get under his skin. To leave him panting for me. Which wouldn’t be such a bad thing, except that he thinks I’m straight, and I’ve never bothered to correct him.

I need this job.

But some days, I worry that I need Art more.