Author's note:
Wow, you guys are amazing! Thank you all so much for the support - I only hope part two will live up to your expectations. Again, your thoughts and suggestions are very much appreciated.
I'm thinking there will be a few more parts of this - please bear with me, I don't have much time to dedicate to writing. In fact almost all of this story was written on my phone on the way to and from work each day - so if you ever see someone furiously typing on the train, looking up nervously from time to time - you never know, it could be me!
~~~~~~~~
It was almost a week later that Ruby invited - fine, it was more like insisted - Aspen come meet her at her building for lunch. She'd gotten a new office, she told him, just six months into the job; a nice big one, though not the corner, with an amazing view he just
had
to see. "Just come up for a minute," she had told him. "Besides, I didn't get a chance to introduce you to my boss Carrie at the gala. Promise you'll come and make me look good? No jeans, darling."
That had been that. Never mind Aspen's protests that really he had a busy day, and couldn't they meet at the restaurant like they had planned? There was just no arguing.
And so that was how, come Friday around noon, Aspen found himself riding the elevator alone up to the 12th floor of her impossibly slick office building. Even the elevator was ostentatious: gold paneled, with a marble floor and mirrored sides. Aspen was faced at all angles with the sight of himself wearing his one pair of too-tight dress pants, purchased straight out of college and worn perhaps six times total since. He was wearing a button down, too, the deep blue one that Ruby always said brought out his eyes. He'd even tucked it in (though admittedly Ruby had texted to remind him to do so). All in all, he looked like a nervous wreck, he decided as he examined his reflection, brushing an unruly black lock of hair out of his face.
Truthfully, Aspen
was
a bit of a nervous wreck. Not that he'd necessarily run into
that man,
of course. Maybe he'd just been a high-rolling guest at a charity event, after all. And yet even the possibility of seeing him again had Aspen's pulse racing.
The night of the gala after he'd been dropped off had been a blur: somehow he'd gotten himself into his apartment, undressed, and into bed, though he didn't remember a moment of it. He'd woken twelve full hours later with a splitting headache and a throbbing erection.
If that night felt like it'd happened in fast forward, the rest of the week, by contrast, was excruciatingly slow. Everything took Aspen twice as long: he'd be typing out an article steadily and suddenly,
wham
, he'd be hit by the memory of the man's golden eyes locked with his, and there went his concentration. Or he'd be chopping vegetables and out of nowhere he'd start imagining what those broad shoulders would look like out of the perfectly tailored tux. He thought they'd probably look bitable. He'd left the vegetables half-chopped and hopped immediately into a ice cold shower.
He'd taken more than a few of those in the past week, because he absolutely refused to touch himself while thinking of a complete stranger--a
male
stranger at that, even if he was the most attractive human Aspen had ever seen, of either sex.
He'd been avoiding Ruby, too. It was easy enough to do; they worked nearly opposite hours during the week and Ruby lived on the other side of town. But Ruby knew his column's deadline was 9 am Friday to run in the Sunday paper, and he wouldn't get edits back until late afternoon, so the lunch date was impossible to wriggle out of. Just the thought of sitting across from Ruby in her favorite posh restaurant, listening to her tell him about her day, caused Aspen's stomach to churn with guilt.
Aspen was so lost in thought that when the elevator door dinged open on the sixth floor he walked right out - and right into a group of men in suits entering the elevator.
"Oh, sorry, wrong fl--" Aspen started. The words died on his tongue, though, because the man leading the group - the man Aspen had just knocked into - was over six feet of golden muscle. And he was grinning like the cat that caught the canary.
Aspen stepped out of the way mutely. Even if he thought he could trust his voice, he didn't think he could speak without saying something really very idiotic. Like,
who are you?
or possibly
can I take off your pants?
One of the men - Aspen thought he recognized him from Saturday's gala - pressed the button for the fifteenth floor. The others made loud jokes about some upcoming golf expedition. None of them spared Aspen a glance. The golden man wasn't facing Aspen but he could see his face in a mirrored panel, and he was watching Aspen intently while still responding to the men ribbing him for some missed shot last time they were on the greens. When the man laughed, deep and warm, Aspen felt a bolt of something red hot shoot right to his groin. He felt glued to his spot in the corner of the elevator.
It was a relief when the elevator door swung open on twelve - or it was, until Aspen heard the man tell the others, "I'll catch up with you in the conference room. I want to grab the O'Grady files from my office."
These words caused Aspen to jolt forwards. Maybe if he walked quickly enough he'd avoid any interaction and he really thought that was best given the circumstances.
Except he didn't know where he was going, with Ruby's new office. And the secretary at the front of the floor was glaring at him with a no-nonsense look. He slowed as he approached.
"Hi, can you point me towards Ruby Santiago's office, please?" Aspen asked, trying to smile at the woman. The secretary, a middle aged woman with hair pulled severely back from her face, glared at him for a moment longer before turning to her desktop without responding.
"Don't worry about it, Millie, I'm on my way back there myself and can show Aspen here the way," came from behind him.
Shit. So much for avoidance.
As Millie fell all over herself in gratitude (what
was
it about this man?), he casually put a hand on Aspen's back. He was barely touching him and yet Aspen was hyper aware of the fingertips just brushing over him, like a promise. He shuddered, hardly perceptible, but he thought he felt the man's gaze shift to him. "It's just this way, if you'll come with me."
Oh god.
Aspen didn't even want to think about the implications of that statement.
"Yeah, sure," Aspen muttered, keeping his eyes down. "Thanks."
Aspen stayed behind the man as he led him through a winding maze of cubicles toward a line of offices. Not that he was looking, but Jesus Christ that tailor deserved a medal for the way the man's pants fit his muscular ass.
Ruby,
Aspen reminded himself furiously.
You're here to see
Ruby.
He was still admonishing himself when he realized the man had come to a halt outside a closed door. Aspen just stopped himself from walking into the man, who turned around just in time to catch Aspen's arm as he stumbled slightly.
"Rather clumsy, aren't you?" The man was, again, clearly amused. Aspen flushed, feeling like more of a fool than ever.
