Page 143 of Embriagado

Hoping he’d get out of my office now, I was disappointed yet again when he invited himself to sit down in the chair across from me.

“You’re moody tonight.”

“Moody?”

“Yep.” He crossed his arms over his wide chest. “What happened? Someone forgot their name tag?”

It didn’t take one minute for him to start touching things on my desk. First a pen, then a paperweight, now⁠—

“Don’t touch that,” I snarled, snatching the stapler from his hands. As I did, I briefly got to feel the bruised skin of his knuckles, and for a quick second, I felt guilt?

“What’s even up with that, huh? Why the obsession with those name tags?” he asked, playing with the desk lamp. “I mean, it’s such a small detail. Nobody cares for it, anyway.”

“I do,” I said, putting the things he moved back in place. “And would you please stop touching everything? I don’t know where your hands have been.”

“Come on,” he laughed. “I might have jerked off the new security guy, but I washed my hands afterwards.”

My heart paused, and I quickly looked at him, only to catch the smile on his lips.

“Relax,” he joked. “I’m kidding.”

I know. And yet, the thought still bothered me.

Beyond that, even.

But not in the right mindset to reflect on that nonsense, I looked back at my computer as I began typing a whole lot of nothing. The minutes passed while he kept sitting there, and despite not looking up from the screen, I could feel his stare digging a hole in me.

“Please go somewhere else.”

“But anywhere else is so boring,” he whined like the man-child he was. “Besides, you’re here.”

I smiled at that last part, but realizing it, I quickly bit down on my lip.

“I don’t care. You’re interrupting my work.”

“So how about I go to the club?”

“No.”

“Come on.” He slumped back in the chair. “I’ll win the fight and go straight back home⁠—”

“I said, no.”

“Come on, Ari, please?”

Ari?

I was prepared to give him a piece of my mind when a phone rang. Not just a phone, but the one I used to contact Eduardo.

The familiar ringtone immediately made my muscles go stiff, and I held my breath as the phone kept ringing. And while I knew better than to keep Eduardo waiting, I couldn’t answer, not when Mr. Rivas was here, sitting right in front of me.

“You have two phones?” he asked while pointing at the other phone placed on the desk, one that clearly wasn’t ringing.

“I do.”

The phone kept ringing.

“Why?”