The Intern: A Sweet Lesbian Romance Read online

  I really desperately hoped it wasn’t all in my imagination. Otherwise I was about to make an ass of myself.

  "So I was thinking…"

  Nicole held up a hand almost immediately. "Oh no. I'm going to stop you right there."

  I blinked and snorted. "What are you talking about?"

  "You're about to ask me if I want to join you at a bar or something," she said. "It's going to be really tempting because I had a lot of fun that first time out, too much fun if I’m being perfectly honest, but it's just not right for the boss to go hang out with her intern. You know that. I say the same thing every time you ask."

  A hint of frustrated exasperation crept into her voice at that last bit. I hoped she was frustrated because she really wanted to go out with me but was holding back out of a sense of obligation or professionalism or whatever the hell it was that was keeping her from enjoying herself.

  "Well you're completely wrong about that," I said.

  Nicole cocked an eyebrow and fixed me with a look that said she wasn't buying whatever I was selling. "What are you talking about?"

  "I wasn't going to see about going out and having a drink after work with the boss.”

  "But that's what you've asked every night since we started working together. Since that first night when we both had a little too much to drink."

  "Maybe that's so," I said. "But that's not what I'm asking tonight."

  "Okay then. What are you asking?"

  I took a deep breath. Here we went. Fortune favors the bold and all that. I always hated it when my dad said that growing up, but now that I was a little older I was starting to understand the sentiment behind it.

  "I was thinking I wouldn't ask my boss out for drinks after work. I figured it would be much nicer to ask a pretty girl out on a date?"

  I winced as the last bit came out as a question. I’d been taught to never let something come out as a question like that. Not when I was trying to be confident.

  Nicole blinked. "Excuse me?"

  Well, there was nothing for it but to forge ahead at this point. I'd already done the crazy thing and asked her out. What other option did I have? It's not like I was going to take something like that back!

  "I'm asking you out on a date," I said.

  "A date."

  "Yeah, you know. Two people who maybe like each other. Get to know each other a little better? That whole schtick?"

  "I know what you're talking about," she said. "I'm just a little surprised. That's the last thing I was expecting!"

  Well then. That might be the last thing she was expecting, but from the way she was getting flustered it seemed like she liked the idea. There was a blush creeping up along her chest and neck. She was embarrassed, but her mouth was open and her breathing was picking up. Yeah, I almost had her. I just had to reel her in. And hope she stayed surprised and off balance long enough to forget all that pesky professionalism.

  "It's just that I'm pretty sure there's something going on here. I’d go crazy if I didn't see where it was going."

  "But I'm your boss," she said. "That would be completely inappropriate."

  Damn it. I was losing her. I had to think fast!

  "Yeah, but it's not like it's against the rules," I said. "You're just breaking guidelines rather than actual rules."

  "How do you figure?"

  "I looked up the rules for fraternization in the workplace before I decided to ask you out.”

  I did nothing of the sort, but she didn’t have to know that. This was another lesson from dear old dad. If you didn’t have a leg to stand on then it was even more important to bullshit like you did.

  “It says of there is to be no relationship between a supervisor and their employee. The only problem with that is that I'm not technically considered an employee as far as the handbook is concerned. In the subsection where it talks about different employee levels intern is clearly listed as a separate category from actual employees. I assume they're trying to protect themselves with legalese, only in this case the legalese works out in our favor!"

  "Bullshit," Nicole said.

  "I swear it's not!" I also really hoped she didn’t check the handbook because I didn’t even know if there were separate employee classifications like that.

  Nicole bit her lip. Stared at me for a moment that felt like it was going to stretch on forever. She looked over her shoulder in the direction of Christine in her giant glass fortress of solitaire. Then back at me. She grinned.

  "I'm not sure if what you just said was bullshit or not, but I'm going to choose to believe it because I really want to say yes!"

  I blinked. Was I really in? Had it really been that easy?

  "Great!" I said. "So is there any place in particular you'd like to go?"

  Nicole shook her head. "No you don't. You're the one asking me out, so you're the one planning the date."

  I grinned right back at her. Planning a date. I liked that she was letting me take charge. Now to come up with something that would truly blow her mind!

  7: Dirty Dancing

  "A campus bar? Really? That's your idea of a good time?"

  Erica reached out and gave my hand a squeeze. It was a surprisingly intimate gesture that still felt wrong somehow. I guess there was still a part of me that was thinking about the whole boss/intern relationship. And while it was kind of hot, at the same time I couldn't help but imagine being called into the HR office and being given my walking papers because of what I was doing.

  On the bright side, it wasn't like I was likely to be spotted by anyone from the office at a campus bar in the first place. At least I hoped not.

  "Trust me Nicole. This is the place to be on a weekend. It's going to be so much better than that sad place you took me to!"

  That sad place? Most of the people who were at that bar trying to meet up with somebody were around my age. Okay, so maybe they were a little older than me. But still. Those were my people now. People grabbing a drink to maintain their sanity after a tough day at work. And that was like a personal revelation. I was really thinking of them as my people? Hell, maybe I needed to get out and remember what it was like to be young and have fun.

  "What are you talking about? The place to be on the weekend? It's only Thursday night!"

  Erica looked at me like I'd suddenly grown a second head. She searched my face, and then broke into a huge grin.

  "Come on Nicole! It's thirsty Thursday! Everybody starts partying the day before the weekend officially begins! Didn’t you ever notice how sparsely populated classes were on Fridays?"

  "I was always busy studying. I never really had time to go out or anything…"

  Erica’s face lit up and she put a hand on my shoulder. Gave me a gentle shove. "Oh my God! You're such a dork!"

  "Hey…"

  Only there was none of the malice I’d usually expect from that sort of pronouncement. If anything she made it sound endearing. Then again, I was still in that girl crush honeymoon phase where she could say just about anything and get away with it.

  "Let me guess, you were the studious hit the books type?"

  "Well yeah…"

  "Graduated at the top of your class? Valedictorian I'm guessing?"

  "Actually salutatorian. That asshole Dave Reynolds…"

  Nicole giggled. "Even better! You were in a dork competition with some guy! Was he cute?"

  Cute? I thought back to Dave Reynolds for the first time in maybe a decade. A face that had more in common with the craters of the moon than anything else. Woefully skinny, and with a personality that would make a wet blanket look like the life of the party.

  Apparently something about the look on my face told Erica all she needed to hear. She giggled again. Wrapped an arm around me and pulled me along.

  "That's so cute," she said. "We're going to have to get you to live a little, but don't get me wrong. I happen to think the whole studious geek thing is kind of sexy!"

  Damn it. Here she went from borderline insulting me to making me f
eel like I was on fire. I'd definitely never gotten that kind of thrill from someone calling me geeky or dorky before. Besides, my study habits were really the only outward sign of my supreme dorkiness. Well, that and maybe a love for shows where a spaceship and a certain strong captain featured prominently. Okay, that and a love for movies where there was a little bit of sword and sorcery involved. Whatever.

  "What about you?" I asked as we walked arm in arm through the campus village towards what looked to be a very long line of people waiting to get into a club or a bar or something.

  "What about me?" she asked, trying so hard to sound nonchalant that I'm sure she knew what was coming.

  "You can’t be telling me you're a straight C student or anything like that. You don't get an internship at our company with bad grades. Something tells me you're a little bit of a dork in hiding as well."

  "I get good grades, but I also know how to live a little."

  "Hey! I know how to live a little!"

  To my surprise Erica stopped. I took another step and then found myself being yanked back by her arm holding tight to me. I turned to her with a smile, but she suddenly looked very serious.

  "What?"

  "You spent a bunch of time studying back in school, and I'm willing to bet that a girl as smart as you didn't need to spend all that time studying."

  "Well…"

  "And now that you have a job you’re spending all your time doing your work and your boss’s work and using that as an excuse to not go out."

  "That's not an excuse!"

  Erica didn't reply. At least not in so many words. She just stared at me. Kept staring at me with a blank look on her face and finally I looked away.

  "Okay, so maybe it was a little bit of an excuse. Maybe I was a little afraid to put myself out there. Happy?"

  "As long as you can admit it!" Erica said.

  Then she was pulling me along the sidewalk once more. Dragging me, really. As though I hadn't just had a major revelation about why I was always so busy. I wasn't really busy. I was just trying to avoid something. And as I looked at her, I wondered if maybe this is exactly what I was trying to avoid. I thought back to lingering glances at girls on campus. Of a suspicion that I'd had for years, but never acknowledged because I was too afraid of what it might mean.

  Was Erica what I'd been avoiding all this time? Well, maybe not Erica specifically, but the idea that she represented. The idea that on some level I was into girls?

  I didn't have much time to think about it though what with her sweeping me along chattering on about how much fun we were about to have. She seemed like the kind of person who just enjoyed life. Who just experienced things without over thinking it too much. I could probably take a page from her.

  We reached the back of the line and I stopped, but once more I found myself being dragged along. Erica looked at me as though I'd grown a second head again.

  "What are you doing?" she asked.

  "Waiting in the back of the line?"

  "Girls who look like us don't wait in the back of the line!"

  I looked down at our outfits. We were still dressed in our work clothes. Sure we were both in something that was a little flashy, a little sexy, for work. I’d started dressing up a little more ever since Erica started working with me. I’d told myself it was because I wanted to look good if I was going to be supervising someone, but how quickly I’d said yes to a date with Erica exposed that for the fiction it was.

  Erica looked even better. I almost thought she’d dressed like that on purpose. Like she knew we were going to be going out. She wore an outfit that was just on the edge of being inappropriate for the workplace without crossing the line. I'd seen her getting a couple of glances from guys throughout the day, and now that I was looking at her with interest I realized that the irritation I felt when I saw guys looking at her was tinged with just a hint of jealousy.

  Speaking of jealousy… Erica's line about girls like us not waiting in line seemed to irritate a couple of girls who were standing near the back of said line. It looked like they were standing with their boyfriends, so it's not like they could breeze to the front of the line anyways, but still. I decided to follow Erica if for no other reason than because it suddenly seemed prudent to get out of there before a couple of those girls decided they were going to try and claw our eyes out or something.

  So we moved to the front of the line where a bouncer smiled at us and motioned for Erica to go on in.

  "Good to see you Erica!"

  The bouncer nodded to me as well. "Always good to see one of Erica's friends."

  He had a thin smile on his face. Especially when he said I was one of her “friends.” The meaning there was clear enough. Now that was interesting. Did she bring strange girls to this place often?

  We stepped through the front door and there was a chorus of people shouting out Erica's name. I suddenly had the dizzying sensation that I’d just walked into Cheers with Norm and everybody knew my name.

  The place was impressive once we got inside, for all that it looked like a hole in the wall from the outside. Then again, I didn't suppose there would be that many people waiting to get into a hole in the wall. Or maybe they would. College kids could be weird, never mind that I was only a few years removed from the whole college experience myself. The fact that I could pass for one getting into this place was a testament to that.

  "So where do we go from here Norm?"

  "What?"

  I shook my head, suddenly feeling very old even though I couldn't be more than a few years older than her. "Didn't you ever watch Nick at Nite?"

  "Not really," she said. "I was always busy having a good time. Not watching TV."

  Her eyes bored into mine and it was clear she was still on the warpath making a point about how I’d wasted a good chunk of my life so far. Not that I felt like getting into that just now.

  I shook my head. "In that case, never mind. So do we get a drink or something?"

  "Oh no," Erica said. "I've got you all to myself tonight and I'm going to make the most of it! Drinks can come later."

  And with that I found myself getting pulled towards the dance floor. As I was dragged along my eyes moved around the room I was drawn to one woman in particular. She looked odd, with blonde hair that was so fair that it was almost white. She was pretty enough, and definitely young enough that she could fit in with the college clientele that this bar catered to. Except for one oddity.

  A business suit. She wore a full on business suit. As though she'd come directly from the bar I'd taken Erica to earlier. What the hell was a woman like that doing in here? And I almost thought for a moment that her eyes brushed past me and she smiled, but of course that wasn't possible.

  That had to be my imagination. There was no way she was looking directly at me like that. And then I was on the dance floor and Erica pressed up against me and I forgot all about that strange woman standing there with that odd smile on her face. No, I was living in the moment with Erica, and what a moment it was!

  Music pumped and bodies swayed all around us, and I was treated to one hell of a case of tunnel vision as all my senses laser focused on the feeling of Erica pressing her body up against mine. Grinding against me, to be perfectly honest.

  It shocked me how she was so forward so fast, but I closed my eyes and went with it. Allowed the music to flow over me as I remembered what it was like to be young and have a good time. It'd been forever since I'd enjoyed myself. And it was so nice feeling Erica against me.

  Hell, the last time I'd gotten this close with somebody it had been a guy. Only dancing close to her, swaying back and forth to the beat, I found myself enjoying this dance far more than I'd ever enjoyed a dance with any guy. There was something about it, something about Erica, that had me drunk on the moment.

  "Come on," Erica said. "Move with the music. You need to feel it!"

  I opened my eyes and focused on Erica. I blinked. And I realized that I was kind of shuffling back and forth like one of
the lame old guys I used to see hitting the bars on campus on the rare occasions when I wasn't so busy studying that I allowed my friends to drag me out. Though I guess I was the old person in this case, to be fair.

  I wrapped my arms around Erica and pressed against her. Felt my breasts pressed against hers, and it sent a fire raging through my body. I swayed back and forth and reached down to grab her leg. Cupped her ass before I moved down and pulled her leg up. Then she was grinding against me. Something that definitely wouldn't be workplace appropriate, but I was so high on the feeling of her pressed against me, on the heat between her legs, on the rush of new sensations, new emotions, that were threatening to overwhelm me in the moment, that I didn't give a fuck if it wasn't workplace appropriate. We weren’t in the workplace. Fuck that soul-sucking place.

  All I cared about was Erica.

  "That's more like it!" Erica shouted.

  As we danced close I realized we were also getting an audience. Guys were turning and staring. A couple even got some dirty looks from the girls they were with, though it's not like I could blame them. Wasn't this supposed to be the fantasy for every guy out there? Two hot girls getting up close and personal?

  I wasn't so sure I fit the bill on the hot part, but Erica certainly did. And she also seemed to be enjoying being up against me, so who was I to second-guess her? I'd heard an old saying. When it came to dating plenty of people were going to say no. Why say no for them if they were giving you a big yes? Well, I certainly wasn't going to say no to Erica!

  A low fire kindling between my legs was starting to get more intense. She smiled at me and I felt myself caught up in the moment. I felt like I was on the verge of something incredible, and so without thinking I moved an arm around the back of her neck and pulled her in against me. Pressed my lips against hers.

  I felt the softness that was her body pressing against me even as I felt the intense passion that rolled through me as our lips made contact. As our mouths opened to one another. As I darted my tongue out to taste her for the first time, and fuck did I like what I tasted!