Page 11 of The No Repeat Policy

I’ve avoided Madison all morning.

My mind is split right down the middle. It’s weird how the same exact event can elicit such vastly different feelings all at once. Like last night. Oh my fucking God, it was amazing. I can’t stop thinking about him, Xander—it was incredible. Then in the same synapse, my mind is screaming, Fucking no you don’t, that’s a ticket straight to mental hell! Like, the fuck?

And Madison is going to want a full scene-by-scene breakdown, which she isn’t getting. So yeah. Avoidance is key until I get this under control. It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve fucked a rando and gotten a premature fifth-grade crush because they showed me some attention, but that’s the problem.

Notes of cinnamon and vanilla, conjured up by that part of my brain I wish I could shut off, eclipse the smell of coffee and leather permeating the office walls. I breathe it in, closing my eyes and letting last night play behind my lids like a movie. It isn’t the sound of his moans, or the way his hips gyrated against me, or the taste of his mouth that I experience again. No. It’s the sounds of his laugh and the smile on his face when I tickled him. It’s the way he laid next to me. Looking at those blue eyes while he opened up to me, a stranger. That’s the problem.

It’d be better if it was the way his ass felt, or what his mouth did, but it isn’t. That would be acceptable.

Wait. I have his number. I should text him. See if he’d want to come over again. Not like a date, just more fun. I mean a date could be fun too though. No! Fuck that, Kolton! What the hell are you thinking? Your rule. Remember your rule. No repeats. Ever. But… Goddammit no, Kolton! Your rule! That’s it. No!

“Hey, Kolt.”

An older gravelly voice snaps my attention from my monitor, where a series of database schemas populate the screen.

“F- Uh, hey.”

I snap to, nearly losing my job in the process from the scare. And Kolt? When did everyone decide I was Kolt?

I look up and find Gregory Newman at the door, and immediately my thoughts change. You can call me whatever you want, you’re the boss.

“Yes, sir.”

I switch it up. Sure, we’re all on a first name basis here, but I did about scream fuck at my boss. I’m also hoping he doesn’t realize I was daydreaming.

“I, uh, locked myself out.”

Gregory shrugs and grunts. “I keep forgetting my password.”

He’s laughing nervously, as if he’s the underdog here instead of the literal co-owner and COO of the company. Not to mention at least forty years my elder.

Despite all that, Again? is what I want to say, but I don’t. Instead, I shake my head and laugh for good measure. “It’s okay. Let me check your profile.”

I click a few options while he waits at the door. Why can’t he just call? Does he like running up and down stairs at sixty-something, or is it just because he’s sixty-something?

The right screen comes up and sure enough, GNEWMAN is locked out of the system for excessive login attempts. It’s one of the joys of a new system. It’s new, so no matter how easy it is, people are going to have issues. It doesn’t help, though, when you set up a new payroll system, and now instead of one single master login for everyone, each employee has their own login. It’s going to be an issue…for a while.

“Yep.”

I lean back and open another menu with his information. “You’re locked out all right. Mind if I install a password app on your desktop? It’d help, I think.”

“Is that another password to remember?”

He sweeps a hand through gray and dark brown hair and leans against my office doorframe. “No more passwords, please.”

Before I unlock him, icy blue eyes flash in my mind. Him again, lying on his side, half his face buried in one of my pillows. He smiles. I swallow and push it away.

“No. No more passwords,”

I assure him.

“Good, I’m too old to remember more shit,”

he comes back. “Hell, I can’t even remember my own damn anniversary. Don’t help I’m on my third marriage, I guess.”

It throws me off for a moment. The other chiefs, Jon and Lawrence, are always so refined and proper. Gregory, though, nah. I bet they can throw the shit too, I just haven’t seen it yet, and I’d probably have to pick my jaw up off the floor if they did.

I laugh. “Nah, I’ll make it easy.”

I omit the third marriage part and click one last option. It earns me a green success message. “You’re reset. You can try again. I’ll get you that app later today and show you how it works.”

“Thanks, Kolt,”

he says and swings past the doorframe, disappearing down the hall.

I fall back and close out the remaining screens to get back to what I was doing, but it seems that’s not my job today.

“So…”

Madison’s smooth voice trickles around the doorframe before she makes herself at home in the cushy chair opposite my desk. “How’d last night go?”

I try not to verbally sigh, but my shoulders slouch. She sees it.

“Bad?”

No! I want to yell it, but I keep my peace. Bad isn’t how I’d describe it. It was great, that’s the problem. I shrug and shake my head.

“So good?”

She leans back and man-spreads.

“Yeah,” I say.

“Why’s your face look like that then?”

Madison cocks her head to the side.

“Look like what?”

I ask. Am I seriously that obvious? To not be so fucking transparent, that’s the dream.

She imitates me, which apparently means I’m scowling. It can’t be that bad though. I roll my eyes, then check behind her to see who can see inside my office before giving her my middle digit.

“No, it went great. Too great,” I sigh.

“Too great? How does a date go too great?”

she asks, tilting her head to the other side.

“I don’t know, like…”

I stop. Date? “Who said anything about a date?”

“You took him home,”

she says. Because taking a boy home means it’s a date. Right.

“And?” I squint.

“A date then,”

she repeats.

“Not exactly.”

I grin. “You’re not one of those who thinks everyone you fuck loves you, are you?”

“Course not,”

she laughs.

“Okay, good. Had me worried for a moment,”

I say, and lean my chair back.

“Oh and remember you owe me a hundred bucks.”

She grins victoriously.

“I never agreed to the second fifty.”

I roll my eyes.

“Good, because I actually got a third guy to buy me a drink after you left.”

She sways her head in absolute pride. It’s deserved though. She’s good.

“Oh shit. But it’s still just fifty,”

I tell her.

“Whatever. Back to you. So, it was great, but that’s bad?” she asks.

Now it just sounds stupid and I feel like a fucking bitch-ass slut who’s afraid of getting hurt. Come the fuck on, Madison, don’t do this to me.

“Fine, I’m horrible. I know,”

I moan. “It—”

“Now, now, bitch, no one said you were horrible.”

Madison grins at me. “Just a little confused, it seems.”

I roll my eyes and huff.

“Maybe, a little. It’s just, you know, it—”

“Nope, wasn’t there,”

she speaks over me. I have to hold back a laugh and keep going.

“—was great. Like really great. He was amazing. Really amazing.”

I widen my eyes on that last one so she gets my meaning and try to make it less personal. The way her smile widens into a long flat line and her brows raise says she understands. She’s about to open her mouth, but I start back first.

“But…then he got even more amazing.”

It sounds stupid the moment the phrase leaves my tongue, but it’s already out there. “Like, we talked. That’s the problem. I don’t need that!”

“So he’s amazing?”

She stops for me to nod first. “But he’s too amazing?”

I squirm in my chair. It sounds stupid as hell when she puts it like that. Do I really make absolutely no fucking sense?

“Yeah.”

I lift my shoulders. It’s like I’m surrendering to a conquering army, so I change topics. I have been wondering about this anyway. “You didn’t drive home last night, did you? If a third guy bought you a drink, you definitely had too many.”

“Stop diverting,”

she demands.

“I’m not! Just worried. So?” I divert.

“If you must know, I went home with him. Oh my God his dick was huge.”

Madison’s eyes bulge.

“Name?”

I ask, suddenly very interested. She shrugs. Guess we’re not that different.

“Okay fine, it was Bradley.”

She rolls her eyes.

“Such a basic white dude name,” I laugh.

“Yeah, well basic white dude Bradley has about three inches on you and is buff as fuck,”

she comes back.

It takes me a moment to realize she’s talking about height, not dick length. She hasn’t a clue how big I am.

“Okay, okay, sorry,” I laugh.

“Back to your stupid comment though. ‘Too amazing.’ That makes no sense.”

She blinks a bunch and scratches at the back of her neck.

“No, it does. I swear.”

I throw my head back and let my chair lean to its farthest extent without flipping over. “Okay, you remember what the last guy was like.”

It’s a statement, not a question. She’s the one who practically matched us. I really need to ask her more about her night though. Once she’s done with her interrogation at least.

“Yeah.”

She strings the word out a few seconds.

“He was practically ready to move in. I think he would have, had I not cut it off. Then this guy, Xander—”

“Who’s Xander? We got a name?”

Madison interrupts.

“—he started telling me… Yeah, that’s his name. But he started telling me his troubles, and I’m just not…I’m not ready for something…”

I pause and swivel in my chair, eyes landing anywhere but on her. I want to say something real, but that would make me the worst. “I don’t know, I’m just not ready for anything.”

It wasn’t much better, but it felt better. And it’s true. I’m not ready for anything. Maybe I should be. Maybe I should have let my guard down. Shit, I almost did. Maybe I’ve had enough time to deal with all the shit in my head, to move past my ex and the fucked-up shit he did, but I don’t know. No. I don’t think I am.

“If you’re not ready, you’re not ready.”

She shrugs.

“Really?”

I squint. It’s not what I expected from her.

“I don’t know much about your past, so I’m just guessing here, but it sounds like something won’t get out of your head. Some of that…”

She peers back into the open office. Satisfied, she turns back around. “…shit can take time to bounce back from.”

Her words are truer than she knows, like some wise woman of the north or prophetess. She leans forward and lets her arms lay on the arms of her chair, and I know it’s coming. Her next words are stressed and elongated. “But you can’t stay in the past forever. No matter what the reason. You deserve better.”

“Maybe,”

I whisper, closing my eyes and letting out a deep breath.

“No, you do!”

she pops back. “Sure, we’re all just animals at the end of the day, but you’re an effing homo sapien, not just a homo.”

She pauses. I think she expects a laugh, so I hold it back and slant my eyes at her instead. Laughter rages up my throat and I’m about to break when she starts back.

“You deserve to be with someone special, Kolton.”

Madison rolls her eyes knowingly, but somehow there’s still something kind in her grin.

I shrug. I want to believe it. I really do. Part of me does, even, but it’s that smaller bit the rest pushes down into my mind’s inner recesses.

“He was sort of sweet,”

I admit, but as usual I can’t leave it there. “When he wasn’t begging to be, you know.”

If we weren’t at work I’d just say it. When he wasn’t begging to be fucked.

“You almost had it.”

Madison puts her hand up, pointer finger and thumb almost connected. “Almost.”