Read Online The Hating Game by Sally Thorne - Free Book Online Page A

the friction of the tiny fishnet diamonds between my thighs as I walk toward our desks. I’m pretty much wearing a swimsuit.
    I watch his eyes drop to his planner, dark lashes making a half-moon shadow on his cheeks. He looks young, until he looks up and his eyes are a man’s, speculative and hard. My ankle wobbles.
    â€œWowsers,” he drawls, and I watch his pencil make some kind of mark. “Got a hot date, Shortcake?”
    â€œYes,” I lie automatically and he puts the pencil behind his ear, cynical.
    â€œDo tell.”
    I try to perch my butt nonchalantly on the edge of my desk. The glass is cold against the backs of my thighs. It’s a dreadful mistake but I can’t stand back up now, I’ll look like an idiot. We both stare at my legs.
    I look down at my bright red heels and I can see faintly up my own dress, the tiles are polished so bright. I let my hair fall across my eye. If I focus on this stupid dress, I can forget how my brain wants him to lick me, bite me, undress me.
    â€œWhat’s up?” For once his voice sounds normal. “What’s happened?”
    I pick vaguely at an irregular diamond on my thigh. The dream is surely written all over my face. My cheeks are getting warm. He’s wearing the cream shirt, soft and silky as the sheets inmy dream. My subconscious is a deviant. I try to make eye contact but chicken out and manage to saunter around to my chair. I wish I could saunter out of here, all the way home.
    â€œHey.” He says it more sharply. “What’s up? Tell me.”
    â€œI had a . . . dream.” I say it like someone might say, Grandma’s dead. I sit down in my chair, pressing my knees together until the bones grind.
    â€œDescribe this dream.” He has the pencil in his hand again and I am like a terrier watching the motion of a knife and fork. We start playing Word Tennis. Whoever can’t think of a reply first loses.
    â€œYour face has gone all red. All the way down your neck.”
    â€œQuit looking at me.” He’s correct, of course. This mirror-ball office confirms it.
    â€œCan’t. You’re right in my line of vision.”
    â€œWell, try.”
    â€œIt’s not often I see such an interesting choice of thigh-revealing attire in the workplace. In the HR manual for appropriate business attire—”
    â€œYou can’t take your eyes off my thighs long enough to consult the manual.” It’s true. He looks at the floor but after a second the red sniper-dot from his eyes recommences at my ankle bone and slides up.
    â€œI have it memorized.”
    â€œThen you’ll know that thighs are not an appropriate topic of conversation. If I get my polyester sack dress I guess you’ll be kissing them good-bye.”
    â€œI look forward to it. Getting the promotion, I mean. Not your thighs— Never mind.”
    â€œDream on, pervert.” I type in my password. The previous one expired. Now it’s DIE-JOSH-DIE! “It’s my job, not yours.”
    â€œSo who’s your date with?”
    â€œA guy.” I’ll find one between now and the end of the workday. I’ll hire a guy if I have to. I’ll call a modeling agency and ask for the catch of the day. He’ll pick me up in a limo out front of B&G and Joshua will have egg on his face.
    â€œWhat time is your date?”
    â€œSeven,” I hazard.
    â€œWhat location is your date?” He slowly makes a pencil mark. An X? A slash? I can’t tell.
    â€œYou’re very interested; why is that?”
    â€œStudies have shown that if managers feign interest in their employees’ personal lives it increases their morale and makes them feel valued. I’m getting the practice in, before I’m your boss.” His professional spiel is contradicted by the weird intensity in his eyes. He’s truly captivated by all of this.
    I give him my best withering look. “I’m meeting him