Curse the past version of me. I learned a long time ago to take more photos than I thought was strictly necessary. This time, I’ve gone way overboard. There are at least two hundred shots of him in the pool and looking at each one of them—looking hard, so I can assess the quality and the usefulness and the potential to be edited into something amazing—is quite frankly something I’d rather do with a vibrator in hand. How much time does he spend in the gym? I’m almost curious enough to get up and go ask him.

But not quite.

If I do that, I might slip up and ask him what he was thinking about at couples yoga this morning. The way his eyes raked over me was too hot for it to be a casual meeting between a boss and a social media manager, and yet...that’s all it was. A teasing, funny game. Roman would never do anything more than tease me. Would he?

He had to know it got me hot and bothered. He had to. The real question is, does he care? Would he ever?

A tension is brewing at the base of my spine, threatening to turn into a headache. It shouldn’t be that way, given that my new job takes place at a summer resort and everything here is designed to be welcoming and relaxing. The tension grows as I click through photo after photo, then transfer some of them into a separate folder for editing. From there, it’s on to Photoshop, and finally, at the end of the afternoon, I have both a headache and a batch of great photos to use on the company’s social media accounts.

The best one by far is a photo of Roman standing in the pool, looking off to the side with a half-smile on his face that makes me think of a lot of phrases involving stirring loins. It didn’t take much editing to achieve perfection.

It took me a ton of editing to achieve the illusion of perfection, and I’m feeling it today. I want to take my hair down out of the sleek style I wear it in at all times now that I’ve left my former self behind, but now isn’t the time.

I load the photo into the scheduling tool for the accounts. There’s a great tagline in there somewhere, about the Bliss brothers welcoming guests, and I’ve almost got it when my phone buzzes on the desk.

My stomach drops at the sight of Connor’s name on the screen.

Connor: How are things?

He used to ask me this with one hip leaned against the side of my desk. I can see it now, and I hate it.

Another message.

Connor: Not going too well, I hope! ;)

I know exactly what the wink is for. It’s to cover our asses. Mostly his.