The Boss & The Assistant - Rewritten Edition of "The Boss"

Chapter 38 - Lafayette

Mexico was one of my favorite places to visit. It's one of the reasons why I wanted to go there first for our tour. The food was delicious. The music was beautiful. The people were kind. The country was so full of life and color. It was far and away going to be the most colorful runway out of the tour, inspired by traditional Mexican fashion. I was featuring up and coming Mexican designers and models. I wanted to uplift other artists over the world because eventually I wouldn't be with the company anymore. I had no idea when that would be, but I wanted my legacy to be beyond me.

    A few things were happening all at once. One, the first show in Mexico City was a major success. I gave my speech at the gala and received a standing ovation. It was covered in the media more than I anticipated. It apparently really resonated with people. However, I think another reason why it became "viral" was because of one of the other things that was happening at the same time.

    Em's article was published right before we departed. It blew up. His article was touching. It made me realize how much he truly knew me, more than even myself. It was revealing but not too revealing. It was a glance into my private life. I always hid away from the world, but Em made people start to like me with his article. It's not that people disliked me, but they just didn't know me. The article received thousands of reads and shares in the first week. I did not have social media, but readers found Em's social media, and this was the third thing that was happening at the same time.

    Em was capturing his travels on Instagram at the request of his sister. He only had a few hundred followers, but by the time the show in Mexico City ended he had a few thousand. Everyone was living through his social media to get more of a glance into our lives. I say our because people were also really liking Em. He was becoming popular. There were a few speculations about his relation to me, but it was public knowledge that he was my personal assistant, nothing more than that (at least, that is the appearance we gave off).

    After Mexico City, we took a stop to Cozumel, one of my favorite parts of Mexico. It's the first place I ever visited in Mexico. Sure, it was a cruise ship destination and had plenty of touristy places, but once you went back a few streets then it was a quiet, hidden gem. We rented a private beach house on the beach, farther down the island and away from the cruise ship docks that tainted the gorgeous ocean view.

    When the sun was setting, Em and I found a quiet place on the beach to sit and relax. The rest of the group had gone to a restaurant, but I wanted to stay in. The part of the beach we were on was private, hidden with a small cove surrounding us and plenty of trees. Em was telling me a story about one of the drag shows he did with Peppermint and how he got to meet Bob the Drag Queen. While he was talking, he was smiling and looking at the ocean. He looked beautiful, so I stealthily took pictures of him. I only got a few before he realized.

    "Let me see them," he said, reaching for my phone.

    I yanked the phone away. "No," I said. "They're mine."

    He scoffed. "I need to see if I look ugly in them."

    "You look great in them," I said. "I mean, one of them you have a funny face, but the rest you look fabulous."

    He squinted his eyes at me and reached for the phone again, which instigated a game of keep-away while laughing, which instigated a makeout session. This makeout session was steamier than normal. Maybe it's because I was shirtless and in my swim trunks, while Em was in his short swim shorts and a open, button-down shirt. Maybe it's because we were traveling and for some reason, traveling made people horny. I once hopped on a flight when I was only twenty and immediately felt sexual-tension with the man sitting across the aisle from me. When we had gotten off the plane, I had fucked him in his rental car. I never even got his name.