Sleeping With The CEO
Chapter 180: Let’s Play

Chapter 180: Let’s Play

When Derek had cracked his knuckles, Emily had known that it was game on. And then he’d had the nerve to smirk at her like she had already lost. And Emily’s inner warrior had risen to the surface. There was just no way, absolutely no way, that she would be beaten by this man.

So instead of feeling a surge of fear, she felt a surge of bloodlust. And as he had slammed his fist into his open palm, she had done the same with her own. And now they were going at it.

"Give up Emily. You are never going to win at this. I am the best there is," Derek was saying. But Emily was barely paying any attention to him. "You know Derek, for someone whom I recall wiping the floor with back in that creepy motel in that small town, you are very talkative about skills that you do not have," He quieted, and it was Emily’s turn to smirk.

Good.

Her trash talk still carried some weight.

But her victory in the verbal spar cost her a victory in the intense match of rock-paper-scissors that they were currently having.

Emily’s smirk dropped at Derek’s triumphant look. She ended up using scissors to Derek’s rock, and it was the man’s turn to smile at her from across the table. But the smile was short lived. Common sense finally shining through.

So far, Emily had won four games. And with his current victory, Derek also had four wins under his belt. It was like deja vu. They were going back to exactly what had happened, all those weeks ago back at the motel. They both knew that it would not be a pretty route. And so they quickly decided to switch to another game, being quick about it because they only had around 15 minutes left before the end of their lunch hour. But changing games, did not solve anything.

They flipped coins, they flipped forks. They spun spoons. They had staring contests, which left both of them with red eyes, trying to blink tears out of them.

Nothing was working.

How was it that whenever they tried to play games over something that they really needed, they ended up always tying together?

It was simple.

Derek was wrong and Emily was right.

So why was it that they were stuck in an eternal tug of war where they could neither move forward nor backwards? It was very frustrating and she just wanted it to be over with.

"Should we play one of those riddle games? You know, search for a riddle online and whoever guesses the answer correctly is the one who gets to pick the number of days that we sleep?" Emily asked and Derek shook his head.

"No, riddles are a double-edged sword. Either you know, or you don’t know. Imagine if you find something really complicated and I just take a wild guess and it turns out to be that I won, and then you have to agree with my terms. Won’t you feel cheated? Besides, not only that, I also want to work for my win, not to just have it handed to me," Emily scoffed. If ever there was something that Derek Haven was lacking in, it was definitely not confidence.

She was pretty sure that if asked the man would give trying to lift a truck on his own a try. That was how much faith he had in himself. The fact that in his scenario, he was the one who guessed the correct answer and left Emily in the dust, never even considering the fact that she might be able to win, was really saying a lot.

"Then that is it. I am out of ideas Derek? What do you suggest we do? Because if the two of us live like this, we will be creating yet another problem and I do not know about you, but I am done with spending weeks dancing over an issue only to figure out that the two of us could have just simply solved it. Had we sat and talked things through. So now we are going to do whatever it is that it is going to take for us to come to a conclusion that we can both live with. So what do we know so far?"

"Number one, you have sleeping problems. Number two, I have nightmares which cause my sleeping problems. Number three, whenever the two of us share a bed together, we are able to fall asleep and stay asleep through the night. Number four, we need sleep, badly. So far so good, right? Those are the things that we agree on,"

He nodded.

"And then this is the problem. Number five, we have to decide the number of days to sleep. Which we have done. We also have to decide which days of the week we are going to use as the days where we will get to sleep," He nodded. When it was mapped out like that, it made it easier for her to deal with. And so as she looked over at Derek, her annoyance at his assumption that she would just go with the days that he had picked began to lessen. And once it lessened, she could finally think straight.

"You wanted those days because weekdays are the hardest for you, right? Derek nodded and Emily, mirrored the action. Right.

"I think what is making this whole conversation so difficult is that the two of us have forgotten that we are not just each other’s cures. We are each other’s work partners as well. If there’s anybody who understands just how hard the work week is for you Derek, it is me,"

"In that, you are correct," He conceded, and Emily carried on.

"So how about this? How about instead of choosing our sleeping days based on things like how hard the days will be, and on how other people will be affected. We pick based on what we like and how we feel, rather than focusing on external factors,"

Just thinking that, made the thought of picking days sound easier for Emily. Looking over at Derek she realized that he too felt the same way.

"I have always wanted to sleep in on weekends," He said. And Emily smiled. "Me too. So how about this? Thursday, Friday and then we also take the weekend.

"Whether we spend the days on the weekend with each other, or we go out to our respective families and friends, that will be up to us. But the nights, we will be together, helping each other replenish and get all of the rest that we need,"

"Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. I like the sound of that," Derek said, and he held out a hand for her to shake. Emily took it, but when she was about to pull back, Derek held on. When she looked at him questioningly, he smiled at her.

"How about a thumb war? Just for the sake of it," He asked.