Arthur spent his entire drive to work feeling positively giddy. Finally, he'd gotten Alfred's attention, and the American wanted him. The way Alfred had looked at him this morning, really looked at him for what felt like the first time in ages, made his heart race. If he hadn't had work today, he was sure Alfred would have kept him busy all morning.

He'll just have to wait 'til tonight.

Even the thought was teasing Arthur couldn't help it, he was just so relieved and excited and happy that Alfred hadn't actually lost interest in him. That he wasn't boring enough to be replaced by a blogging platform.

Oh. His blog. There was hardly any point in keeping it if he was getting what he wanted now. Should he tell his followers? He still had quite a few messages to answer, and he thought he remembered promising a picture of his other pants. He'd have to go check—his memories of last night's wine-drunk posting were hazy at best. He could go over it during his lunch break, or between manuscripts if none of them bogged him down too terribly. That was probably just wishful thinking, though.

He was still thinking about it when he got to work and parked. Should he deactivate it? What if Alfred still spent too much time on his phone, even after this morning and whatever happened tonight? Maybe he should keep it, just in case. He did rather like posting his pictures and getting messages. But he doubted Alfred would be okay with that. Then again, they'd never discussed this sort of thing before. It wasn't like the ethics and morality of a lingerie blog came up in typical conversation.

Arthur didn't even notice himself going through the motions of getting to his desk and starting to work. It wasn't until someone—he didn't actually react fast enough to see who it was—said good morning to him that he realized he was no longer sitting in his car.

He probably shouldn't be thinking about his lingerie blog while he was at work.

But as hard as he tried to put it out of his mind, he only managed to concentrate long enough to log into his PC, and his thoughts wandered back to it as he waited the few moments it took to load. Even the notifications it flashed at him—emails, calendar reminders, memos, system updates—barely managed to catch his attention. His head simply wasn't in it today.

Forcing himself to sort through his PC notifs to find the ones worth keeping and responding to felt like being dragged by his ankle. It didn't hurt, necessarily, but it felt heavy and cumbersome and took far too much effort.

If it was like this all day, Arthur wasn't going to survive. He would so much rather be at home than here, sloughing through manuscripts. A good one could easily get him through half a shift. Today, every minute was bound to be agonizingly slow.

He clicked through another email.

As Arthur struggled to be a worthwhile employee, the rest of his coworkers arrived and took up their own tasks. The idle chatter of too many small conversations to follow overlapped into the general murmur that always accompanied the first hour or so of the day. A few people said hello and good morning, but didn't stop to chat, which Arthur was grateful for. Reading emails was bad enough—trying to focus on an actual conversation sounded impossible.

I don't need anyone noticing how distracted I am and asking why.

Immediately, his thoughts went back to Alfred, the hungry look in those blue eyes, the way it felt when he played his fingers over the edge of his pants.

Oh. I'm still wearing them.

He had to roll his eyes at himself. No bloody wonder he couldn't focus. Who on earth would be able to, wearing something like these? Even he wasn't just that desperate for a good shag.

Arthur took a breath and closed his eyes, steadying himself. He could do this, he could hold it together until he got home. He had to, after the challenge he'd thrown at Alfred this morning.

"If you're good."

He wasn't even sure what he meant by that. What did he want Alfred to do? They were both going to be at work all day, it wasn't like he expected to go home to a spotless apartment and a doting, eager-to-please lover waiting for him.

Well, he could hope for the latter, but he usually beat Al home.

I could always stop and pick up a few things.

That was true. It would give him time to decide what he wanted to do when he got home, and he could pick out a mask somewhere in the meantime.

Most of him wanted to abandon his work files and open a browser to begin looking at shops nearby so he could decide where to go, but he absolutely didn't want to risk getting caught looking at that sort of thing on company time. He had a reputation, after all, and he wasn't about to cause himself trouble at work when he was finally making progress with Alfred.

One thing he knew for sure, as he squared his shoulders and dedicated himself to his work with renewed concentration, was that he wasn't letting Alfred off easy when he got home.