Crash Into You

by Diana Morland

  “Look, I know it’s pissing a lot of you off, but this is derby, remember? This isn’t World War I. No one’s going to die if our plans fall into enemy hands.”

  Mindy guffawed at that, and a few of the other girls snickered. Megan shook her head, but Shelly was right. Derby was competitive when they were skating, but off the track it was usually one big party. What had gotten into her?

  Oh, right. Gianna.

  Or maybe the problem was that Gianna hadn’t gotten into her. Yet.

  “So take it for the compliment it is,” Shelly continued. “And if they see our weaknesses, so what? We’re just going to make all of those weaknesses stronger. They might think they see something they can exploit, but there are no cracks in our wall.”

  “Yeah!” shouted Mindy. A couple of others laughed, but Shelly grinned at her.

  “Come on, ladies,” Shelly said. “We’re better than they are, right?” She gestured for them to cheer, and they did, albeit half-heartedly. Megan couldn’t be enthusiastic when she kept thinking about Gianna’s gloating face.

  “Hey!” Shelly shouted, using her team captain voice again. “Monstrous Regiment is the best! And we’re going to cream them on the twenty-seventh just like we did on Saturday!”

  This time the cheer was much more enthusiastic, and Megan joined in, raising her fist. That would show Gianna. It didn’t matter what she tried to do—Megan, and her team, would still be better than her.

  “All right!” Shelly clapped her hands together in front of her chest. “Let’s get back out there and show ’em what we got! Three, two one…”

  “MONSTERS!” the team shouted, and, cheering, they all skated back out onto the track to drill their hardest.

  Chapter 4

  Megan hung up the phone happily, typing the reservation into the computer system. As usual, she loved talking with customers about the trampoline park—this one had been a boy scheduling a party to follow his bar mitzvah, obviously with his mom in the background giving him advice and being told the prices. He’d been so cute and so excited about bringing his friends to the trampoline park. Megan had been thrilled to help him.

  A moment later, she winced when Karen, one of her bosses, came into the reception area. It was never a good sign when they appeared during normal business hours.

  Sure enough, Karen was frowning and staring at her phone. “Megan, what’s this invoice from Hughes and Taylor? Who are they?”

  Megan took a deep breath. How the woman didn’t know this after more than a year in the same business, with the same contractors, she had no idea. “They’re the electricians, remember?”

  Karen continued to stare at her phone, not even glancing at Megan. “What? Electricians? What work did they do for us?”

  Megan refrained from pointing out that the work was clearly spelled out in the invoice. Explaining where her bosses were completely missing something usually did not end well. “It was two weeks ago. Some of the bulbs in the black-light room needed to be replaced, and that room is pretty dangerous with insufficient light.”

  Karen shook her head, still not taking her eyes off her phone screen. “We can’t afford this. What are they charging us so much for?”

  Megan sucked her breath in through her teeth and said nothing. She didn’t keep the books—she was just a receptionist—but she was pretty sure they could afford the electricians’ fee. And if they couldn’t afford it, they should have closed down the black-light room and not hired anyone until they had enough cashflow.

  And, of course, at that moment Joe, Karen’s husband, walked in through the front door—the customer door, not the side door that he had one of two keys to—with a grocery bag over one arm and his hands spread wide. “Hey, hey! Why the long faces? We work at the best place in the world, remember?”

  Megan plastered a smile onto her face. “Hi, Joe.”

  Karen looked up, her expression unchanged. “Joe, the electricians are overcharging us again.”

  He looked over her shoulder and clucked his tongue. “Karen, honey, it’s the same as always. You worry too much. Here, have a beer.”

  He pulled a beer out of his bag—looked like it was a six-pack in there. Karen took it, her face shutting down as it always did when he criticized her. Megan looked down at her computer. This wasn’t any of her business.

  She had to look up again, though, when Joe thrust a beer over the top of her monitor. “You have one too, Megs. You look like you’re working too hard. This is a fun place.”

  “Of course it is, sir,” she said, summoning up a genuine smile as she remembered the sale she’d just made. “I just booked in a dozen kids for next Saturday night. They’re going to be thrilled.”

  Joe didn’t look thrilled—which was odd, because he was generally pretty invested in the business doing well. He leaned over the monitor, putting the beer on Megan’s desk, glancing over at Karen as she went into the back room. “Next Saturday?” he whispered. “Don’t you have a, you know, the thing?”

  Megan stared at him in confusion. She did have a derby game that night—the team had games almost every weekend this time of year—but roller derby had never once interfered with her job, and Joe had always said not to let her job get in the way of her sports prowess.

  For that matter, she wasn’t scheduled to work on Saturdays, and she never had been; Joe and Karen ran the place evenings and weekends.

  “You didn’t want me working then, did you?” she asked. “You know you have to give me more notice than that if you want me to work on a Saturday.”

  “What? Hell, no! Why would I want you working? I want everyone else out of here. Drink your beer before it gets warm.” He tapped it so it rattled on her desk.

  “I just brushed my teeth,” she lied. “You can put it in the fridge for me.”

  He didn’t seem to hear that part of the conversation, even though he was the one who had initiated it. “Did you not see my note on the calendar? You better not have screwed things up for me.”

  She could tell he was only restraining himself from shouting with the knowledge that Karen was next door, so she scrolled through the electronic calendar—the only one they used—hastily. There was no note on it. “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “What the fuck!” This time he did shout, and he grabbed her monitor in both hands and turned it to face him while she winced away. He breathed heavily while he stared at it, then said in a much calmer voice, “There isn’t anything on the thirteenth.”

  “Uh, no, sir. Nothing booked for that night yet. I just booked for the twentieth.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s all right then.” He turned her monitor back to face her, though it was now sitting crookedly. “I don’t know what happened to my note. Be sure not to book anything for the thirteenth, all right? I don’t want anything else here. Or anyone.” He winked.

  “Yes, sir. Got it.” She tapped it in. That was a close call—it probably wouldn’t be long until someone wanted to book that evening. She wished he would communicate better.

  “Not going to ask?”

  “No, sir.” She wouldn’t even look at him now. She had no intention of asking him what nefarious thing he was going to be up to in the trampoline park, and she’d rather not think about it at all. She was grateful for the knowledge that she would be in a game that night and unable to think of anything but speed and tactics.

  “Good girl. Go on, drink.” He tapped the beer again before heading into the back room.

  Megan hastily stashed the beer under her desk. She’d bring it home and drink it later—she was never one to turn down free beer, at least if it was still sealed. But she was absolutely not going to drink at work, and it would be even worse to have customers suspect she was drinking at work when she wasn’t. If Karen heard that, she would be pissed, and Megan wouldn’t exactly look like a responsible receptionist for the customers, either.

  She was turning her attention to straightening out her monitor when the door opened, the electronic
chime going off to tell her (as if she couldn’t see) that it had.

  “Welcome to Circle Bounce,” she said, then looked up.

  At first she didn’t recognize the woman sashaying with confident curves into the room—she just thought that she looked really good in her tight jeans and neat blazer that emphasized her cleavage.

  Then her gaze continued up to the woman’s face and realized that it was Gianna.

  Megan swallowed hard. What could she say? She didn’t want to talk about how she knew Gianna—and if Joe heard her acting like she knew a customer, he would be sure to come out and ask. He and Karen were just in the next room. Was the door shut? How well could they hear what was going on in the reception area?

  Maybe Gianna just wouldn’t recognize her, and she could fake it. That was pretty unlikely, considering Megan’s unusually bright hair and nose ring, but there might be a small chance.

  Gianna stopped dead in the middle of the room, staring at her.

  Okay, no chance at all.

  “Megan?” Gianna asked. “You work here?”

  Megan plastered on her customer-service smile. It was usually easier to get it to be genuine… but this was a weird situation. “Yes, I’m the receptionist. What can I do for you? Do you want to book a party?” What if Gianna was trying to book the park for Rolling in the Streets? That would be uncomfortable.

  Not to mention that fourteen derby girls—all of them powerhouses of muscle, even the short ones like Gianna—would be a bit rough on the trampolines. They were designed to be strong enough for adults, but there were still weight limits.

  “Yeah,” Gianna said, glancing around as she approached the desk. Was she nervous about who might be overhearing them, too? “I wanted to book a trip for my kids. They do have kids’ parties here, right?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Megan said, her mouth going dry. Gianna had kids? “That’s most of our business. How many?”

  Gianna leaned her palms on the edge of Megan’s desk. Was she deliberately pressing her arms to her sides to emphasize her cleavage? “They have me at twenty-nine right now, but these things tend to shift around a little. Is it okay if you say ‘about thirty’ and I give you an exact count closer to the date?”

  “What?” Megan’s hands were poised above the keyboard, but she couldn’t type anything yet—her brain was whirring, trying to make sense of what Gianna was saying. “They… shift around?”

  “Yeah, up until school actually starts, and sometimes even after that. School doesn’t start until the sixth.”

  A gear finally caught in Megan’s brain. “Oh, you’re a teacher.”

  “Yeah. Kindergarten.” Gianna laughed. “You thought I was a mom? Not yet, babe.”

  “Okay, so what date are you looking for? During the school day?”

  “Yeah. I figure we’ll need extra time, with thirty or so kids. I’ll bring chaperones, of course. Some of the parents would be thrilled to come along.”

  “We do have a rule that every three children must be accompanied by one adult, so for about thirty kids you’ll need at least ten adults. They can enter free as chaperones if they’re not going to bounce, but if you want to pay for tickets for them as well, the trampolines are open to them.” This was easier. Megan knew what she was doing now—customer service.

  “Okay, can I just put down a deposit for a date and work out the numbers later? I’m sure some of the parents will want to get on the trampolines, I just don’t know how many.” Gianna had an odd smile on her face—not the smirk or the triumphant grin that Megan had seen before, but a small, almost tender one. Maybe she was thinking about the thirty tiny faces she would be meeting about a month from now.

  “Yes, that’s absolutely fine. We do have plenty to appeal to adults—the trampolines are all rated for adult use, and we have gymnastics gear, a basketball hoop, and a newly renovated black-light room.”

  “Yeah?” Gianna’s smile had grown to a smirk now, and she was leaning over, the lapel of her blazer nearly touching Megan’s monitor. “I bet you have adult entertainment.”

  Megan smiled blandly in her face. She was not getting distracted by that expanse of cleavage. No matter how hard she had to work to avoid it. “We have a dress code, of course, and there are no alcoholic beverages permitted on the premises. Everyone can bring one sealed water bottle. It’s all laid out on our website, or I can give you a printed brochure if you’d prefer.”

  Gianna raised her eyebrows, leaning back a little. “No, that’s all right, I’ve been on the website. So what dates can you give me?”

  “September during the week is fairly wide open. What day of the week were you looking for?”

  “How about Thursday?”

  “The eighth is open.”

  Gianna sucked her teeth. “No, that’s too soon. Let’s go for October, actually. I need time for them to settle in and get to know me. Especially the parents.”

  “Sure. October sixth?”

  “That sounds perfect.”

  Gianna looked around the room again while Megan entered the information into the system. “So,” she said in a quiet voice, almost whispering, “do you like working here?”

  “Oh, I love it.” Megan grinned as she finished entering the reservation. “It’s the best place I could work. I talk to happy kids, and sometimes adults, every day.”

  Gianna snorted. “You’re lucky. I see happy kids every day, but more often than not they’re screaming, snotty, or wetting their pants.”

  “You don’t like teaching kindergarten?” Megan processed Gianna’s down payment.

  “I absolutely love it. But it’s hard. Then again, no job is perfect.”

  “That’s true,” Megan agreed. “There, you’re all entered in. All you’ll need to do is call or email to get the exact details of your reservation in, then pay the balance on the sixth when you come in. And we’ll go over the rules with you then, plus get everyone ready and show them how it works. Generally, safety gear is unnecessary, other than our provided socks, but with kids this small we let them bring their own if they want. Do you have any other questions?”

  Gianna straightened up, looking at Megan with that odd little smile again, but this time her thick eyebrows were bunched together. “Yeah, how come you’re so different at work?”

  Megan raised her eyebrows. “It’s called being professional.”

  Gianna burst out laughing. “Okay, there’s that snarky Splatwood I’ve gotten to know. And I’d like to get to know you better. How about it?”

  Megan blinked at her, confused. She had not intended her words to be funny or snarky, and now she wasn’t sure what Gianna was talking about. She was all off-balance here; her work and derby worlds had never collided before, and she didn’t like it.

  Gianna leaned forward again. This time she was definitely emphasizing her cleavage. “You and me, Megan. Getting to know each other a little better. What do you say?”

  Was she asking her out on a date? That was a terrible idea. She couldn’t—

  No, she could, Megan reminded herself. There was nothing to stop her. And why not? Gianna was incredibly hot, and the worst that would happen would be a bland, boring date. If she hated it, then she’d be able to get her mind off Gianna, then channel all her tension back into derby. And if it went well, there’d be some tension there, too.

  “Yeah, okay,” she said.

  “Great!” Gianna flashed a wide white grin that was still different from the others she’d shown Megan. How many smiles did she have?

  “What time do you get off work?”

  “Five-thirty, but—”

  “I know, you have derby practice after work today. I’ll pick you up here tomorrow, okay?”

  Megan heard noises from the back room. She nodded quickly, swallowing. She definitely did not want one of her bosses to come out and see her getting picked up by a customer. “Sounds great.”

  “Yeah, I think Friday night is perfect. Plenty of time if we need it, right?” Gianna winked, then turned slowly an
d sashayed toward the door. Megan wondered if she walked like that all the time or if she just wanted to show off. It was working.

  Just as the front door opened, so did the rear door that led to Joe and Karen’s office. Megan heard a low whistle, followed by, “Now that is an ass.”

  “Joe!” Karen shouted furiously. “You can’t say that kind of stuff to customers!”

  “Come on, Karen,” he said, turning around and shutting the door again.

  But they were shouting now, and Megan couldn’t block it out entirely. She groaned and buried her head in her hands. It was going to be a long day.

  Chapter 5

  By five-thirty on Friday, Megan was more than ready for the weekend. She wished she hadn’t agreed to let Gianna pick her up from work; she wanted time to go home, maybe wash her face and apply more interesting makeup than what she wore to work (Joe and Karen liked employing a receptionist with carrot-colored hair and a nose ring, but she didn’t want to push that too far), even have a beer so she was a little more relaxed for the date.

  But she didn’t want to change her plans at the last minute, and anyway, she didn’t have Gianna’s number. Maybe after tonight that would change.

  Megan was surprised at how nervous she was as she packed away her things and headed outside to the parking lot. She kept trying to tell herself that it didn’t matter how this date went, but her subconscious wanted to make a good impression anyway. Maybe that was just because it had been so long since she’d been on a first date.

  There were only two cars in the parking lot at the moment—Joe’s silver convertible and Karen’s blue, rectangular SUV. As Megan walked carefully toward the entrance, a little red hybrid pulled into the lot. A party was scheduled for six, but somehow Megan knew anyway that this was Gianna’s car.

  The car pulled right up next to Megan, and the passenger door opened to reveal Gianna leaning over the seat, her cleavage on spectacular display. “Hey! I didn’t mean to make you walk. I’m sorry I was late. You look super cute in that dress.”