Like a Boss (Accidentally Viral)

by Anne Harper

  “That was Betty. She owns the clubhouse and is a scary but good woman. She’s also Keith’s mother! Dude is so screwed now!”

  …

  Nell knew that Quinn didn’t go back to Heart in Hand for the rest of the day even before Tally and Jones came by after work to tell her so. Mainly because his SUV was still parked in her driveway.

  And the bag filled with goodies meant for her was still on the stool where she’d placed it after snooping.

  “He told me that he was taking a half day but to call if we needed him,” Tally said, eyeballing the rental in the driveway. “I didn’t ask why, though.”

  “We all know it’s because of him punching Keith. I’d take a half day just to celebrate, too,” Jones added with approval.

  Keith getting punched wasn’t news to Nell. Her brother had texted her earlier with a vague “your problem is taken care of” and then a bunch of fist emojis. Shortly after that the article and picture of her was taken down from Keith’s site.

  But hearing that Quinn had been the one to land the punch? That was surprising.

  “I say we go down to Cassidy’s Place and celebrate with him,” Nell decided. “Or, at least save him from Mateo. We all know how much he drinks when he’s excited.”

  There was no resistance. Even though going to the bar after work to celebrate their boss punching a scumbag in Nell’s honor wasn’t exactly on even their scale of normal.

  Cassidy’s Place was the only bar within the town limits. Not that it would have mattered if there had been another option. If there was an upside to everyone knowing everyone in their small town, it was that that zeal translated into long memories and loyalty. Still, like all family-owned businesses, Cassidy’s Place had experienced a lull for a bit where loyalty had been paused for an out-of-town option. However, thanks to a wild set of circumstances, the locals had come back with money to spend and apologies to give out. That, in no small part, was thanks to one of the bartenders and his now wife.

  Nell felt a bit let down at the fact that neither were in the rustic-as-hell main room when she, Tally, and Jones finally made it inside. Mostly because Brady, the man in question, used to be of the grumpier variety, aka Quinn’s cup of tea, before his lady, Sloane, turned that frown, mostly, upside down. Maybe that positivity could rub off on the buttoned-up Quinn. After half a day with Mateo, he was probably begging for a way to go home.

  At least that’s what Nell was thinking until she spotted what must have been the most popular table at Cassidy’s. As soon as her gaze swept over its patrons, they burst into laughter. Considering there were six people squeezed around the table, it was a booming sound. Out of that cacophony of noise, a particularly familiar one caught her attention.

  Quinn’s ears must have been burning. He turned, smile still forming around the tail of laughter, and met Nell’s gaze like she had called out to him.

  Her eyebrow arched as she noted how relaxed he seemed. Hand around a beer and set up between Mateo and, Nell realized belatedly, her older brother Leon.

  Mateo followed Quinn’s new attention to Nell and Co. before she could move an inch. He jumped up, arms spreading wide, and yelled out.

  “Sister!”

  Nell decided to gauge how much Mateo had already had to drink by waiting for him to come to her. Judging by the twirl and almost-dance, he definitely wasn’t on the sober side.

  “Nelly-poo, how are you?”

  Leon was the tallest Bennett child followed by his twin Liere. Mateo rated on the shorter side and, to overcompensate for his height, when he went in for a hug it was more like a slow-motion tackle.

  The only reason Nell didn’t fall when he threw his arms around her was because Tally knew the drill. She put her shoulder against her for a quick brace.

  “Hey there, bud. Drink the bar out of product?”

  Mateo planted a kiss on her cheek and pulled away with a laugh.

  “It’s fishing day and I tell you what, I don’t let that go by without some proper hydration!” His laugh turned into a grin to beat all grins and he lowered his voice. Or, at least, he attempted to lower his voice. Instead he was doing the whole not-sneaky, drunk non-whispering whispering. “Did you hear that Keith took the post and picture down? Do you know why?” He flung his arm back and pointed at the table he’d just left. Quinn was watching them but so was Leon. He stood from the table and started toward them. “Your boss over there whacked him good. And then—are you listening? Are you listening, Nell?—then he got him in trouble with his mom!”

  Mateo laughed again, this time without the hope of coming back for any more details. Which she definitely wanted.

  “And now that we’ve seen Nell, we’re going to head home and drink some water, huh?” Leon entered the conversation like he’d always been in it. He was smooth like that, which was in line with his goals of eventually running Arbor Bay. He put his arm around Mateo, but not before leaning down to give Nell a kiss on her cheek. “Next time you’re not answering your calls or texts, I guess I’ll just have to storm over to your house and kidnap your boss to help out instead.”

  He said it with a smile, but Nell sighed.

  “Or, next time, I’ll just answer my calls. Sorry.”

  Leon, the second oldest Bennett child, had never really had as much in common with Nell as he did Liere, his twin, or Mateo, but that had never stopped him from worrying about her like she was the baby of the family instead of the drunk fool under his arm. It bothered her, sure. But it also made her heart warm. He cared. That was always nice, even if it was also annoying at times.

  “It’s all good now. You apparently already had a pretty effective response team.” He nodded back toward the table he’d just left. “He’s quiet, but I like him. From what I heard, he convinced a room full of locals and Betty to side against Keith. Not the easiest thing to do when it comes to Keith’s work.”

  Nell had to agree with that. Betty usually wasn’t vocal about her son’s “journalism,” but Nell imagined that the unhappy patrons at the club might have swayed the older woman to say something this time.

  “All right, say bye to Nell, Tally, and Jones,” Leon said with a slap to Mateo’s back. “Then we’re clearing out your tab and heading home.”

  Mateo was loud as he said bye but listened to his older brother. Tally and Jones went with them to the bar to order some drinks, but Nell veered off to the middle of the room. Quinn was already pushing back his chair to stand.

  Nell grinned. She looked at his half-drunk beer.

  “So are you as warm and toasty as my brother? Do I need to pat you on the back and shuffle you out of here before you get too sloppy?”

  Quinn snorted. He shook his head.

  “This is only my second drink. Since three o’clock. When we got here.” A small smile let her know that he hadn’t minded the journey. “Mateo explained that today was supposed to be his fishing day which, if I’m not wrong on this, was just an excuse for him to drink on a boat all day?”

  “You are not wrong on that.”

  “Well, I didn’t want him to miss out on that because of someone like Keith, so I decided it might be best to keep an eye on him for a bit.” He shrugged. “Plus, he wouldn’t stop talking so, even if I wanted to, I don’t know if I could have escaped.”

  Nell snorted. A real snort. One that would have had her in a dark red blush had it happened in high school.

  “That’s us Bennett kids,” she said. “We’re talkers.”

  The rest of the table started to stand to leave. Nell answered their greetings and comments about Keith and the man standing next to her. They also gave Quinn shouts of goodbye and see-you-next-times.

  He returned them all a lot warmer than Nell had expected. When they were alone, Nell couldn’t help but tease her boss.

  “Watch out there, Mr. Hannigan. One might think you were trying to be friendly.”


  He smirked. “I don’t know about that.”

  Tally and Jones swooped in before they could get down to brass tacks about what had actually happened. They had four drinks. Tally handed one to Nell and Jones gave his extra to Quinn.

  “To the Keith-slayer,” Jones said sagely.

  “To the defender of Arbor Bay women,” Tally added.

  Quinn took the drink but was already tensing up.

  “Listen, it wasn’t that—”

  Nell grabbed his elbow. He stopped mid-sentence.

  “Since we’ve yet to hear what happened from outside of the gossip mill, why don’t you tell us?” She smiled. “We’ll call it our first unofficial, official employee meeting. What do you say?”

  She hadn’t known the man long at all, but Nell could see there were a lot of things he wanted to say, probably most of them him declining. Yet he gave her a look that was almost akin to defeat and nodded.

  Tally and Jones led the charge to a booth in the corner. Quinn held back long enough so only Nell heard him speak again.

  “This shouldn’t take long, and then I’ll grab a cab over to your house to get my car. Deal?”

  Nell nodded.

  Then she did something she hadn’t planned on doing. She lied a little and then pried a little.

  Story of her life lately, right there.

  “I’ll ride back with you. Your bag is still in my house. You know, the bag that fell over and chocolate and a card fell out of it.”

  Quinn stiffened. He cleared his throat and tried to act smooth. She lowered her voice, trying not to laugh.

  “Quinn Hannigan, were you bringing me chocolates and a card to help me feel better?”

  They both knew what the answer was. Still, Nell didn’t let him confirm.

  “Uh-oh, it’s true then!”

  His eyebrow skyrocketed. “What is?”

  She took a step closer, crooked her finger toward him so he’d lean over, and, when he did, sang into his ear. Badly and off-key.

  “You like me, Mr. Hannigan. You wanna be my frieeeeend.”

  Nell let her laughter fly as she stepped out of their whisper bubble. She did a little dance, going backward to their booth, to add to her teasing.

  She was in a good mood.

  And the man staring at her was the reason for it.

  He sighed.

  Nell’s breath caught in anticipation.

  Then he started toward her.

  “One drink.”

  Chapter Seven

  Quinn was a man of his word. He only had the one drink.

  It just happened to last two hours.

  Then he called a cab, like he said he would, only to have the phone taken from him with a sea of headshaking from his employees.

  “I never drink much,” Tally said as Jones spoke to whoever answered at the cab company. “I can take everyone back from where I got ’em.”

  Quinn thought about complaining—the last time he got into a car with someone not charging fare he’d punched a man and then found himself at a bar for nearly five hours in total—but then he caught Nell looking at him. A barely there smile, as if she knew what he was thinking.

  He was a man of his word and he was also a man who hated being pegged.

  So he accepted the ride and sat with Jones in the back seat while Nell and Tally went from talking about a man named Brady and his wife Sloane to gossip they’d heard about someone other than Donavon and his family who was sitting rich in Arbor Bay.

  “I really hope going to that debutant pageant last month helps our case,” she said to Tally in parting when they were parked outside of Nell’s. “I’ll see if I can’t find out what she’s doing this weekend, though.”

  Tally nodded, then she and Jones were off.

  The night air wasn’t cold at all, but Quinn still stuffed his hands into his pockets like there was a chill. It felt oddly like a nervous tick.

  Not that there was any reason to be nervous around Nell.

  “So, helluva day, huh?” He heard the grin in her words before he saw it.

  Quinn shrugged. “Someone told me I needed to learn how to operate in a small town. Just taking that advice.”

  She fished out her keys and unlocked the front door.

  “I have to give you a big ole A for effort on that front. People’ll be talking about you and Keith for a good while.” She walked inside and kept talking like it was normal that he was there.

  Quinn stalled in the foyer. He’d gone above and beyond what Professional Life Quinn should have already. Now the feeling he had standing there in Nell’s house, late at night, and joking with the woman? That was a glaring red line with billboards on either side pointing to it.

  She was right.

  Small towns had a way of talking. There was no way that what had happened wasn’t going to get back to Donavon.

  Plus, their shared kiss at the restaurant had shown Quinn that self-control was hard around Nell. If they stumbled onto a repeat of that performance?

  Who knew if he’d stop himself?

  Stay away, buck-o. Get into your car and go.

  “What Keith was doing wasn’t right,” he said, a bit louder than he’d intended. “I would have defended anyone against that scum.”

  Nell turned with an eyebrow raised. “Ah, yeah, well, that’s nice, I suppose. Handy even.” Quinn decided it was his imagination that her words were clipped. When she was back in front of him with his bag, her shoulders seemed tense. “And here is your bag. See you at work tomorrow. Sorry about all the madness.”

  “It was no problem.” Quinn couldn’t help but feel like he’d offended her. Just like he had when he’d said no to the picture Timmy the host had offered them. Yet he didn’t know how to make it better, so he said good night.

  On the way home, he ate a chocolate bar he’d gotten for himself when he’d bought Nell’s goodies and, once he’d made it into his bed, he finally circled in on a question he shouldn’t want to ask but couldn’t help but wonder about.

  Did she really buy that bra just for herself?

  …

  Thursday went by at Heart in Hand as if Wednesday had never happened. Quinn kept his distance and Nell decided to honor that distance. It wasn’t her job to make her boss feel included. If he didn’t want to act like they were friends, then she could keep just being friendly. It seemed to be his preferred way to run things and, well, that wasn’t exactly a bad thing. Her former boss had blurred the line between what was appropriate and what wasn’t in terms of the workplace. Maybe it was a good thing that Quinn was sticking to his guns.

  Not that being friends with Quinn would mean she’d run the risk of riding off into the distance with him, hand in hand.

  She just, well, wanted to repay him, she decided. He’d been nice to her in the restaurant and had defended her after the bra scandal of the year.

  Just cool your jets there, Nelly-dog. You’re done with men. Done fussing over them, done wondering every second what they’re thinking. You don’t owe anyone anything.

  But then Friday came and everything went sideways.

  Gossip had been falling like rain across town since what had happened with Keith. Now it seemed to have covered every inch of Arbor Bay. Among the many who had become soaked from the game of telephone-like retellings of the story of Quinn versus Keith was a man who owned a shiny old sports car. A Ferrari 250 GTO in cherry red.

  Like knowing the exact make and model of the car thanks to her brothers becoming obsessed with it, Nell knew the owner.

  And she knew seeing that car parked outside of Heart in Hand that Friday morning wasn’t going to be a good start to her day.

  Nell smoothed the nonexistent wrinkles from her slacks, patted her curls, and walked with her chin up and shoulders back into the office. The smell of fancier coffee than they ha
d in the kitchen hit her before she saw the coffee tote sitting on Tally’s desk. The worried look of the woman next to it hit her second. Neither got a chance to say a word before a face she rarely saw stepped into view.

  Donavon Robertson was nothing but charming with his smile and hello.

  “Right on time, Miss Bennett! Wonderful!” He reached out and took her hands in both of his and shook. “I was just waiting for you before I went in to see Quinn. Why don’t you join me?”

  Nell wasn’t as quick with a response as she would have normally been. There was just something about a Robertson that made a person a little tongue-tied, in her opinion. Maybe it was the designer clothes, always pristine and seldom worn more than a handful of times, or maybe it was the attitude beneath the clothes. Confidence was in no short supply with the wealthiest family in Arbor Bay. Nell’s brother Leon had once joked that if you threw a Robertson into the bay with nothing but their sheer will to be the best, they’d find a way to come back to land with a yacht constructed of pure gold and ten stories about how they persevered to make it.

  Whatever it was, Nell gave a nod instead of a “yes” and followed the big boss. For a moment she felt like she was being seen to the principal’s office at some kind of private school. She found herself adjusting her blouse as they went inside.

  “Ah, we’re ready then?” Donavon nodded to Quinn, who was already standing by his desk. He didn’t seem surprised to see the big boss, but he also was hard to read. Buttoned-up. Stiff.

  Not at all the guy who she’d had drinks with the night before.

  Donavon took a seat in Quinn’s chair while he and Nell sat opposite. They shared a look between them and then both kept their eyes fastened on the older man.

  He leaned forward and steepled his hands on top of the desk. Given his golfer’s attire and perfectly groomed silver hair and beard, it felt less like a private school principal staring at them and more like a private school student’s parent. One who’d had to cut their vacation time short to deal with an unruly child.

  It wasn’t an encouraging sight.

  “I don’t want to up and waste anyone’s time here, so I’m going to get to the nuts and bolts of this conversation.” Donavon smiled widely; then that smile went away. “I have spent my adulthood creating, investing, and watching several businesses grow, fail, and everything in between. Other than watch my wife argue about my lack of attention when it comes to the right cutlery to eat salad with, it’s one of my favorite things to do. That said—” He narrowed his eyes and gave them both a look. “Never have I had so much drama happen in one place!”