by Suzie Quint
Her mother laughed at her verbal gymnastics. “All right. Have I told you lately that you are the bright light in my universe?”
“Yes, I know.” Sometimes her mother was the black hole in Cleo’s.
“So let me know when you’ve made it to the bank. And then go jump that hunky reporter’s bones.”
“He’s not―” A reporter? Hunky? Cleo wasn’t sure what she’d been going to deny, but she caught herself. She didn’t want to feed his ego by letting him know he’d come up again.
Her mother was still laughing when she hung up.
~***~
They worked for an hour before Cleo said, “I know it’s early to quit, especially since it’s my first day, but I have an errand to run, so if you don’t mind, let’s knock off early.”
“Sure,” Alec shrugged. “You’re on salary. As long as you produce and make the weekly meeting, Nigel doesn’t care what kind of hours you put in.”
“Great.” She tidied the stack of tabloids they’d been reviewing. “Then if you’ll take me to get my car―”
“Or we could swing by your bank on the way.”
“The bank?” She looked blankly at him. He’d known all along?
“Don’t look so shocked. It wasn’t that tough to figure out. Annaliese has money problems. Big enough problems that your rich, jet-setting boyfriend dumped you when you asked him for a loan. You got a fat signing bonus this morning, but you haven’t been near a bank yet to deposit it. How’m I doing so far? Have I missed anything?”
Cleo realized her jaw had sagged open. She snapped it closed and glared at him. “Nothing significant.” Except that Annaliese was her mother, a minor detail about which she wasn’t going to enlighten him. Dammit. She clenched her jaw to keep from swearing out loud. He was a better investigative reporter than she’d given him credit for. What had her mother said to him on the phone?
She grabbed her bag, carrot safely tucked inside, and went with Alec to pick up her car. Then she could deposit the carrot and phone her mother to let her know the money was there, after which, she planned to come home and have a good cry over everything this debacle had cost her.
Things almost went according to plan. The hitch came when she deposited the carrot into her mother’s account half an hour before the bank closed.
Her fingers refused to release the check. The well-dressed, fresh-scrubbed-looking young man behind the counter had to tug it firmly from her grasp. She could practically see the coffin lid dropping down, cutting off the light. Cutting off the air. Her promising career was a little more dead.
“There’ll be a forty-eight-hour hold on the funds.” The young man blinked at her in that peculiar way people with contact lenses sometimes did.
“Forty-eight hours?” she echoed wistfully. It wasn’t a real reprieve. Just another way to torment her. And Annaliese needed the money. She squared up and faced her fate, determined to go to the guillotine bravely. “But this isn’t a personal check. And it’s drawn on this bank. Why―”
“Sorry. That’s policy.” He blinked at her. “Any check over a thousand dollars―”
“That’s ridiculous.” She glared at him.
He tensed, blinking three times in rapid succession.
She compressed her lips. Taking it out on him wouldn’t fix anything. He was a peon just as she was. She took a deep breath and expelled it. “Okay. You didn’t make the policy.” She met his gaze. Another blink. “Did you?”
He shook his head.
“You’re sure there’s no way I can get the money released sooner?”
“Sorry.”
Forty-eight hours.
Damn.
That put them into the weekend. It would be Monday before Annaliese could get the money. Hell, Cleo could drive the check there faster. But then they’d still want to hold it for forty-eight hours. The damn banks always wanted to play for free on your dime.
“I guess I have no choice.” The delay would cost them a little extra interest, but it wouldn’t kill anyone.
“Sorry,” the teller said again.
Annaliese took the news surprisingly well when Cleo called her from her car. “You did the best you could.”
Cleo cringed. She hadn’t done her best. She could have gotten to the bank earlier, and then maybe Annaliese could have talked the bank there into bending the rules. She was good at that sort of thing.
“And it’s okay,” Annaliese said.
“But the interest―” Cleo said. Usury rates on personal loans in Vegas tended to be exorbitant.
“Don’t worry about the interest. Sebastian―”
When Annaliese bit off whatever she’d been going to say, Cleo thought she might have gone momentarily deaf. Annaliese never censored herself. She was the most painfully open person Cleo knew.
“Sebastian what?” Cleo asked.
“Nothing.”
Alarm bells rang in Cleo’s head. Her mother was hiding something. The concept was so alien, so completely out of character, Cleo didn’t even know how to question her about it.
Yeah, some investigative reporter you are. She covered her eyes with one hand as if that would clear her mental confusion. After a moment of uncomfortable silence on the line, she decided she didn’t even want to know what Annaliese didn’t feel she could share.
“Well, that’s nice,” she said, apropos of nothing. “The money will be there Monday.” She was repeating herself now, but that was nothing new. It seemed she’d been doing that her whole life. Someday, maybe her mother would hear her.
Chapter 6
The next day was Friday, and before it was over, Cleo decided they’d have to boil her in oil before she’d admit to ever seeing anything remotely attractive about Alec.
The man she’d seen glimpses of at the park and in her apartment, the man who had opinions and values she could respect, evaporated the moment he walked into the office. She hadn’t spent enough of her first day there to really grasp what kind of environment it was, but before her morning coffee break on the second day, she saw up close and personal how bad it could be.
Because of the Marge fiasco, the plans for her and Alec had changed. Instead of putting them in the middle of the newsroom, management decreed they’d be better off in a private office. Nigel didn’t come right out and say “away from Marge and Linny,” but she heard it in her head anyway.
Since she didn’t have anything to do yet, except to let Alec teach her to write in The Word’s style, she had no excuse not to help him move his things.
She tossed his hula-girl bobblehead into the box on his desk.
“Hey!” Alec picked it out of the box. “Be careful. You’ll break her.” When he straightened the grass skirt and lei, she realized those were add-ons.
“That bobblehead’s disgusting. I didn’t think they made them naked.”
“She’s a custom bobblehead. One of a kind.” He laid it gently back in the box.
Cleo rolled her eyes.
“She was a birthday present from the guys”—he rearranged the contents of the box to cushion her—“and Linny dressed her.”
“Oh. Well, then. That makes it okay for you to be a sexist pig.”
When he looked up, she flashed her biggest fake smile. His hands, so busy moments before, froze, and his eyes widened.
She glanced over her shoulder to see what had caught his attention, but nothing in the bullpen appeared abnormal. “What?” When she turned back, he’d shaken off whatever it was.
“Because I like naked women, I’m a sexist pig?”
“Because naked bobbleheads are inappropriate in the workplace.”
He grinned at her. “You’re just jealous because I have one and you don’t. Tell me your birthday, and I’ll get you one. Maybe I can get you one with a pop-up.” The suggestive tone complete with waggled eyebrows left no doubt what he meant.
She wasn’t jealous of his silly toy, but this was an argument she wasn’t going to win. “Don’t bother―”
A yell inte
rrupted them. She turned to see one of the reporters standing three cubicles away with water dripping down his face. The culprit was nowhere to be seen, but a second later, another reporter across the room fired a florescent green water pistol at Marge. Butch she might be, but she screamed like a girl, then cussed like a sailor as she ran for her cubicle.
The rapid-fire sound of laptops slamming shut came from all corners of the room. A second later, music blared so loud it sounded as though it was piped in over intercom speakers. It was as if Marge’s scream was some sort of signal. Someone adjusted the volume, and the music resolved into Dire Straits’ “Calling Elvis.”
She almost laughed out loud. If that wasn’t the office’s theme song, it should have been.
Nigel peeked around the door of his office. He’d end the hijinks, she thought.
Cautiously, he stepped halfway out. In his hands, he held a high-power soaker that looked like a machine gun. Handling it like an SAS operative, he shot a stream of water deep into the cubicle village where the reporters dwelled.
A noise to her right caught her attention. She turned her head and found Jackson, a crazed grin on his face. His water pistol came up. Except it looked like a penis in an unlikely hot pink, and it was pointed straight at her. Cleo felt her eyes grow wide.
A warm hand closed around her wrist and jerked her down. She’d barely hit her knees when Alec pushed her head-first into the only sheltered space in the cubicle—under the desktop.
“Sweet Jesus, woman. Don’t you have sense enough to get out of the line of fire?” With one hand, he dug into the bottom of a two-drawer cabinet that sat under one end of the desktop. The other molded to her ass and gave her a final shove before he crowded in behind her.
His body arched over hers and she went soft and gooey that he’d risk himself to protect her, even if it was only from a blast of water. The emotion evaporated when he reached around in front of her. “Hey!” she protested, all faith in his protective instincts shattered in the clumsy—and misaimed—groping.
He pulled back and shifted position, then pressed his body even harder against her back. Her ass was firmly nestled into his groin and the question of whether he stuffed his crotch with socks flashed through her brain. This was her chance to find out without committing herself to anything. Before she could make her move, he reached around her again. This time, his hand found what he was looking for, and with a shock, she realized it wasn’t her.
From behind the two-drawer cabinet on her right, he pulled something that resembled an ammunition clip. Except it was clear and filled with water.
She peered over her shoulder to see him pick up what looked like a clear plastic AK47 as he backed out. He slapped the “clip” home and, with a kamikaze shout, charged into the fray.
Alone and defenseless under the desk, she leaned her head against the file cabinet and cursed the genetic anomaly that let men so easily access their inner child.
How was she supposed to work in an environment like this?
~***~
Alec held his ball just below eye level and stared down the alley at the two white pins.
Last game, last frame. He liked to go out on a high note, but the 7-10 split threatened to ruin his aria.
“You’ll never make that,” Jackson said. He kept talking and Alec wondered why his teammate couldn’t be at least as respectfully quiet as the league team they shared the lane with.
Determined to tune Jackson out, Alec filled his lungs in a long, slow pull, then made the three-step approach, releasing the ball at the right edge of the lane. Holding his follow-through position, he watched his ball cut across the lane in a long glide. The skull inside the urethane ball blurred as it headed for the seven pin.
“Whoa, baby.” Jackson sounded hopeful now. And reluctantly impressed.
The ball clipped the pin and sent it across the lane, hitting the ten pin hard. Alec punched the air with his fist as Marge and Linny let loose victory howls behind him.
When he turned, Jackson shook his head in disbelief. “You should have gone down in flames. How do you always pull it off?”
“Human sacrifices to pagan gods,” Alec said.
Even the opposing team laughed at that as they offered congratulatory handshakes. “Good game,” their team high scorer said.
“You too,” Alec said. “You made us work for it tonight.”
Before long, the other team had packed up their balls, changed shoes, and departed with Marge and Linny on their heels.
Alec stretched his arm across the back of the plastic seat next to him and pulled on his beer as Jackson picked up the bowling ball designed to look like a bloodshot eyeball from the ball return. Alec’s own ball was already in his bag, along with his bowling shoes. Rolling balls and clattering pins from the lanes near them provided the backdrop for the conversation he knew was coming.
Jackson dropped down a chair away and nestled his ball in its bag. He took one shoe off, sniffed it, and dropped it in the bag with the ball. “So . . . how’s it going with our hot, new reporter?”
His nonchalance didn’t fool Alec. They were about to indulge in the fine art of dissing.
He should have felt more enthusiasm. Then he remembered the moment when she’d flashed him that smile and totally knocked him on his heels. She hadn’t been sincere, but it had still made him realize it was the first full-on smile he’d seen from her. She had one of those thousand-watt smiles that took over her face. Like Hilary Swank’s or Julia Roberts’. And man, did he want to see a real one. He realized Jackson was waiting for a response, so he wagged his hand in a so-so gesture.
“Yeah, I was sure disappointed today. That suit yesterday? That was hot, but that gray one today?” Jackson tsked. “She looked like the vice president of some uptight advertising firm.”
Alec didn’t say anything. Hell, it wasn’t like he could argue with Jackson. The man was right.
Jackson pulled his street shoes out of the bag. “I don’t know how you’re going to stand it, working with her. That great body.” His gaze zeroed in on Alec’s. “That she’s never going to share.”
Lots of great looking women were never going to share their bodies with him, so Alec refused to take it personal. “You’re being kind of hard on her.”
Jackson snorted as he bent to pull on his sneakers. “How do you figure?”
“She’ll adjust eventually. She’s still a True Believer.”
Jackson straightened, his eyes wide. “You’re kidding.”
Finding a True Believer at a tabloid was the equivalent of finding a virgin at a whorehouse.
Jackson’s incredulous look disappeared as his natural cynicism took over. “You’re pulling my leg.”
Alec sketched an X over the left side of his chest. “Swear to God. She believes in Mom, apple pie, and the sacred mission of the mainstream media.”
Jackson gaped at him. Alec could practically see the gears of his brain trying to make the pieces fit.
“She thinks the media is still fulfilling the duties of the fourth estate,” Alec said even though he couldn’t believe Jackson had missed his point.
A laugh exploded from Jackson in a single ha. A short delay, filled with skeptical silence as he scanned Alec for some clue that would tell him if his buddy was serious. Not finding one, Jackson gave way to true mirth, his laughter coming in Gatling gun bursts. Before he was done, he was wiping tears from his eyes.
His laughter didn’t completely die off until they reached the parking lot. “We weren’t that naïve when we signed on, were we?”
“Hell, no.” Alec clicked his key fob and his taillights flashed. “We were hardcore cynics by the time we got here.”
And that was why he put up with Cleo’s holier-than-thou crap. Because as much as she needed to lose her naïve beliefs to survive her new job, and as much as she’d drive him nuts until he stripped her of those beliefs, it was going to be like watching a kid lose faith in Santa. He wished to God it wasn’t necessary.
~***~
On Monday, Cleo tiptoed around Linny and Marge. She fended off Jackson’s obnoxious comments, wondering if he was really that misogynistic or if something about her brought it out in him. And she smoldered around Alec. God, that man was hot. Smart, principled, and sexy. In short, hot on all fronts. Especially since she’d decided after the water-pistol fight on Friday, that his inner child was actually pretty adorable when he was soaked nearly from head to foot but grinning like a mischievous, little boy.
Why, oh, why did he have to be a happy hooker at a tabloid? For that matter, what had she done in her previous lives that she was working at such a rag, partnered up with a man who inspired triple-X rated fantasies, and who appeared to be as much of a hound dog as his friend Jackson?
Seated on the other side of the partners’ desk they now shared, Cleo booted up her laptop. Alec had given her a list of the most ridiculous things and told her to research them, not on Google, but on YouTube. At the top of the list, he’d written Elvis sightings.
She pushed her glasses up enough to rub between her eyes. “Why am I doing this again?”
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’” Alec said without looking up from his computer.
“Oh, yes, of course. Silly me. I should read Shakespeare for answers.”
He stopped typing and looked at her. “You’re doing this because you need to lose the mindset that only certain types of stories are worthy. We have a policy here of respecting our readers. If they say they’ve been abducted by aliens, we don’t judge. We don’t assume they’re crazy. We hear them out. It requires an open mind.”
Cleo sighed and went back to her “research.” The first few videos featured pictures with a man in the background who resembled an aging Elvis. She’d seen too many Elvis impersonators in Vegas to be convinced.
Then she stumbled on a video compilation of various reports by a Cincinnati news station. Thirty minutes about a man who back in 2002 claimed to be Elvis. The case wasn’t convincing, but it was intriguing because it claimed that the DNA from a liver biopsy Elvis had had didn’t match the DNA from his autopsy.
