Slightly Stalky: He's the One, He Just Doesn't Know it Yet (Slightly Series Book 1)
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I am a strong, single woman!
I don’t need Sebastian and his confusing messages!
She passed her full-length mirror.
I will embrace the day!
She caught a flash of white in the mirror.
I will—Wait, what the hell was that?
Emily stopped and took a step back. She stared at her naked body in the mirror.
There were white Xs in the center of each of her breasts. Her boobs looked like the eyes of a dead cartoon character.
Nipple tape.
The night before she’d removed her clothes in the dark and slipped into bed. She’d forgotten about the tape. Thank god there hadn’t been a fire and she’d gone running naked into the yard; her elderly neighbors would think she had a bondage dungeon in her basement.
Emily stepped closer to the mirror and picked at the ends of the tape. She never imagined tape could be so sticky. She could have hung a television set to her wall with it.
Emily peeled the tape a millimeter at a time, removing several layers of flesh regardless of how fast or slow she progressed.
“Ow ow ow ow—” she chanted through gritted teeth.
An eternity later, tape removed, she gaped at the strips of raw, red flesh remaining, perfectly X-shaped, across her nipples.
How lucky Sebastian hadn’t swept her into his arms and carried her off to the mattress section. How could she have explained the tape? Theirs would have been the shortest relationship on record.
She tossed the tape into the trash and stepped into the shower.
Emily usually worked at home, but a local truck parts company had begged her to help design their website and insisted she do it from their office. Summer was a slow time for her, so she accepted, even though the stress of having to get dressed and go to work like an actual grownup threatened to kill her.
There was no reason for Emily to work at a client’s office, but this customer waxed poetic about the good old days “when people met eye to eye” until she’d raised the white flag and agreed. Apparently, he hadn’t received the memo that thirty million people in the United States worked from home, at least part time. That number equaled the entire population of Canada; give or take a lumberjack. The stat inspired Emily to imagine all of Canada sitting in front of desks they'd hacked out of pine trees with axes, swaddled in sweatpants and hockey sweatshirts, their loyal pet beaver “Jean Luc” by their side.
She had a very limited knowledge of Canadians.
Client meetings were best by phone. Just because Emily could be charming at a cocktail party, didn’t mean she wanted to get fancied up and drive half an hour to have a ten-minute conversation. She didn’t consider her feelings antisocial; she was practical. She wanted to save the client time as well. They didn’t need to act out their website ideas with hand puppets. There was no reason for anyone to drive just to shake hands.
Once a potential client insisted on an in-person meeting, Emily had three options. Option one: The client met her at her home. She’d need to clean the house, hide the empty wine bottles, straighten her desk, bathe the dog, teach the dog not to run full-speed through people’s legs ripping ACLs and MCLs like over-boiled spaghetti, and get herself dressed and ready.
Preparation: 2-11 days. Meeting Time: 10 minutes.
Option two: She’d meet the client at his place of business or a coffee shop. This required getting dressed and leaving the house. Sadly, she’d found any form of sweatpants turned off prospective clients. Even sweatpants with fun tush-messages like “Juicy.” Not that she would buy those, unless she could find a pair written in a sarcastic font.
Preparation: 5 hours. Meeting Time: 10 minutes.
Option three: She insisted upon doing everything remotely and lost the client to some go-getter willing to get dressed every day.
Prep time: 2 minutes. Meeting time: 0. Client money: 0.
Option three explained the dip in her income. So here she was, finding a parking spot in her sensible skirt.
The lobby area of Emily’s new temporary workspace came straight from the Office Lobby Handbook. Chairs for waiting visitors to perch upon, business magazines no one ever read neatly scattered on a table, a vaguely motivational poster of a wave crashing against the shore meant to subliminally imply the determination of the company; and a cheap tabletop fountain filled with rounded pebbles, tinkling a steady rhythm. The fountain served to keep visitors calm in the event they realized they were wasting their lives at meetings.
The fountain didn’t work for Emily. The low sputter-hum of the water-pumping motor made her want to pelt the receptionist with the rounded pebbles. She’d worked from home for too long. She wasn’t special, she was ruined. She wasn’t a rebel; she wanted to be comfortable.
Comfort was a less lofty goal than some, but it was one important to her.
Emily considered bolting for her car, but before she could make her move, a man her age entered the reception area. Her eyes swept his body from head to toe and back again. She settled back into her seat and decided to stay.
Hello there, sailor.
The man boasted a perfectly tussled crop of black hair, enough five o’clock shadow to highlight a razor sharp jaw line, and green eyes. Emily looked for a hidden camera. The magnificent creature standing before her had to be a joke. They’d hired a model to make a fool of her.
Finding no camera, she refocused on the man, now stretching a hand in her direction to shake.
Momma likey.
Emily preferred taller and slighter builds on her beau hunks; this guy was muscular and probably just under six feet tall. Her friend Kady loved “football bodies.” Emily preferred “soccer bodies.” Still, there was no denying the raw, masculine sex appeal of this fellow.
“Hi, are you Annie?” the man asked, as she stood to shake. He throttled her hand as if trying to choke the life out of an attacking boa constrictor.
“Emily,” she corrected, stifling a whimper.
“Oh sorry, Emily, got it,” he said, blushing.
He actually blushed. In two seconds, he had shown Emily both strength and tenderness. He might as well have been a shirtless firefighter carrying a litter of kittens from a burning building.
“I’m Mark. I’ll be overseeing the web stuff that you do.”
The web stuff that I do? Okay. She smiled and nodded. Close enough, hot stuff.
“I’ll take you to see Dad,” he said, turning and motioning Emily to follow. He pounded down the hallway as if he’d much rather be running through a jungle, knocking over small trees.
Wait. Did he say Dad?
Emily winced.
Mark was the boss’s son.
Well, if she was going to sabotage this gig, she had certainly identified the most enjoyable way to accomplish the goal.
Mark led Emily into his father’s office. With his perfect salt and pepper hair, emerald eyes and equally sharp jaw line, there was no mistaking the person behind the desk as anyone but Mark’s pop. He had the look of a man who hadn’t heard the word no since the Nixon administration.
“I’m Emily,” she said, reaching across the desk to shake.
“Roger.” The man gave her hand a quick jerk. He didn’t stand. “So you’re the little lady who’s going to take us into the 21st century, huh?”
Roger chuckled and looked to his son. Mark grinned, but his eyes darted to Emily’s. He seemed embarrassed.
Score one for Mark for noticing that calling people little lady wasn’t cool.
Emily offered a tight-lipped smile. “I guess I am,” she said, sitting in the barely padded chair parked in front of Roger’s desk.
“So, Mark here will be in charge. You have that list we put together of what we want on the website?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Mark. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of lined yellow legal paper. He opened it and then sat down beside Emily, across from his father.
“So...” he said, scanning the page. “We want a home page...”
“Well, sure,” she said, launching into her timesaving speech. “Of course, we’ll have all the usual things like home, contact page, about you—”
“Oh we don’t need anything about me!” said Mark, cutting her short.
“No,” said Roger. “We don’t need anything about Mark, he’s just overseeing the web project.”
“No, no,” she said. “By about you I meant about the company. Sorry. I meant a page for people to read how long you’ve been in business, awards...things like that. A company bio.”
“Oh,” said Mark. “That’s a good idea.”
Roger nodded. “Good idea.”
Emily pretended to write something down. Mark and his father hadn’t touched on anything unusual yet, but it made people feel appreciated when she wrote things down. Often she just wrote, “Things like that.”
“We want all the social media,” said Roger, falling back on the only buzzwords he knew. “And Photoshop.”
“Um, Photoshop is really more of a program to make graphics—”
“I have a blog!” said Mark.
Emily looked at him. “For the business?”
“No, my own account. I post my photography on there and shots of my band.”
“Your band?” Emily wondered if “band” was slang for some sort of truck part.
“He’s really good with a camera,” said Roger. “We’ll definitely want a link to his Instramamagram.”
Emily raised her fist to her face and subtly bit her finger to keep from laughing aloud. The urge to ask if an “Instramamagram” was an x-ray of a saxophone’s breast was nearly overwhelming.
“You don’t really want links to personal sites on your business website. Every link you have on your site that takes clients away from your site—”
“I have a Tumblr account!” said Mark, in the same rapid cadence a child says, “we went to the zoo today and I saw a bear!” She was starting to suspect Mark was having a conversation with an invisible person; a person who had asked him how many social media accounts he owned, and gave him a lollipop for each one he named.
Emily’s head was spinning. She had lost control of the meeting.
“I, uh...pictures are great,” she said. “In-house photographers are a bonus.”
“Put the MySpace on there too,” said Roger. “Justin Timberlake is involved with that now and that kid is gold.”
Mark began to hum a Justin Timberlake song.
“I’m bringing sexy back,” he mumbled.
“Um, I’m not sure we want to—”
“Yeah!” Mark squealed under his breath in time with his song.
Emily glanced in Mark’s direction, but upon spotting his one-man dance party, quickly looked away. Mark offered no help against his father’s antiquated requests. Emily couldn’t have been more on her own if the two of them had pushed her from a plane over the Amazon with a week’s rations and a 1968 Boy Scout’s survival kit.
“Do you MySpace?” asked Roger.
Emily giggled before she could stop herself. Roger’s features tightened into the expression movie mafia bosses flash underlings, right before they beat them to death with a salami for bringing the wrong sandwich.
“MySpace isn’t really what it used to be,” Emily said, her voice cracking.
“Tell you what,” snapped Roger a little too loudly, effectively ending her social media education speech. “Why don’t you two go to Mark’s office and work out what we need. I don’t really need to be involved and I’ve got bigger picture things to nail down today.”
Mark nodded and stood. He smiled at Emily, oblivious to the tension in the room. He was like an adorable puppy. Though, Emily was certain even Duppy knew you didn’t put a link to your “Instramamagram” account on your business page.
She took a deep breath.
“Sounds good,” she said, standing. “Nice to meet you, Roger,” she added. She lifted her hand for a parting handshake, and then snatched it away when Roger offered a curt head nod and lifted his phone to make a call. He did not intend to shake her hand.
Busy guy. He probably has to check on his AOL stock.
Emily followed Mark to his office, where he sat, blessedly enraptured, while she outlined for him exactly what she would do to ensure they had the best truck parts site possible.
“Cool,” said Mark when she was done.
Emily held his gaze and nodded slowly, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Mark proved shoeless. He had no comments and no thoughts to add. He bounced in his chair, bobbing his head.
“Okay then. I guess I should just get to work?”
“Sure. I’ll show you your office.”
Mark took Emily to a small office next door to his own. It was empty but for a desk, computer, and a calendar featuring a girl in Daisy Duke shorts rubbing her tush against a semi-truck.
Nice.
“Well,” she said. “What else could I need, really?”
“Oh!” Mark spun and disappeared down the hallway. A moment later, he returned with a pile of white paper five inches high.
“Here are all the parts we need to put onto the site,” he said, handing it to her.
“Great,” Emily said, wondering if her tiny office window was high enough off the ground that jumping from it would kill her.
Mark turned to leave and then paused.
“You know, I don’t want to make you feel scared, so don’t take this the wrong way...”
Scared? Emily braced herself. What, was he a werewolf or something?
“Do you want to get a drink after work?”
Emily stared at Mark, her mind blank; her jaw hanging slack. She closed her mouth and heard the click of her teeth echo in the awkward silence of the room.
“I mean with me,” added Mark.
“No, no, I got that.”
“You can totally say no. This isn’t, like, office assault or something.”
“Harassment.”
“No, I’m saying it isn’t harassment!” Mark waved his open palms at Emily as if warding her off.
“No, I mean you should call it harassment, not office assault,” she explained. She laughed. She couldn’t help herself. She had entered the Twilight Zone.
Mark laughed with her, his white teeth flashing, his perfect pecs bouncing in his tight t-shirt.
“Sure, I’ll get a drink,” Emily blurted.
She didn’t mean to say it, but she had a new soft spot for people with the courage to proposition strangers...who also happened to look like Mr. June from the sexy fireman calendar.
“But I’m still not linking the business site to your Instagram account,” she added, accompanied by a corny wink she immediately regretted.
“No, that’s cool.” He flexed one pectoral muscle and then the other. Emily watched them dance in his shirt.
Did he even know he just did that?
Grinning, he left her office.
Emily slapped the giant list of truck parts to her desk and flopped into her chair. She thought of Sebastian and suffered a wave of guilt. He’d told her not to forget him, and the very next day she’d accepted a date with a gorgeous truck part prince.
She scowled.
“Don’t be an ass,” she said aloud to herself.
I can’t let myself pine after an unattainable man, even if it seemed like fate that we—
“Oh, hey,” said a voice, breaking Emily’s train of thought.
Emily spotted Mark’s head peeking from the side of her doorway.
“Yes?”
“I meant to apologize for my dad and that ‘little lady who’s taking us to the 21st century’ bit.”
Emily laughed. “Thanks. I noticed that you noticed.”
Mark nodded. “I know, right?” he said, rolling his eyes. “Like it’s the 21st century! Um, 20th Century Fox, Dad, duh!”
Emily’s smile lingered a second longer and then vanished.
“Wait, what?” she asked, but Mark was gone.
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Chapter Twelve
A few days after Emily’s first day as a trucking company employee, Kady stopped by Emily’s after work and they sat on her back patio drinking wine. Emily stared at her glass and considered the possibility that she had become predictable. Maybe she’d pour a bourbon next round.
“So let me get this straight,” said Kady. “You went to Sebastian’s work, and asked him out?”
Emily nodded.
“And he said no because he has a girlfriend, but then told you ‘don’t forget me?’”
She nodded again.
“And then the next day, a gorgeous trucking hunk asked you out for a drink?”
Emily grinned. “When you put it that way, it sounds pretty cool.”
“When I put it that way you sound totally bad ass!” said Kady. “How did the drink go?”
“Good,” she said, shrugging. “He isn’t anyone I’d ever want to date in the long term, but it was nice. He’s super sweet. He’s like a puppy. A sexy, sexy puppy.”
“Why no long-term?” asked Kady.
Emily sighed. “He told me that thanks to lifting heavy truck parts at his father’s warehouse all day, he is totally fatigued.”
Kady tilted her head to the right. “So, you don’t want to date him because he’s tired?”
“No... He thinks fatigued is another way to say he has a good physique, like, ‘Dude, I’ve been lifting all day, I am totally fatigued.’”
“Oh no. That’s not good.”
“No. And he thinks it is the 20th century because, and I quote: ‘all the movies start out that way. 20th Century Fox, duh.’”
“Oh. Though to be fair, I often wonder if 20th Century Fox regrets that name now.”
“Me too.”
They pondered in silence for a minute.
Emily shrugged. “Like I said, he’s super sweet and I’d like to eat Cheetos off his abs, but I don’t see us in a long-term relationship.”
Kady sat up. “You saw his abs? Tell me more.”
“The whole bar saw his abs. It’s how he describes fatigued.” Emily laughed and put down her glass so she could pantomime the part. “I said, ‘You’re fatigued?’ and he said, ‘Yep! Check it out!’ BOOM! Shirt lift.”