ThisTimeNextDoor

by Gretchen Galway

  Thank God she had a job. Last week she’d followed a few people around, filled out paperwork, sat in on meetings, and played with the software to get a feel for it. Today she’d actually work. Hopefully. It was still a little fuzzy what she’d be doing.

  Sylly told her she’d be an important player in redesigning the women’s health subforums, but in the twenty or so hours she’d spent since last Monday reading posts and articles, going back several years, she didn’t see why they had such confidence in her abilities. WellyNelly’s women’s forum was pretty popular already, though a little ugly. They had thousands of regular users, advertising, qualified health professionals giving general advice.

  All she had was a bachelor’s degree in biology and years working retail. What did she know about website design or software? Aside from speed-reading a few pages of Mark’s book in a coffee shop?

  Mark. He’d kissed her. Really, really kissed her. She’d been too shocked to stop him. Shocked because it was Mark and shocked because…

  Because he was so good at it.

  Where did he learn how to kiss like that?

  Her body had flared to life at his touch. It didn’t know he was only making a point. It had felt strong hands and skilled tongue and said, yes please.

  As if her life wasn’t complicated enough. Seeing John had unbalanced her again. Just by showing up, looking good, and doting on Blair, he knocked down all her defenses. Any other time she could have pushed Mark away with a smile and a gentle explanation that it just wasn’t a good idea. Blamed it on their new working relationship.

  Instead…

  Well, if it hadn’t been for Zeus, she didn’t think either one of them would’ve stopped what was sparked in that kitchen.

  That would’ve been quite a point.

  Would she see him at work today? He had his own office, and last week he kept the door closed, out of sight, hiding away. It was probably rough on him to adjust to so many people around.

  Then again, if he could kiss like that, maybe he was more sociable than she thought.

  Bridget greeted her the moment she walked in the front door. “Happy Monday! Starbucks in the Game Room.”

  “I’m counting on it,” Rose said, waving as she walked by. Bridget always smiled and spoke to her like she was just so glad to see her. At first it had creeped her out, but gradually she’d decided Bridget had been put at the front desk precisely because those bubbles came to her naturally. She was nice to everyone, especially the women, a distinct minority in the building.

  Amit the hardware guy was in her cubicle. “I’ve set up your new monitor.”

  “I already had a monitor,” she said.

  “But this one’s nicer.” He spun the chair around. Grinned. “See?”

  She looked at it, suspecting she never would’ve noticed the switch. “It’s great. Thanks.”

  Still grinning, he stood up, pulled the chair out for her. “Your new keyboard comes tomorrow.”

  “What’s wrong with the one I have?”

  “The one he ordered is much better. It’s got excellent feel. I have one myself at home.”

  “The one who ordered?”

  Amit glanced at the ceiling, wiggled his eyebrows. “You know.”

  “Sylly?”

  “Yeah, right.” He lowered his voice. “He’s too cheap. Candy, no problem. Two hundred dollar keyboards? Fuhgeddaboudit.” He said this last with a really bad fake New York accent as he walked out of the cubicle.

  She sat down. The keyboard was the same as any other keyboard. It had keys. They typed letters and numbers and other things. The monitor looked nice, but so had the one on her desk the week before.

  Sylly was too cheap to buy fancy hardware for the company.

  Was it Mark? Was Hot Lips making another point?

  At least her job was taking shape. She was going to be a team leader, ensuring that other people, mostly technical and a few in design, did their jobs within a certain time frame. As she gained more experience, she could do more. More than just nagging, she hoped.

  She spent the morning hours going through her email and sitting in on another meeting. After lunch she met with the women’s forum team and tried to look useful, using the project calendar on her new tablet for the first time.

  The three men and one woman were nice, competent, a bit goofy. One of the guys brought in a shopping bag filled with free samples from a tech conference—Intel bunny suit dolls, laser pointers, thumb drives, notepads, balls with blinking LEDs inside—and proceeded to play with them throughout the meeting. High pressure, it was not.

  When it was over, she went to the kitchen (squeezing one of the LED balls in her hand) for a cold bottle of Pelegrino, her new favorite perk. And then, instead of going directly back to her desk, she wandered towards Mark’s office. She paused there, not sure if she was annoyed or relieved his door was closed.

  To her shame, her heart started pounding in her ears.

  It’s Mark. Just Mark.

  She swallowed, took a breath, admitted the truth: the only reason she’d detoured to the kitchen was because it would make her walk by his door.

  “Isn’t he answering?”

  Sylly had walked up behind her as she stood paralyzed in the hallway.

  She spun around. “I haven’t knocked yet.” Smiling, she made a big show of tapping on the wood.

  “Maybe you could remind him about our open door policy,” Sylly said. His eyes watched her in that sharp way of his, amused but observant. “How’d your first week go?”

  “Great. Just ran my first meeting.” She rolled her eyes. “Though they did most of the running.”

  “You’ll whip them into shape in no time.”

  She smiled at him, uneasy. How do you know? she wanted to ask. Why are you so sure about me?

  The door opened. Mark blinked, looked back and forth between the two of them. “Hello?”

  “Well, I’ll leave you two to it,” Sylly said, walking on.

  Mark looked at her. “Did you knock?”

  “He told me to tell you there’s an open door policy.”

  “It opens.” He swung it back and forth. “See?”

  “Did you—” she stopped herself. A funny feeling came over her, like she was being watched. Sure enough, when she looked over her shoulder, she saw two sets of eyes in half-hidden heads peeking over the carpeted beige wall at them. Two of the programmers, guys she’d met earlier with names she hadn’t memorized yet.

  Mark took her arm and pulled her inside before gently breaking the open door policy again. “Did I what?”

  “Why were they staring at me like that? Sometimes, I swear, I get the weirdest feeling around here.”

  “I totally know what you mean,” he said feelingly.

  “No wonder you liked working at home.”

  “I know, huh? But we’ll get used to it. The thrill has to wear off at some point.”

  She smiled, weakly, again feeling like she wasn’t quite getting the joke. “Sometimes I think you’ve understated your importance around here.”

  “It’s not really my office. One of the architects moved back to India to telecommute. It had all the hardware I needed, so I use it when he’s not here. Otherwise I’d be in a cubicle just like you.”

  “Sylly acts like you’ve known him a long time, though.”

  “Yes, that’s it. That must be what you’re feeling. He’s known me since I was in high school.”

  She lowered her voice. “Is he gay? Not to freak you out, but… the way he talks about you, the way he just hired me like that with no experience… I think he’s in love with you.”

  Mark’s bark of laughter made her head snap back so fast her earrings rattled.

  “Oh, oh, oh,” he breathed, bending over his desk. “Oh my God.”

  “I’m serious. Either that or you saved his life in a war.”

  A dazzling grin on his face, Mark wiped the tears off his cheeks, nodded at her, took a deep breath. “That’s more like it.”


  “So, he hired me because he owes you for something big.”

  The smile faded away. “Sort of.” He shook his head. “No. He hired you because he thinks you’ll be good for WellyNelly. Sylly doesn’t have anyone around he doesn’t like.”

  “Is that why you’re not working from home anymore? Because he likes having you around?”

  He stared at her. “Wow. You’re good.”

  “That’s it, isn’t it? You just happened to start working in the office at the same time I did.”

  “What makes you think that’s because of Sylly?” He pushed a steel toy on his desk in motion, watched the balls tap each other. “I did throw myself on you in my kitchen the day before yesterday. Maybe I’m the one who likes being around you.”

  “If you did, why hide in here with your door shut?”

  “I’m very shy?” He looked up at her, the hint of a smile in the corner of his mouth.

  “Not with me you’re not.”

  He was speechless for a moment. “That’s true, isn’t it?”

  “Spill. Was having you work in the office a condition of them hiring me?”

  Getting to his feet, he went over to the window and tilted the blinds, darkening the room. “I told you. I was determined to get out more. It’s a short commute, just across town, and I can stay home whenever I really need to.” He stroked his chest. “Though this way I get to wear all these new clothes. Makes my mom happy.”

  It was making her uncomfortably happy as well. Today’s shirt was just a traditional long-sleeved dress shirt, but it was tailored perfectly to fit his muscled arms, broad shoulders, narrow waist. Even with the jeans—no, especially with the jeans—he was distractingly sexy.

  She shoved her lust aside. “I owe you even more than I thought.” Coming to see him had been a bad idea. Maybe her ego had wanted a little stroking. The thought of him wanting her, even if it was only raw biology at work, made her feel good. She liked feeling good. Good was good.

  How badly did he like to feel good?

  No. Casual sex was not on the menu. Fresh start, new life, et cetera, et cetera.

  “You don’t owe me anything,” he said. “I haven’t done anything I didn’t want to do.”

  Shaking her head, she pulled the door open and went back to her cubicle, realizing, hours later when she was in a meeting about the mammography subforum, she’d forgotten to thank him for the new monitor and keyboard.

  And if she had the guts, she’d thank him for that kiss, too. Because ever since it had happened, she hadn’t thought of John once.

  But what if the cure was more dangerous than the disease?

  Chapter 11

  AROUND 6:30 P.M., MARK walked past the cubicle farm outside his office, rubbing the crick in his neck, wondering if it would be tacky to order both him and Rose their own Aeron Miller chairs.

  Probably. He’d have to order them for the whole company. Anonymously. And if that keyboard he got for Rose was good, he’d get a hundred of those, too. And talk to Sylly about having a massage therapist in the office during lunch hours for everyone. Working at a desk all day was really bad for the body. It was worth preventing permanent damage any way you could. They made their living helping people be healthy, after all. No sense getting sick while they did it.

  Really, Sylly was such a cheapskate. The bowl of candy-covered chocolate drops in the conference room had been a store brand. M&M’s, my ass. Not that they should have bowls of candy lying around anyway.

  He stepped out into a cool evening blast of wind off the bay. It had finally cooled down. The parking lot was mostly empty, which was good; he’d been afraid WellyNelly would be overflowing with young workaholics wasting all of their waking hours on his little program instead of having a life.

  Then he saw Rose in her Toyota, banging at the wheel.

  His guts clenched. He began to sweat. His hands shook.

  For God’s sake, he thought, shaking his head. Is this lust or food poisoning?

  Either way, climbing in bed was very appealing.

  No.

  He went over and tapped on the window. She jumped, saw him, rolled down the window.

  “Battery again?” he asked.

  “No, there’s a click. Hear it?” She turned the key and he heard a slight straining moan from under the hood. He made a motion towards the hood and she reached out for him. “Hold it, you’ve done enough fix-it work for me. I’ll bring it to a mechanic. It needs a tune-up anyway.”

  “Do you have AAA to get it towed to a garage?”

  She shook her head. “Damn it. I’ll have to find somebody.”

  “It’s late. I’ll give you a ride to your motel and you can deal with it tomorrow.”

  “Yeah.” She gave the steering wheel one last swipe and got out of the car. “Can you give me a ride in the morning, too?”

  “Sure.”

  “I hate living like this.” She walked around to the back and took out a backpack and a small rolling suitcase, both hot pink.

  “Why do you have your bags with you?”

  “I didn’t like the idea of leaving them at my motel during the day. It’s kind of sketchy.” She looked around the lot, saw his VW. “Well, guess it won’t make any difference to be a parasite one more time.”

  They went over to his car, put the bags in the back hatch, got in. As she pulled the seat belt over her body he sent up a silent prayer of gratitude that it was still warm enough for her to show some skin. Only two necklaces today, but both were long enough to fall between her breasts, nicely visible under her low cut sweater.

  Then he frowned, imagining all the guys at WellyNelly being able to see the same skin he did. Wasn’t that sweater a little revealing for the office? And tight? He could see her nipples. If he looked closely.

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “Shall we get going?”

  Flushing, he backed up. “Sorry.”

  She was smiling. “There’s that point again.”

  Yeah, and it was making his pants uncomfortable. He cleared his throat. “Where’s your motel?”

  “Turn right on San Pablo. It’s about a mile.”

  “Down there? No wonder you didn’t want to leave your bags.”

  She rolled her window all the way down, pulled the band out of her hair. The waves fell down around her shoulders and whipped around her face, a blond cyclone. “I need a haircut. It’s getting ridiculous.”

  “That’s not the word,” he mumbled.

  “You like it, don’t you?” She combed it with her fingers. Let the strands slide over her wrists. “Like peanut butter in a rat trap, that’s what my grandmother says.”

  “That metaphor isn’t very complimentary to any of the parties involved.”

  “My grandmother isn’t very complimentary.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that.

  “She supported my mom when she was pregnant with me, though, so I can’t complain,” she said. “Though she can be a terror. Very critical. My mom has never really gotten over it.”

  “All of my grandparents died before I was in high school. I barely remember any of them. I always felt a little cheated.” They passed an abandoned car lot, a boarded-up Taco Bell with the signs removed, two hookers arguing with each other at the bus stop.

  “My mother and I lived with her—my maternal grandmother—until I was seven,” she said. “She was nothing like a cartoon granny with white hair and cookies. She’s blonde and thin and perfect and insisted I be the same.”

  “She should be happy with two out of three.” Realizing he’d said too much, he bit his lip, hard. He really needed to keep his mouth shut.

  “She should’ve been happy about all kinds of things. Like we all should.”

  They drove on in silence, Mark increasingly uneasy with the location of her motel. When the light turned yellow, he floored it so he wouldn’t have to stop.

  “Slow down,” she said. “It’s right up here.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

&n
bsp; “No, see? Right there.”

  The building was indeed visible. Hard to miss it with all the cop cars out front.

  He didn’t brake.

  “Hey!”

  “There’s no way I’m going to drop you off in this neighborhood.” He shifted up into third gear. “Way too many rats.”

  “Turn around right now. This is no time to get manly.”

  “Fuck that. I’m not manly enough to stop. Are you kidding me? Did you see those guys back there? They’d eat me for breakfast. And that was just the cops.”

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “Why are you staying here? There’s a huge range between this and the Claremont, price-wise. That place has, like, negative stars.”

  “I’m serious, Mark. Go back. It’s only for another night or two. I’m looking at an apartment tonight—” She slapped her forehead. “I don’t have a car. I had an appointment at seven. How can I find a place to live without a car?”

  “I’ll drive you. Unless it’s around here.” He shifted into fourth, took the next turn at forty miles an hour. “Where is this apartment?”

  She sighed but pulled out her cell to read him the address.

  “I’m not driving you there, either,” he said. “You’re not in New York anymore, Dorothy. From now on, run all the apartments you find by me and I’ll tell you if they’re okay or not.”

  The light turned red in front of him and he had no choice but to stop. Grabbing her purse, Rose flung the door open, jumped out, and marched over to the sidewalk with her blond hair flying behind her.

  She was going to go back to that motel.

  “Rose! Come back here!”

  Without even a glance back at him, she kicked off a tumbling sheet of newspaper that had caught on her leg and continued on her way.

  The light turned green. “Shit!” He tried to get over into the right lane but the cars behind him weren’t stopping. One honked, then another. Muttering the same obscenities she had used back in the parking lot, Mark hit the gas, passed the asshole who was yelling at him, and pulled a U-turn at the next intersection while trying to keep Rose’s bright, voluptuous body in sight.