by Lynn Stevens
“Oh thank God,” he said, relief washing over his face like a warm rain. “Could you please check the women’s restrooms? I would, but for some reason I’m not wanted.”
I snorted and shook my head. “Yeah, but I’m not cleaning them and I’m not closing tonight.”
“You’re still a life saver, Liv.” He air-kissed my cheeks. “And my best friend. For a few more hours at least.”
I smiled, shaking my head at his dramatic turn. Then again, Logan had more dramatic turns than that crazy crooked street in San Francisco. I checked on my tables first, and everything was kosher, before heading down the short hall to the ladies. The one thing about the restrooms at Stockade was the privacy. There was a long hall between the main restaurant and the party room and the restrooms were nestled in a cove off the hall. A small entrance had a couch between the doors and dim lighting to add ambience. I asked Logan about the design and he said the party room had been added on less than ten years ago. The owners didn’t want to move the restrooms, so they enclosed them in a partially opened cocoon.
I checked my phone as I rounded the corner under the arched entryway and slammed into a beefy chest. That was twice in one night. The third time was a charm. Maybe I’d slam into a multi-millionaire who would pay off all my debt and offer me my dream job. Fingers skimmed my arms, but that didn’t stop me from falling onto my ass. The impact on the hard floor and equally hard landing vibrated up my spine.
“Shit, are you okay?” Devon asked as he knelt beside me.
I squinted my eyes and bit my lower lip. “I’ll be fine.” A lie, but one was needed. My ass hurt and would probably need an icepack when I got home.
“Liar,” Devon said. He hooked his hand under my arm and hauled me to my feet. When I wobbled a bit, he maneuvered me to the warm leather loveseat between the doors.
“Thanks,” I said. The best thing about this couch was the softness in the cushions. The walls had been painted to match the color, but both had long since faded into a warm caramel instead of the original dark leather. Sometimes when the crowds would start to slow, I’d come to this little couch and get away from everything for a few minutes. And usually that was all I’d have before someone headed toward the restroom or Logan sent someone to find me. It was a moment of peace.
Devon stared at me, tilting his head to one side then to the other. “I meant what I said earlier. About being sorry.” He turned his body toward me. “We got off to a great start then…well, it went from sweet to sour back to sweet and right back to sour.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Devon could be charming when he wanted. “Please no more reference to anything resembling food. I haven’t eaten yet.”
“Look, I know this is crazy, but I did lose a bet and I’m not a welcher, so…” He raised his eyebrows. “Dinner?”
“I still don’t believe you can cook.” I pushed off the comfy spot, wishing I could sink into it for another hour.
“Oh, I can cook,” he said, standing beside me. “Trust me on that if you trust me on anything.”
“Can I trust you?” I asked with my gaze on his chest.
He tilted my head up to stare into my eyes. “You can trust me.”
I looked into those perfect hazel eyes, trying and failing to find anything but sincerity. “Why didn’t you bring the clothes over yourself?” That was the last thing on my mind, but it had bothered me.
He dipped his head and rubbed the back of his neck. A light pink blessed his cheeks. “Well…” He dropped his hand and looked right into my eyes. “You were so determined to hate me and think the worst of me, I needed to let you know I wasn’t lying. Candy was there and saw everything that went down right up until you passed out in my room. So I figured she was the perfect person to prove it to you.”
“Why pull her into whatever this is between us? And Paige, too?”
“Paige? Your friend? I didn’t drag her into anything. Candy didn’t mind helping out. What’s the big deal?”
“I just… I don’t know.” And I didn’t. It really wasn’t a big deal. I shook my head. As usual, I was searching for any reason that Devon might be trying to get under my skin.
Devon ran a hand down his face and stood. “Look, I’ve got to get back.”
I glanced at my watch. Shit. “Yeah, me, too.”
We’d been sitting here for too long. Logan could swing around the corner any minute. I stood and walked away from Devon. There wasn’t anything to say, and I don’t know what I really expected. It seemed innocent enough. Could I trust that, though? Everything I thought about this guy was never on point. He’d done so much to get my attention, and there wasn’t any reason why. And then there was the one-eighty he took at JenCar. My mind was a clusterfuck.
My tables in the front had cleared. I tasked myself with cleaning them and collected my meager tips before I moved toward the party room. The team was still there, talking and just being loud. It took all my acting skills, which were minimal at best, to smile and clear plates. I avoided Devon for as long as possible. Some of the guys stuffed a few dollars in my hands, failing to be discreet. And the coach took me aside to thank me for doing my job and slipped me a twenty. The party already had an 18 percent gratuity tacked on to the bill, but he wouldn’t listen.
Finally, I cleared the plates around Devon and his friends. He didn’t say anything and he didn’t offer a tip. Thank God. I would’ve had to figure out how to give it back to him. A few of his friends did and I smiled graciously as I took their ones. They left in waves. I gave up my four front tables to the other waitresses and cleaned the party room. Devon didn’t say a word when he left.
It wasn’t until I was snug in my apartment, counting tips, when I found a receipt from DeLuca’s Bakery. On the back in small neat script was a note.
I still owe you dinner. A phone number followed. There wasn’t a signature, but I didn’t need one to know who wrote it. I didn’t understand him. Was everything a game for him? The worst question I kept asking myself was, did I want to play?
What scared me was the answer. Yes, I wanted to, because I wanted to see how this would turn out. Paige had been right about me all along. My goals and my drive toward those goals got in the way of my having a life. Henry left me, and I left myself. Everything with him was in the past and not part of my future. But I wasn’t living in the moment. I wasn’t taking risks.
I didn’t want to feel like that anymore.
I didn’t want to be alone.
Devon Miller probably wasn’t the solution, but he could be part of the equation. Everyone has a rebound after a bad breakup. Maybe it was time I started that rebound.
I picked up my phone, hesitating only for a moment.
Game on. I didn’t sign my name, but he was smart enough to figure it out.
The response came within seconds. Oh, it’s on.
Chapter Thirteen
My first full day at JenCar was exactly like my orientation. Philip Lawler sent me for coffee every half hour. He sent me to other departments to deliver memos that he could’ve just emailed. When I wasn’t doing all of those wonderful things, I sat in an empty cubicle and stared at a gray fabric wall. After getting his deli sandwich from the fridge, I was fed up and stormed toward Lawler’s office, determined to give him a piece of my mind. Politely.
I rapped on his door and opened it only after permission had been granted—a lesson I’d learned the hard way when I first arrived at eight. His door had been open and he had been working on something on his computer. I’d strolled in and sat in the chair I’d cleaned off. I’d waited about ten minutes before I cleared my throat. Lawler had jumped out of his chair and banged his knee on his desk. He had found the vacated cubicle for me shortly after that.
Devon and Marvin Acton stood within the small cramped space. They glanced at me, then Acton ignored me as if I was a honey bee buzzing into the room. Devon offered a warm smile, which I returned as I slipped inside the room. I placed the sandwich on the edge of Lawler’s desk and m
oved to the corner while they continued their conversation.
“The schematics for the new transducer will improve the accuracy of acceleration,” Acton said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “I showed Devon the equations this morning and we improved them. I think it’s finished and ready to go to Rex for approval.”
“But you want me to double check?” Lawler asked. He glanced at Devon for a moment, who shook his head. But Lawler dismissed him the way he had done to me. At least I wasn’t alone in Lawler’s disdain. Maybe Devon’s JenCar pedigree meant nothing to Philip.
“Yeah, if you wouldn’t mind.” Acton rocked on his heels. Devon glanced at me, a small smile lifting his lips. Game on, indeed. “I’m sure it’s good, but it never hurts to have another set of eyes be one-hundred percent certain.”
Lawler took the file from Devon. “Fine, but it’ll be a few days. Maybe you can finally finish that fuselage issue while you wait. You know, the one Rex assigned you six months ago.”
Acton’s back tightened like Lawler shoved a hot iron pole up his ass. “Come on, Devon. Let’s go get lunch to celebrate.”
I stayed in the corner, out of their way. Devon wiggled his eyebrows at me as he followed Acton out of the office. It was hard not to smile, but I managed. Flirting in front of my pseudo-boss wasn’t the best of ideas. They closed the door and Lawler glared where they’d been. I’d already learned that Philip hated his door closed, so I reached over and opened it without taking my eyes off him. He ignored me and tossed the file onto one of the many piles near the corner.
“Can I help you with something?” he asked, going back to the task he must have been working on before Acton interrupted him.
In that instant, I decided to go with brutal honesty over tact. “I know you don’t want an intern, and I guess I get that, since you never stop working, but I’m here and I need to actually do something meaningful or this entire experience is worthless to me and my future.” I inhaled, waiting for him to snap at me for interrupting him with crap he couldn’t care less about. I’d known the man for a day and I felt like I knew everything about him already. He worked. That was his life. There was nothing in his office to indicate a family or a life outside of this place. He was here when I came in at a quarter to eight. He was here when I left the day before at five. I doubted he left this room for anything. I half expected to find a sleeping bag under the piles of files. If I didn’t stop acting like I had a stick up my ass, I’d end up exactly like him. That thought shook me. I refocused on the problem at hand. “This internship means a lot to me, Mr. Lawler. I can do more than fetch coffee and deliver memos.”
He finally tore his gaze away from the computer screen and met my own. “Good. See those files in the corner?”
I nodded without glancing at the pile. That was where he tossed Acton’s transducer project.
“Go through them, sort out the mess inside, and study them.” He returned to the computer screen. “Double check everything. And I mean every little detail down to the simplest calculations. If he has one plus one equaling two, don’t take it for granted that it’s right. Make any notations necessary. When you’re finished with one, bring it back to me. We’ll go from there.”
I picked up around fifty files from the floor, clutching them to my chest.
“Call IT and make sure the programs are up-to-date on your computer, too,” he added as a dismissal. “That cubicle has been empty for about a year or so. I’d be surprised if the damn machine even turned on.”
I nodded again, even though he wasn’t looking at me. When I got back to my desk, I did a happy dance. I’d stood up for myself and he responded. It was a moment to be savored, but I didn’t have time. There was a lot of work to do and I still needed to prove I was capable of doing it. I called IT. The computer booted, but slower than my two-year-old laptop. It needed updates that were way out of my skillset. The IT guy couldn’t just walk me through it, either. I flipped through the files. On the outside in slanted script were dates. One for the day he started the project and one for the day he finished it. They were completed pretty fast in my opinion, but what did I know other than what I’d done at school? Maybe after a few years of experience, these projects could be done that fast. Reviewing them all would take time, but I wanted to be as efficient as Mr. Acton.
The file on top was the one Acton had given Lawler while I was in the office. I opened it. It was a mess. Nothing was in any sort of order. The schematics for the transducer were on multiple pages. It was like a thousand-piece puzzle I had to put together to pass a class. I flipped through the rest of the files, all from within the last few months and all from Acton. They were in the same condition. No wonder Lawler had tossed them aside. I dug into the oldest file, spreading out the mess on my desk while I waited for IT to update my computer. It was for a rudder, and it wasn’t anything unusual for an aerospace company. But why would Lawler just toss it into a corner instead of at least looking at it? And why was Acton giving Philip the files to begin with? To add to the mystery, why did Lawler just hand them over to me?
It didn’t matter why, but it mattered that he did. I called a local Chinese restaurant and ordered sesame chicken and crab rangoon for delivery. Lawler handed me an opportunity, just as I asked him to, and I was going to make the most of it.
…
I entered my apartment and kicked off my low heels before I even closed the door. Numbers ran through my head, calculations spun into each other. I’d spent the last half of my day at JenCar working on one file. By the time I had to clock out, it was almost sorted. Almost. And that was just organizing it into something comprehensive. I locked it, along with the other files Lawler entrusted to me, into my filing cabinet. The rudder design bothered me, but I couldn’t figure it out until IT updated the computer. I needed to input the data into the software so I could review it. The IT guy promised to have it done by the next morning so it should be up and running when I returned on Thursday. Until then, there wasn’t anything I could do.
My phone lit up with a text. I smiled when I saw it was from Paige.
Dinner at Three Amigos? I’ll buy.
I immediately responded yes. It had been less than a minute since I hit send when a knock sounded at my door. I turned to answer it.
“Guess you were outside?” I asked when Paige flashed her winning smile. She seemed back to her old self already, but I knew better. Paige wasn’t one to sit around and wallow. She’d rather be out in the world, facing her heartache.
“Nope, I was a block away.” She pushed by me and plopped onto my bed. “I tried to time it so you’d be home already.”
“I just walked in the door.” I turned toward the dresser again and pulled out a pair of jeans and an oversize sweater.
“So how’d it go?” She kicked back, putting her boots on the coffee table and her arms over her chest.
“Meh, let’s talk about it over margaritas and nachos.” I headed toward the bathroom to freshen up and change. It wasn’t like I hadn’t changed my clothes in front of Paige before, but I valued my privacy. I was always grateful that she respected that.
Ten minutes later, I stepped back into the open space and caught Paige with my phone in her hand. “Who’s Seamus?”
I snatched my phone away from her. “Nosy much?”
“Always. Who’s Seamus?” She stood and stretched her arms high over her head. “And does he have a sexy Irish accent?”
I inhaled, hoping a deep cleansing breath would calm me down, but it didn’t. And Paige would keep harassing me until I confessed. “Over margaritas. There’s a lot to discuss there. And no to the accent.”
“Color me intrigued.” She twirled her keys around her finger and grinned. “Let’s go, chica. I’m starving and I need to drown my sorrows in tequila.”
Paige drove, but knowing her desire to chug tequila, I was driving home and she would crash at my place. The last time Jayce had hurt her this bad, she had stayed inebriated for a week. Then he came for her, they worked it o
ut, and the cycle repeated itself. I just hoped she would continue to see what he did to her, how he hurt her, and how bad he was for her.
We settled into our booth and ordered margaritas. Most of the chatter up until the drinks arrived was just mindless bullshit. Anything for both of us to avoid the topics we needed to discuss. Standard procedure in our cases. While I didn’t enjoy any attention drawn to me, Paige clammed up because she hated being miserable. If she didn’t talk about it, the pain didn’t exist. But we could only talk about Mother Nature’s menopausal state for so long. It wasn’t even the end of January and spring had peeked out for a few days but winter stomped it back down. The endless cycle of Iowa weather continued.
“How’d you find out?” I asked. There was no need for discretion or to pussy-foot around it anymore.
Paige sighed as tears welled in her eyes. “He made sure I saw them together.” She stared into the salt rimmed glass of her margarita, probably replaying the moment in her mind. “The shitty thing is he doesn’t understand why I said no. I told him, but he still didn’t get it. He just thinks love is enough.” Finally she stared at me, the hurt of Jayce’s actions all over her face. “It should be.”
“But it’s not?”
“No.” She wiped a fallen tear from her cheek. “If he really loved me, truly loved me, he wouldn’t have jumped into a rebound so damn fast.” Paige reached for a napkin, shredding it into tiny pieces with her chewed nails.
In all the years I’d known her, she’d never had a less-than-perfect manicure. I really looked at her for what felt like the first time in forever. Paige had always been put together but not anymore. Her makeup was on, but it wasn’t smooth and even. Her clothes were slightly wrinkled. Her chocolate hair had no shine and was pulled back into a ponytail. Paige was more of a mess than I realized. I was the worst friend on the planet.
“Do you regret it?” I asked, sliding my own napkin toward her for when she finished shredding hers.
