by C. C. Wood
Cam finally hung up and looked at me. "Apparently, the girl...er, woman that Mrs. Phelps recommended is someone I knew when I was younger. I thought she was a lot younger than me but it seems I was wrong. She's nearly twenty-five."
My curiosity was piqued. Cam had a great memory for people. "What do you remember about her?" I asked.
"She's quiet and sweet. The youngest of five kids and the only girl. The best I can recall, she never got into trouble. I didn't even know she was back in town."
"Then we should definitely call her. If she isn't fodder for gossip then she must still be quiet and sweet."
"I'll call my mom and get her number." After a short pause, Cam continued, "Do you want to put an ad out online, just in case? I mean, what if she turns out to be a closet psycho?"
"Then she'll fit right in with us," I quipped.
"Ha, ha, you're hilarious."
"I know, right?"
"Okay, enough. It's time to make ice cream and clean. If you actually help instead of sitting around and looking pretty, we might get out of here in time to pick up a pizza and go home for that movie night you've been wanting to have."
"You say that like I didn't just go through a year's worth of financials for the shop in one morning!" I said, my tone defensive.
Cam laughed and rose to her feet. "Okay, so you've earned your keep for this week. Now it's time to work off next week's."
"I'm a partner, not an employee. I don't need to earn my keep," I retorted. "And don't you need to call this Lee person about the job?" I pointed out, wondering if Cam had already forgotten she needed to call her mom and get Lee's number.
Cam dropped back down into her chair with a sigh. "Good point."
She picked up her cell phone again and scrolled through. I had a pretty good idea who she was calling, so I didn't ask. Sure enough, I could hear the faint tones of her mother's voice coming from the speaker.
She responded to her mother's question by saying, "I'm good. I was wondering if you had Lee Prescott's number?"
I listened to them talk for a few minutes, laughing quietly to myself when Cam had to walk her mother through the process of sharing a contact from her phone via text.
Finally, they finished and Cam looked at me, "I have no idea how to call someone and invite them in to interview for a job that they didn't apply for and that they may not get."
"Let me handle that," I said, holding out my hand for Cam's phone.
One of the perks of having a broken filter between my brain and mouth was that I was used to weird conversations that I initiated.
I clicked on the number that Colette had sent and lifted the phone to my ear.
"Hello?" The voice was low and smooth. And she definitely didn't sound as young as Cam said she was.
"Hello, my name is Sierra Watkins. May I speak with Lee Prescott, please?"
"This is she. What can I do for you, Ms. Watkins?"
She was so matter-of-fact and cool that I hesitated for a moment.
"Are you calling about cleaning service?" she asked.
Her question broke me out of my weird pause. "Um, no. Actually, I'm Cameron McClane's partner at Crave. Have you heard of the shop?"
"Yes, I have."
"Wonderful. The reason I'm calling you is that we are looking for an assistant manager for the store and Natalie Phelps recommended we call you. But it sounds like you might already have a job."
This time it was Lee that was silent for a protracted moment. "I do have a part-time cleaning job, but I would definitely like to hear more about the position you mentioned."
I grinned. "That's great! At the moment, the position will only be about twenty to twenty-five hours a week, but we will need someone full-time within the next year."
Cam gave me a wide-eyed look. I waved her off. Despite her reluctance to allow me to invest further in the business, we were going to do it. It might take me a while to wear her down, but it was going to be done.
"Would you be interested in the position?" I asked.
"Yes, I think I would," Lee replied. "Do I need to come in and fill out an application?"
I glanced at Cam and mouthed the word "application". She shook her head. Okay, so apparently she didn't have one.
"Actually, I was hoping you could come in for an interview. Since you have another job, what day would work best for you?" I asked.
She hesitated. "About my other job, will it be a problem to work out a schedule to accommodate my working both?"
"I think we can manage that," I said. "What day could you come in?"
I heard pages turning and smiled. I wondered if Lee had an actual paper planner rather than using her phone as her planner like I did.
"Friday would be best this week. Would four-thirty or five work for you?"
"Four-thirty would be fine," I said, making a note on a piece of paper. "I'm looking forward to meeting you, Lee."
"I feel the same, Ms. Watkins. Thank you for calling."
After we hung up, I looked at Cam and laughed. "Forget hiring her as an assistant manager, I think we should hire her to be our boss. She sounds like she has her shit together."
Cam laughed and then put a hand on her stomach. "Oh, man, I'm hungry."
"We have had a busy morning. Let's go have some lunch and then we can get back to work before that pizza and movie night you promised me."
"But we really need to get started—"
My stomach growled. "Nope, we're eating now. We'll be more productive with full stomachs."
Cam laughed, just as I intended her to do.
We walked to the diner just down the street and found a table. As soon as we entered, I realized that I had to use the restroom. I followed Cam to the booth and tossed my bag on the side with the back to the wall. "I'll be right back."
When I returned a few minutes later, I saw that Brody was sitting across from Cam and, once again, it was beyond obvious that she was into him.
And that he was into her.
They were so wrapped up in their conversation, and each other, that they didn't notice my approach.
I caught the tail end of Cam's words. "— gonna go there?"
"Go where?" I asked.
They both looked at me then and I bit back a gasp. Ben's eyes were hot green gems and Cam's face was flushed. Oh, man, these two were on their way to Bonetown with a quick stop-off at Make-OutVille.
"Nowhere," Cam answered.
I turned and stared at Brody until he grinned. "Am I in your seat?" he asked.
His eyes were no longer hot, but they did twinkle with amusement. Damn, he was good-looking. And he seemed like a genuinely nice guy. I decided then and there, I was going to try and nudge Cam along when it came to him.
Yes, yes, it was hypocritical of me considering how I felt about her meddling in my love life, but I hadn't been in love with a guy for most of my life. Hell, I'd never been in love. Period.
This was different and I would fight her if she argued with me about it.
So, I said, "You can sit next to Cam if you want to join us for lunch."
If looks could kill, I'd be a teeny, tiny pile of ashes on the floor because Cam's eyes were sparking with enough heat to incinerate me.
I was saved from her wrath by Brody's words. "Thanks, but I just finished eating and I need to get back to work. Maybe next time?"
He got to his feet and sauntered off. Cam couldn't take her eyes off him as he walked away and I couldn't really blame her. His butt was almost as good as his younger brother's.
I turned to her. "Y'all are so gonna bone."
Cam blushed and said, "Stop saying that. Who even uses that expression anymore?"
I laughed, long and loud, drawing way too much attention to our table.
"That must have been some apology. You went from wanting to smack him to wanting him to smack your ass."
"What? Where in the hell did that even come from, Sierra?" she asked, but her face was still bright pink. "And Brody definitely doesn't look at me li
ke that," she said as I sat back down across from her.
"How does he look at you?" I asked.
"Like an annoying little sister."
I wanted to respond, but the waitress came over and took our drink orders. After she walked away, I said, "You may annoy him, but if a man looks at the sister the way he looks at you, well, they belong on that cable show you're always moaning about."
"Are you bad-mouthing my favorite show?" Cam gasped.
"That's what you took away from what I said?" I asked, rolling my eyes. Deflect much, Cam?
"I'm pretending you didn't mention the other thing. The only thing Brody and I could ever be is friends."
"Let me know how that goes in a month, okay? Wait, never mind, I'll be here to watch it all in real time. That'll make saying I told you so completely satisfying," I stated.
Our drinks arrived and Cam unwrapped her straw. I wasn't paying attention to what she was doing until the wrapper of her straw hit me right between the eyes.
"Hey!" I yelped.
"Quit talking about Brody or I'm going back to the shop."
"Fine." I relented. Clearly, she was done talking about this. "What are we doing tonight again?" I prompted, hoping she didn't want to work late at Crave since we'd spent the morning going over the books.
"Nothing," she answered.
"Sounds perfect," I said with a sigh.
It would be nice to have some time with my best friend again.
8
By Friday, I was a mess of unsatisfied hormones because I'd been so busy with Cam, I hadn't been able to hook up with Ben again. We flirted via text and phone calls, but my body wanted more than just conversation. Well, the verbal kind anyway.
He was extremely distracting, even though I hadn't seen him since Sunday. I caught myself thinking about him more often than I usually thought about any of the other men in my life. Which was also disturbing because I couldn't help wondering what that said about me.
Today, though, I had to focus because Cam and I were interviewing Lee at Crave.
I was nervous because I hadn't been very involved with interview processes before. I worked remotely most of the time so I didn't get that much input in who was hired for what. That would probably change now that I'd been promoted, which meant today would be good practice for the future.
Learning new skills was important, right?
Cam and I discussed what we wanted the assistant manager to do and how often we wanted her to work. Since she had another part-time job, we'd have to work out the schedule from the very beginning. We also each picked four interview questions based on suggestions from Brody. He'd come in earlier with Jacks and the two of them were too cute for words. He'd been aghast at the idea that we were going into this interview without a detailed list of questions. I thought we'd done a pretty good job even though Cam rolled her eyes at my first one.
"What's your favorite flavor of ice cream?" she asked incredulously.
"Of course. We make and sell ice cream. What if she's a psychopath who only eats vanilla? We can't hire someone like that."
"There's nothing wrong with vanilla ice cream," Cam argued. "Vanilla ice cream, especially homemade, is delicious."
"It is, but it shouldn't be anyone's favorite."
Cam shook her head but stopped arguing with me. Probably because she didn't want to scare the potential hire with our bickering as soon as she walked in the door.
"Is Lee a family name or just short for her real name?" I asked.
"She rarely uses her real name, which is Lyria, and probably sticks to her nickname because her brothers refused to call her anything but Lee since she was a baby."
"Lyria is a pretty name. How many brothers does she have again?"
"Four."
That was right. Four brothers. Jeez. "Damn, are they older, younger, mixed age, what?"
"Older," Cam answered.
"Wow, I bet it was hard to be Lee growing up with four older brothers."
Cam nodded. "Oh, yeah. The Prescott boys were all well-known and much avoided when they were in high school. They're all a year or so apart, and at one point in time, all four of them were in high school together."
"I take it they weren't well-behaved," I muttered.
Cam laughed. "Nope. Definitely not. Lee is the youngest by six years. I think her parents gave up on the idea of having a girl but she was a surprise baby."
"So you know them pretty well?"
"I know her family and her brothers better than I do her. The youngest brother, Scott, was in J.J.'s graduating class."
"Scott Prescott?" I asked.
Cam nodded, her eyes dancing with mirth.
"No wonder he was wild as hell with a name like that. He deserved to take his revenge on his parents for that moniker."
"Okay, Sierra Nevada Watkins."
Oh, no she didn't go there.
I glared at her. "And that's exactly why I'm picking the worst nursing home I can find when my parents are too old and feeble to fight back."
She rolled her eyes, probably because she knew I was lying. "Speaking of Mr. and Mrs. Watkins, how are they doing?"
"Meh," I answered with a shrug. "I haven't heard from them in a few months, but the last time Mother Dearest called, they were in the Bahamas."
"A few months?"
"You know my parents," I said with a shrug.
There was a familiar sting in the vicinity of my heart at the words, but it wasn't as painful as it used to be. After nearly three decades of benign neglect, I'd learned not to expect too much from my parents. I didn't think they were capable of anything other than the distant form of affection they'd shown me for as long as I could remember.
In all the ways that truly mattered, I'd met my real mom and dad the first time that Cam brought me home for dinner in college.
"Those people," Cam muttered beneath her breath.
She didn't get to finish her thought because a young brunette woman entered the shop. People turned to look and smiled or waved before they returned to their ice cream.
"Wow, Lee grew up," Cam said beneath her breath as she watched the woman coming toward us.
Wow was right. Lee wasn't the right name for a woman as stunning as this one. She wasn't as tall as Cam, but she was a little taller than me.
She also looked like a model. Her long brown hair was parted down the middle and fell around her shoulders in a smooth curtain. Her face was a perfectly symmetrical arrangement of large brown eyes so dark they were nearly black, a slim nose that would make any plastic surgeon wish they were talented enough to sculpt it, and well-shaped lips that belonged on the face of a lingerie model. Her eyelashes were so long that they looked fake, but I knew they couldn't be because she wore not a single speck of make-up. Which made me envious because her light brown skin was smooth and flawless.
It was as if she didn't want anyone to notice how beautiful she was but there was no hiding it. Not unless she wore a paper bag over her head.
Her clothes were understated, a crisp white shirt with short cap sleeves and light gray slacks with a sharp crease down each leg. On her feet, she wore a pair of incredibly cute peep-toe Mary Jane pumps in gray suede one shade darker than her pants. There was a little bow above the open toes and light pink polish on her toenails.
She looked like a magazine version of a woman going to a job interview.
"It's good to see you again, Lee. It's been a while. I think the last time I talked to your mom you were about to graduate college."
Lee smiled but it was shy and nearly hesitant, as though she didn't do it very often. "I graduated two years ago. Right now, I'm looking at graduate programs and saving my money to go back."
"Really? What do you plan to study?"
Lee licked her lips before she answered. "I'd like to get my MBA."
Cam's brows lifted. "That's great. I wish I'd had the right temperament for grad school because an MBA would have helped me so much when I started Crave. But four years was enough for me."
Lee smiled again and this time it was wide and genuine. Holy cow, with her working here, every available man between the ages of fifteen and ninety would be in here to buy ice cream.
"I loved school," Lee admitted.
Cam nodded. "I'm sure you'll do extremely well in a graduate program." She turned to me. "Lee, this is my partner, Sierra Watkins. Sierra, this is Lee Prescott."
I held my hand out to her and she took it. Her handshake was firm without being painful and her palms were slightly damp.
So she was nervous and she didn't give dead fish handshakes. I liked that.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Watkins," she said.
"Please call me Sierra. Ms. Watkins doesn't wear t-shirts with writing on them and Converse."
Lee gave me the same sincere smile she'd given Cam. Whoa. Why was this woman still living here instead of making millions of dollars modeling all over the world?
Not my business, I reminded myself.
Cam gestured to the hall that led to her office. "Let's go talk in my office."
Lee nodded and followed Cam. She wiped her palms against her thighs and I could see the fine tremor in her fingers. I knew how nerve-wracking it was to go into job interviews and I wished there was some way I could put her at ease. But it also showed that she cared very much if she got this job or not, which I liked.
I followed the two of them down the hall and plopped on the small sofa I'd persuaded Cam to buy so she could sit or nap if she needed to. Or that I could use when I actually came to town.
Hey, I was a night owl and sometimes I needed a little nap to make it through the day. Some people drink, I nap. It is what it is.
Crap, now I was using that saying. I hated it as much as Cam did.
Cam sat in the chair behind her desk, but she leaned back in it. "Your mom was very proud when you graduated college but she never told me what you studied."
Lee shrugged one shoulder. "I think she was just glad one of her kids made it through without the threat of being kicked out."
Cam grinned. "Your brothers seem fairly settled now."
Lee laughed. "I think having kids has taken most of the excess energy they used to put into playing pranks and partying."
