Two seconds after I tell her that she’s over beside the cubicles and I hear, “Hi, I’m Blanca Mancini. I’m new here.”
Mancini? That sounds familiar?
“Carl.” He stands from his chair, towering over Blanca’s small frame. He could be the proverbial company water cooler because he’s tall enough to see into everyone’s cubicle and know what everyone is up to. “Welcome to the team.”
She makes polite chitchat for a minute but doesn’t linger or suggest that they do lunch sometime. Relief shouldn’t be the first thing to hit me, but it is.
“See you around.” She waves.
“Ethan.” Carl nods in my direction.
“Carl.”
Blanca and I fall in line again. “Hmm. You were friendly last night.”
I look to my side at her. “I told you, I’m friendly.”
She shrugs her shoulders and a sound falls from her mouth to suggest that, no I am not. I’m friendly… enough. I don’t need to be best friends with everyone I work with.
I lead us into the kitchen area. There’s two small tables, a fridge, and two microwaves because Carl complained that Clara took over the microwave every lunch hour. Opening the fridge, I point to the five shelves. “Each department has their own shelf.”
“Great. I’ll probably start bringing my lunch.” She nudges me out of the way and peers in.
“It goes without saying that you don’t take someone else’s stuff.”
She squints her chocolate-colored eyes at me. “I’m not an asshole.” She walks out of the kitchen.
“Fuck. What am I doing?” I mumble to myself.
“Being a jerk as usual,” Bill from production says as I follow Blanca.
When I return back to our cubicle area, she’s seated at her desk writing something down.
I lean on the wall, taking in her space again now that I know it’s hers. Somehow, I love that she’s taken something so bare and made it her own. But I probably acted like the opposite. Time to man up.
“I’m sorry, okay?” I start. “It just threw me, finding you here. I really liked you last night.”
She circles around in her chair. “And today you decide to treat me like a new step-sibling?”
I chuckle. “I don’t like to mix my personal life with my work life, and I’d hoped you might turn personal.”
Her face softens. “Oh.”
“I’d hoped to see you on the train again this Sunday and I had intentions of asking you out.”
A smile quickly forms before she has a chance to stop herself. “You were?”
I step closer, leaning on her two-drawer filing cabinet, my hands on either side of my hips. “What would you have said?”
Again, her smile. Seriously, it’s heartbreakingly beautiful. “You’ll have to ask me to find out.”
I shake my head and stand up straight. “I won’t.” Her smile falls. “I don’t date people I work with. It’s my rule.”
It’s a good rule, one I need to enforce. Even now when something inside of me says she’s different.
“Oh. Okay then.” She circles her chair back around to face her desk.
I spin the chair around so she’s facing me again.
“Tell me what you would’ve said.”
“Nope.” She giggles.
“Why?”
The nine o’clock meeting gets announced through the speaker in the phone and she stands up. “Because like I said, you have to ask me to find out.”
“I just told you my rule.”
She stops at the opening of her cubicle and turns one more time to face me. Crossing her arms over her chest, her eyes lock with mine. “Some rules are meant to be broken. Surely you know that.”
Before I can respond, she’s out of her cubicle and halfway down the hallway to the conference room.
Picking up my coffee and leaving my bagel for later, I follow knowing I’m screwed because she’s right. There’s an exception to every rule, and she just might be it.
Chapter Five
Blanca
When I’m at the outdoor entrance of my apartment building after work, someone screams my name from across the street.
I turn to find Dylan halfway out the doors of Ink Envy, waving me over.
Looking both ways like my mama taught me, I jog across the street. “What’s up?”
“Come on in,” he says. “I’ll be right back.”
I walk in and find Seth there, sitting down on a couch in the front of the tattoo shop with a giant Slurpee in his hands. He pats the seat next to him.
“Nice. What flavor?” I ask.
“Blue raspberry mixed with cherry and a squirt of Coke.”
I nod my approval. “So, why am I over here?”
“This is where we hang. Well, here or the rooftop.” He props his feet up on the table in front of him.
I glance around. The shop has soaring ceilings and the walls are covered in large picture frames filled with various tattoo designs the different artists have drawn. There’re a few artists at their stations, fewer clients.
“It’s early. Knox will be here shortly. So how was your first day of work?”
“Okay.” I shrug. “What do you do?”
He’s dressed in dark jeans and a Henley so I’m thinking he doesn’t work in an office of any sort.
“I’m a photographer.”
“Oh, that’s awesome. Like family portraits, weddings, landscapes? Have you been published?” I can’t stop the questions coming out of my mouth because I’ve always been intrigued by photography, but I never had the knack. My selfies still look horrible. Me and photography are similar to someone who wants to be organized but can’t get a handle on their clutter.
“Try boudoir.” Dylan comes over and sits down on the couch.
I take a seat on the couch opposite them. “Really? Like naked women.”
“No.” Seth looks offended, so I try to decrease my judgment. Not that I’m judging. I wish I had the guts to do it. Sadly, I know no one to give the pictures to. “Lingerie. And it’s just for experience and money until I can do what I really want to do.”
“He’s really good at it,” Dylan says.
He sips his Slurpee giving Dylan a pissed-off look like he was making fun of what he does for a living.
“Hey, Blanc.” I look over at Dylan surprised that he’s already shortened my name. “I wanted to apologize for last night. Sierra and I just don’t see eye-to-eye on the situation with her and her ex. You must’ve been really uncomfortable. Sorry.”
I shake my head. “It’s okay. I get it. After last night I think as long as you don’t talk badly about Prince Adrian Marx, you’ll be fine.”
“She told you about her crush, huh?” Dylan laughs. “That girl. God help her if she ever saw him face to face.”
“You mean God help the prince,” Seth adds, and we all laugh.
The doorbell rings and Sierra and Rian walk in. Dylan stands and holds his arms wide open. Rian looks to Sierra and joins me on the couch.
“You’re an asshole,” Sierra says, but she walks right into his arms. “You’re lucky I love you.”