Somehow she always finds me when I’m eyeing the clock because the Motherfuckers are meeting up for drinks and I need to leave the very second my shift is over. It’s as if she’s got a sense about when I’m worried about being late and is helping me overcome that fear through exposure therapy. When she tracked me down toward the end of the workday the week after the first episode of The Love Study, I was just finishing up carpet cleaning confirmation calls (yes, that’s a thing). I hadn’t even known the company did carpet cleaning until I’d moved to cover a maternity leave in this department.
Okay, truth: I have no fucking clue only sort of understand what it is the company does. It’s big, there are a lot of departments across three floors of a building downtown, and the only thing I reliably know how to get to is Deb’s office, which is in a cluster of cubicles on the middle floor.
And yes, cubicles come in clusters. Like cats.
She walked up to my temporary desk right as I was finishing the final confirmation call, smiling at me as I said goodbye to what sounded like either a very old man or a very old woman (or a very old nonbinary person).
“You’re excellent at customer service,” she said when I finally put the phone down.
“Don’t try to butter me up, Deb. Hey, did Anne get what she needed from—” I waved my hand “—uh, the book restoration place? I meant to ask you last week.”
“Origin of Book, yeah, thanks again for that.”
“Sure. Glad to help.” Deb’s partner Anne is basically that scary lesbian professor that you secretly wanted to have sex with just one time because yeah, she was terrifying, but terrifying in a hot way. I was genuinely glad to help. Any time you could tell the lion how to get a thorn out of its paw while standing a safe distance away was a total win.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” When Deb said that it sounded vaguely ominous. “Do you have a minute to talk?”
“Um...sure.” Oh, fuck. She was pissed I wouldn’t take her up on her offer and she was firing me. No, she couldn’t fire me. Getting rid of me. Sending me back into the temp pool. Which was what I wanted! I liked being in the temp pool! Except I also liked working for Deb, and if she was legit going to send me back for not agreeing to work for her for real, maybe I’d been too hasty. I’d thought we were playing. Going back and forth, with her trying to seduce me, and me playing hard to get. It wasn’t right that she’d changed the rules and now was going to dump me before we’d even properly consummated our business relationship. This wasn’t fair at all.
I opened my mouth to say that but she started talking first and I shut it.
Which turned out to be a really good thing.
“We have an event coming up that needs a coordinator. The things I need done are well within the scope of your current duties, but it would be a bigger project than you’ve ever taken on for me before, and it will require planning over a longer period of time. In all honesty, Declan, I’d need a commitment from you that you’ll see it through to the end.” As if anticipating my protest—which was in no way coming because I was still realigning from getting the whole thing wrong—she held up both hands. “I’ll iron it out with the temp agency, but I wanted to make sure you were on board. It wouldn’t be a contract, just a verbal commitment. I trust you to stay if you say you will.”
My emotions were in something of a tizzy (technical term). Relief that she wasn’t dumping me warred with irritation at that manipulative I trust you, which warred with, like, feeling humbled that she trusted me. Deb wasn’t blowing smoke up my poodle skirt; if she said she trusted me, it was because she did.
A wildly inappropriate desire to wear a poodle skirt to the next episode of The Love Study just to see Sidney’s face intruded into my awareness. I forced it back and focused on Deb.
“How long term?” That seemed like a reasonable question.
“The event is six weeks away.”
I nodded. Although the panic was receding, my freak-out response to the idea of being sent back to the temp pool seemed to indicate that I wouldn’t mind continuing to work for her that long. “I can commit to six weeks. As long as you square it with the agency.”
“It would be a long-term assignment. The first month you’d be covering other positions part of the time and devoting a certain number of hours a week to the event. The last two weeks at least would be full-time coordination.”
“Sounds good.”
She ran a hand up the buzzed back of her head and took a deep breath. “After our conversation last week I thought for sure you’d say no.”
“I, uh, thought you were dumping me. I was prepared to beg you not to.”
“Good god, no. Though I’ll file that away for future reference.” She leaned back against the wall outside the cubby where I was currently holed up. “You were going to beg me to keep you on, huh?”
“It would take a real bastard to hold that against me, Deb.”
She smiled. “How unfortunate for you that I’m a bastard. Oh, and one more thing.”
My spidey sense went to red alert. “What’s that?”
“I might assign you a staff at some point. I did check with the agency and they said you’d had prior supervisory experience, so that would be perfectly appropriate.”
“A staff?” I echoed. My “prior supervisory experience” was being lead intern at a literary magazine that only ever had one issue (and it wasn’t the one I worked on; they went bankrupt two months after I got the gig).
“You’ll be fabulous. Have a good night, Declan.” The woman winked at me. Had the freaking cheek to wink at me.
“You too.” Because what else do you say?
Chapter Five
The Motherfuckers were meeting up at Mason’s apartment. I only realized why when he let me in and called, “Places, places! Everyone find their mark for the reenactment!”
This was to be a Declan roasting. I accepted my glass bottle of sparkling water—they’d spared no expense—and located Sidney in the fracas.
I smiled at them as we hovered in the kitchen while my ridiculous friends giggled and assumed exaggerated poses. “You made it to drinks again.”
“I think I was lured here under false pretenses.” At my questioning eyebrow, they explained, “Mia promised it would be fun. But now...”
I followed their gaze to where an envelope had been taped to the top of the TV screen. On the envelope, in painstaking block letters, was THE LOVE STUDY. Jackasses. I couldn’t help but move slightly closer to Sidney. For the sake of reassuring them, naturally. “I think it’ll be fun once we weather the storm. Let them get it out of their systems.” They didn’t seem convinced and it occurred to me that they might think my friends were mocking the show. “Um, this is totally just them teasing me. They already like you. Well, everyone who’s met you likes you and Oscar doesn’t like anyone.” Shit, this seemed less reassuring than I’d intended. “I just mean they’re not trying to be jerks.”