Man Glitter (Jobs From Hell)

by Marika Ray

  Finnie flipped her huge dark sunglasses on her head. “You’re right. Vegetables are not disgusting. But juicing them all up together in some sort of concoction from hell is disgusting. It tasted worse than the damn moonshine!”

  I grabbed my chest. “However can we be friends, Rudolfina?”

  She climbed out of the car with an eye roll and I followed. “First of all, we’re not friends. Secondly, we’ll never be friends if you keep calling me Rudolfina.”

  I took a deep breath of ocean air, my entire body relaxing with just one glimpse of the blue Pacific ocean stretching out as far as the eye could see. “My sweet Finnie. First, we’re already friends. And secondly, the only thing I like more than that juice this morning is riling you up. It’s become my favorite thing to do. It’s just so easy.”

  Her car door slammed, and I looked back to see her carrying her work bag, another bag full of towels and sunscreen, and two chairs. She made one hell of a beautiful pack mule, oblivious to the beauty around her. I stifled a laugh and came over to take all but her work bag out of her hands. She nodded her thanks and headed down the path to the beach below us. This was my favorite spot to catch some sun and jump in the water. Figured I’d get some fresh air while showing Finnie some of my favorite spots since she was new in town.

  “You know you can’t get your hand wet, right?” Finnie squinted at me, her hands on her hips, her feet deep in the soft sand while I got the chairs set up.

  “I know. I’m here for the moist air and sunshine. It’s good for healing.” I stripped my T-shirt off and had a seat in my red board shorts. I tipped my head back to the sun and took deep breaths.

  Finnie was so quiet I finally looked over to see her still standing there just staring at me.

  “What?”

  She jumped and scrambled to put her work bag by her chair. “Nothing.”

  She pulled her black cover up off to reveal a royal blue swimsuit that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. I choked, sitting forward to cough as spit went down the wrong pipe.

  “You okay?” she asked me, squeezing sunblock onto her cupped palm and rubbing it up and down her arms, her full breasts bouncing in tiny triangle scraps of fabric held by a single flimsy string.

  I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Holy hell, how had she been hiding that beneath her demure blouses and alpaca pajamas this whole time? She had the body of the perfect woman, all lush curves, smooth skin, and tantalizing valleys. I should make her model for me so I could sculpt her shape into wood, preserved for all eternity.

  She sat in her chair, her legs crossing daintily and cherry red toenails bouncing as she swung her foot up and down. “Okay, you go breathe the fresh air and dip in the salt water and I’ll be over here getting work done.”

  A huge stack of papers slapped down on the tops of her thighs, snapping me out of my shocked daze. Another few seconds of me staring at her and she’d be sure to take a swipe at me with the grumpy stick.

  I swallowed hard and attempted normal conversation. Just picture her in alpaca pajamas.

  “You’re seriously going to ignore the natural beauty surrounding you to stare at a bunch of papers?” The idea of not enjoying the beach was crazy to me.

  Finnie flipped some pages over and ran her yellow highlighter over a line. “Yep.”

  I shrugged. “Suit yourself.” I stood and adjusted my shorts discreetly. Good thing she wasn’t even looking at me or she’d see the proof my body was insanely attracted to her. Although I’m sure she felt my wood last night dancing in the pergola. There was just something about her that made me want to put my hand over her mouth and have my way with her. Silently. Nothing sexier than a silent Finnie.

  The wind picked up, and I yearned to feel the sea spray on my face. I didn’t get more than two steps into the cold Pacific ocean before I heard a yelp behind me. I glanced over my shoulder to see a wave of papers flying through the air from Finnie’s lap.

  “My business plan!” she wailed, jumping up and flailing to capture the pages, making even more of a mess.

  I shook my head and made my way over, dancing through the breeze to help her grab the papers.

  “Goddammit!”

  “It’s okay. We’ll get them back,” I assured her, snagging another from the sand.

  Then another gust swept through and more pages went flying, dangerously close to the water’s edge. Finnie dashed over and I got distracted by the perfect heart shaped ass bending over in that tiny swim bottom. Then she straightened up and the panic on her face hit me in the gut. I couldn’t be perving over her body when her heart and soul was flying around in the wind, about to be ruined. I didn’t understand her obsession with work, but I could still respect it.

  Finnie reached out, her fingers barely grasping a stack of the papers that had settled on the sand when the wind whisked them out of her hand and into the water. She cried out and threw her hands down at her side before spinning and running back up the trail with the pages she’d been able to save. Tears of frustration welled up in her eyes and my heart lurched in my chest.

  So I ran around like a madman, collecting every single sheet of paper, even if it was currently facedown in the surf. I knew what this business meant to Finnie, and I hoped she had everything backed up on a computer somewhere. If not, I’d dry out each sheet and help her piece it back together.

  A seagull snatched up the last paper in his beak. I gulped. The seagulls around Auburn Hill were known for being assholes and this one was no different based on the way he stared me down as if daring me to fight him for it. Don’t know what a seagull would even want with a piece of paper, but they’d been known to hoard stranger things. I crouched down low and lifted a knee at a ninety-degree angle, arms out to the side in crouching tiger position. I hung there for at least a minute, holding his stare without blinking. Just when the burn in my leg got to be unbearable, I lunged forward with a loud “caw!” and he dropped the paper and flew away.

  Worked every time.

  You just had to be crazier than the seagull.

  I smiled smugly and added the paper to my stack, happy to have recovered every single one. Leaving the chairs on the beach for now, I hustled up the path to Finnie’s car. She sat in the driver’s seat, the papers arranged all around her as she sorted through them. Every few seconds a sniff could be heard over the crashing waves below as she tried to stem the tears. Nothing a man hated more than seeing a woman cry. We were helpless, and always said the wrong things. There was just no winning when a woman started in on the waterworks.

  I came around the car door and handed her my stack, refusing to look at the breasts still on display in her bikini top. Now really wasn’t the time. I mean, it was always the time to appreciate beauty, but I knew Finnie wouldn’t see it that way. “Got every last one. I think if we lay them out to dry, they should be okay.”

  She raised her face, the tears gone, but her eyes and nose were red. Her mouth opened, but she paused before speaking.

  “You got them all?” she asked, her voice sounding small and completely unlike her commanding, grumpy self.

  I scoffed, winking at her in hopes it would get her riled up and get us back on our normal track of arguing. “Did you think I wouldn’t? I’m a master paper collector. Might even be better at catching flying papers than carving wood. I mean, that talent doesn’t get put on many resumes, but it should, right next to any formal degrees.”

  She tried to bite back the smile. “Master paper collector?”

  I gestured to the pages in her hand. “Got the proof right there. I’m your guy if you ever get a chance to get in one of those chambers where they blow money and you see what you can grab before the buzzer goes off.” She bit back a smile and I wanted to pat myself on the back for a job well done. “Now how about you sort your pages while I collect our stuff down on the beach and we’ll get on out of here?”

  She nodded, and I turned to leave, happy I’d been able to somewhat avert her crisis. “Charlie?” she called ou
t.

  I turned again and squinted against the mid-day sun.

  “Thank you,” she said just loud enough for me to catch.

  7

  Finnie

  I’d fallen asleep quickly last night for the first time since I’d started staying over at Charlie’s house. The couch was still lumpy and smelled of expired essential oils, but I’d been at peace. Charlie rescuing all my papers had created a truce of some sort in our relationship. Not that we had a relationship, but it seemed like the tension was finally gone. We were friends, or at the very least, friendly.

  My phone ringing woke me up just a little before seven. I was getting used to Chester’s tongue on my hand or cheek being my wake up call, so an actual phone call proved startling. The display said Mrs. Trudowsky, which was even more odd. I’d met her by accident my first day in town at Coffee. She’d insisted we exchange phone numbers so she could call me when they had open bowling night. I didn’t have the heart to turn her down.

  “Hello?” I answered, not sure if I’d be invited to bowl or if the old woman was having some sort of medical emergency.

  “Doctor Finnie? Is that you?” her weathered voice scratched over the line.

  “Yes, Mrs. Trudowsky, it’s me.” I sat up and shoved my hair out of my face, stretching my abused back. Couches were no good for long term sleeping arrangements.

  “Well, I just wanted to invite you and that sweet Charlie to come bowling tonight. It’s BOGO night!”

  I grinned, having absolutely no interest in bowling, but wasn’t this the sweetest small town phone call ever? Wait. I frowned. Why did she bring up Charlie?

  “Um, well, I’m not sure if Charlie has plans or not.” My stomach dipped, and I instantly felt uneasy.

  “Oh, well, I’ll wait while you go ask him, honey. I figured with you two living together now, you’d want to bowl together too. Nothing says romantic like a night of bowling in rented shoes, you know. We even have a new mascot. The Alley Cat!”

  While that point about bowling being romantic was arguable, and the Alley Cat mascot sounded adorable, I couldn’t seem to get past the living together comment.

  “Um, what are you talking about, Mrs. Trudowsky? Charlie and I aren’t living together. We’re neighbors.” I stood and paced the room, Chester dancing around with me, thinking we were playing a game.

  “Well, that’s a disappointment. I heard you two were seen shacking up and got my hopes up. Charlie is such a lovely man and deserves a smart, pretty girl like you. Maybe you should invite him anyway and see if the sparks don’t fly right along with the pins, huh?” She sounded so hopeful I hated to let her down, but I couldn’t have those types of rumors flying when I was trying to start a business in the community.

  “I-I don’t know about that. Um, I gotta go, but I’ll see what I can do.” I hung up on the poor lady and spun in a complete circle, like I’d find the answers somewhere on the plain white walls of Charlie’s living room.

  All too quickly, the nerves morphed into anger. Here I was trying to help the guy and now rumors had gotten out, potentially damaging my business before I’d even opened my urgent care. I was a single woman in a small town. I couldn’t be shacking up with a guy and then open a clinic where I’d be the town doctor, a supposed moral pillar of society.

  “Shacking up?” I asked Chester, who only whined in response.

  I stalked down the hall, intent on getting Charlie up to help me deal with this debacle. It took two to shack up, after all. He and I needed to be on the same page so we could squash this rumor and get ahold of whoever started it to set them straight.

  I knocked once on his bedroom door, but didn’t hear anything. The guy was probably sleeping in again. Turning the doorknob, I walked in, fully expecting to see his lazy lump under the sheets. Instead, I saw a rumpled bed, but no Charlie.

  A noise to my right had my head swinging. Charlie walked out of his bathroom, a white towel rubbing through his shaggy hair and not a single stitch of clothing on. His cock swung between his muscled thighs as he walked into the room, the length and girth more than I would have expected from a guy who juiced vegetables for breakfast. My jaw dropped open, and I stared, completely transfixed, even when he came to a stop and saw me in his room.

  “Morning, Doc,” he drawled, and if I wasn’t mistaken, he flexed his abs.

  “Uh…” Words were impossible.

  He turned and headed to his dresser, not bothering to cover himself with the towel. Which was fine by me because his backside was a sight to behold as well, the sculpted globes of his ass practically begging to be squeezed by my hands. A tiny drop of water slid down the indent of his spine and into the slight dimple above his ass. I was suddenly thirsty. And hot. Scorching hot.

  Charlie turned again, slowly stepping into a pair of underwear and tucking himself inside. A crying shame to keep that thing covered up. Like putting a robe on Michelangelo’s David. I shut my mouth and swallowed, finding my mouth desert-level dry. All my fluids had headed south.

  “Like what you see, Rudolfina?” Charlie winked at me, the smug little smirk the splash of cold water to the face that I needed.

  I stood tall, all five-foot-ten inches of me trying desperately to recover from seeing Charlie naked as the day he was born. He proceeded to pull on some jeans and a worn T-shirt while I watched. It was a reverse strip tease and yet every bit as exciting as the original version. He could even zip his pants without my help.

  I blinked.

  He could zip his pants. What the hell was I still doing living here when he clearly didn’t need my help anymore?

  “Charlie,” I started, having to clear my throat when it came out a croak. “We need to talk.”

  He hissed in a breath and then smiled, always the jokester. “Sounds serious, Doc. Maybe we can get some breakfast first and then chat?”

  He swept out of the room and called back that he’d make me a smoothie. I shuddered. His smoothies were almost as bad as his juice cleanses. I trailed behind him, grabbing some clothes out of my bag and getting dressed in the guest bathroom I’d taken over as mine for the time being. My brain seemed to have short-circuited. All I could see were flashes of that fabulous cock. The way it leaned left. The way it grew in the scant seconds he’d stood there naked in front of me. What would it look like fully erect? I squeezed my thighs together and begged myself to stay focused.

  My priority was squashing this rumor and moving the hell out. Now dressed, I splashed water on my face and tried to convince myself that moving back to my new house was what I wanted. Somehow, that idea seemed to lose its luster in just a few short days with Charlie and his ridiculous antics. Plus, Chester. I’d miss that dog and his intuitive whine.

  “You’re an emergency medicine doctor, Finnie Dorado. You stay focused and do what needs to be done. Feelings are bullshit and unreliable. You know this,” I said to myself in the mirror.

  A flashback to me crying in a supply closet at the hospital in San Francisco hit me like a ton of bricks. That’s what happened when I let emotions rule the day. I’d pulled myself together back then under unthinkable conditions and promised myself not to indulge in those pesky feelings ever again. Maybe it worked for others, but not for me. Never for me.

  With that reminder steeling my spine, I left the bathroom, took a sip of the disgusting smoothie Charlie handed me in the kitchen, and sat down to tell him two things. I was moving out, and he needed to go into town today to squash that ridiculous rumor.

  “Here’s the deal, Charlie. I’m—”

  Charlie held his hand up and interrupted me.

  “Before you get your panties in a twist, I didn’t know you’d be in my room. I could have sworn the door was closed before I hopped in the shower, so that little peep show is on you. I’m not uncomfortable with nudity, but I have a feeling you might be.”

  My hand dropped onto the counter. Problem with nudity? Excuse me?

  “Um, I don’t have a problem with nudity. I’m a doctor, for Christ’s sa
ke. I see naked bodies all the time.”

  Charlie smirked, a green juice mustache above his lip. The man had no right to smirk and look that damn hot doing it when he also looked like an overgrown idiot. “I don’t know, Doc. You appear a bit strung tight after seeing me naked. I just have that effect on women. Don’t worry about it.”

  I stood up, the stool almost tipping over. “I’m not ‘strung tight.’ I just wanted to have a serious conversation with you about our living arrangements.”

  Charlie padded over in bare feet to put an arm around me, those muscles I’d seen this morning pressed into my side. Oh God, he smelled good.

  “You saw the goods and now you want to sleep in my bed. Am I right?”

  I shoved his hard body away with my elbow, nearly spilling his hideous smoothie. “No!”

  Charlie cracked up. “I’m just teasing you, Rudolfina. Why don’t you come out to my workshop and I’ll show you how to work off some of that stress that’s got your panties up your crack?”

  My face flamed red. “They’re not up my crack. I’m not even wearing any!”

  Charlie’s eyebrow lifted. “Oh, really?”

  I threw my hands in the air. “Ugh! I’m not wearing any because I ran out of clean clothes because I’ve been living out of a duffle bag to help you out when you’re not even injured enough to need my help and now the town is gossiping about us and all because I didn’t realize you could zip your own pants already!”

  Charlie froze, the silence between us stretching out after my outburst. Chester came over to my side and sat, his head butting against my hand and his cute little whine calming me down.

  “That’s quite a lot to take in all at once and yet I feel like I need to apologize for zipping my pants more so than being naked in front of you. Is that right?” Charlie scratched the side of his head, looking quite uncertain.

  I sighed. “I don’t know. Let’s just go out to your workshop and have a conversation. Okay?”