“Tell me more about this idea,” she finally said. “I don’t think I’m getting how it can work here, but I’m listening.”
Dax was shocked by how much that made him want to kiss her.
Eating cake pops? Licking frosting off her fingers and lips? Checking out his abs? Being sassy and sarcastic? Pitching in to help the people around her and then being surprised when someone thought that was really great? Driving a forklift? Sure, that all made sense. But her wanting to hear more about his idea? Taking it seriously enough to sit and listen? It made him want to kiss the hell out of her. And then impress her. With more than his tongue.
He cleared his throat. He had to talk first. Then kiss. Maybe. If he was lucky. “The people here know what they’re doing. Hot Cakes is fortunate as hell to have a ton of people who have been here a long time. Even when new people come in, the current employees are very capable of training them and demanding good work.”
“They’ve been demanding good work from you?” she asked. “Really?”
He nodded. “They have. They’ve been… deferential because, I guess, I’m kind of the boss, but yeah, they correct me and make me do things over if I mess it up.”
She laughed. “You are the boss. Period. There’s no guessing or kind of about it.”
He sighed. “I don’t feel like a boss.”
“You’re new here. This is all new,” she said.
He shook his head. “Ever.”
“You never feel like a boss?”
“I’d much rather just work with people. I’m only a boss because I have money. There are a lot of people who know more than I do, who are more talented than I am, who have better ideas than I do.”
She gave him a funny look.
“What?”
“Yeah, you’re not a very good boss.”
He laughed.
“Seriously, that is not any kind of boss attitude I’ve ever seen before. You need to be full of yourself and certain that you know more and that you’re always right.”
“And certain that my farts smell like cookies?”
Her eyes widened. “Pardon me?”
He chuckled. “Cam says he doesn’t believe that my farts smell like cookies, but that I walk around as if they do.”
She narrowed her eyes. “But you walk around like that because you’re trying to convince everyone that cookie farts are all you’re really concerned about.”
He narrowed his eyes back at her. “You think you’ve figured me out?”
She looked mildly surprised but she nodded. “You don’t think of yourself as a boss because you don’t want to be a boss because you think people don’t like bosses.”
Damn, she maybe had figured him out.
He liked the idea of her knowing him. Jane knowing him made him think she could also help him be better at all the things he wanted to do. Which meant that maybe he was figuring her out too. She wouldn’t put up with his bullshit.
She’d be like Grant. Except she had gorgeous lips and curves and he wanted to get naked with her.
Actually, she’d be better than Grant in another way too. Grant actually gave him a long leash at times. Grant told him when he was being a dumbass and definitely got pissed off at him, but Grant cleaned up his and Ollie’s messes and just took care of things he didn’t want them dealing with because they were business partners, and he had to keep Dax out there doing his thing.
Dax definitely liked the women who would show up in fairy or princess costumes to cosplay characters he’d created. That was huge for his ego, no question. He loved having fans. But in spite of the fact that he resented every time his father tried to get him to stop messing around, he knew he actually needed someone who would say, “Your farts do not and never will smell like cookies, so knock it off.”
Jane wouldn’t care about his ego staying big enough that he could entertain a crowd of thousands at Comic-Con. In fact, if things went well and progressed the way he’d like, they’d get to a place where she would prefer he not hang out with hot cosplaying princesses.
He’d also bet a million dollars she’d make him clean up his own messes.
“You think I need people to like me?” he asked. That wasn’t exactly it.
“You brought coffee to eighty people your first day of work.”
Fair enough. “Well, of course, I like when people like me. But actually, I want people to feel… better off because I’m around.”
Her expression softened. “I think you’re pulling that off.”
He liked that. “Yeah?”
“Well, you’re down here learning about how this place works and what the workers think even two days after realizing you’re not going to be around me enough to try to seduce me. And you brought in a TV, not to win people over or help people kill time, but to help them actually interact with each other outside of what they’re doing at work. And you appreciate the fact that these people are correcting what you’re doing even though you are their boss.”
He basked in that for a moment. He couldn’t help it. Jane Kemper was a tough girl with a heart of gold, and her giving him five minutes of consideration—and deciding he wasn’t a total fuck-up—was pretty damned great.
“Wow,” he finally said softly, looking right into her eyes. “I am pretty awesome.”
She blinked once. Then again. Then rolled those gorgeous eyes—Piper might not actually have the prettiest eye roll after all—and blew out a breath. “Okay, boss man, tell me the rest of this brilliant plan.”
Boss man. Huh. Maybe he could be a boss. Maybe being a boss didn’t mean being a hard-ass and someone people hated or were intimidated by. Maybe the things he did were boss-like.
“Okay,” he said, filled with a confidence that was unlike the kind he was used to. This wasn’t cocky confidence. This wasn’t I-just-nailed-that-design confidence. This was this-could-really-matter confidence. He liked it. “The factory already works because the employees are divided up into various areas that specialize in certain parts of the production. There are managers and so on. But they have specific work hours, and people are paid based on how much they work, not how they work.”
“Okay,” Jane said. “Go on.”
“But how they work and how they feel about their work matters. It shouldn’t just be punching a time clock. It should be about being a part of a team. I get that we can only care so much about snack cakes,” he said. “But we can care about the people around us, the people we’re working with, and how they’re working.”
She nodded. “I think most of us already do.”
“I do too. I’ve already seen it. Which means, this will be an easy adjustment and one people will embrace. It will reward them for what they’re already doing. Working as a team.” He scooted his chair forward, leaning in, excited the more he talked. “Each area becomes a team. There’s no manager. There’s no hierarchy. Everyone is the same. You work together to figure out when everyone works and what they do. Someone needs longer breaks because their carpal tunnel is flaring up? That person takes those breaks and works a longer day. You need shorter breaks more often? Take them. You need shorter days but want to work six days a week? Or longer days and work only four? You want to come in later on Fridays or earlier on Tuesdays? Great. Everyone knows what they need to get done and then they’re in charge of making it happen.”
She was frowning but she was listening. “But no one keeps track? How do they get paid?” Jane asked.
“The team is given a percent of the overall company earnings. Every piece of the factory is important. Equally so. We couldn’t run without the mixing and baking area, but we also need packaging and shipping. We need the maintenance crew and the business office and… everyone. We all rise or fall based on how everyone else does.”
She watched him, her wheels clearly turning. Finally she nodded. “Okay.”
“Really?” He was a little surprised. “You think it’s good?”
“I didn’t say that.” She pushed back from the table. “But
it’s not bad. As a starting point. It will never work exactly like that, but I like the thought you’ve put into it.”
“Yeah?” She didn’t think it would work, but she liked the general idea. For some reason that made Dax feel downright triumphant.
She stood. “I think that you’ve really thought about this a lot and clearly researched some things, and obviously, you’ve been paying attention around here.” She pushed her chair in. “And that is all great.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
“And I think you just need to do a lot more of it. Ask questions. Talk to people who have been doing this work for a long time. Don’t assume anything.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
She started to turn away but then faced him again. “And… you made me realize something.”
“I did?”
She nodded. “I’ve thought for a long time I could just come to work, put in my time, and then go home. I thought this was just a job and that’s what I wanted because I have so much going on outside of work.”
He nodded.
“But…” She paused, then went on. “Some of the guys built a ramp at my dad’s house for his wheelchair when it got to the point he couldn’t do the steps with his walker anymore. They just showed up one Saturday and did it. Just like that.” She swallowed. “And when my sister needed her tonsils out last fall, they covered my hours, but then they went even further, and a bunch of people from my department brought her ice cream and magazines, and they didn’t forget to bring me strawberry cobbler and wine.”
He chuckled.
She took a breath. “I guess I do leave the work here when I leave, but I don’t leave the people here. And neither do my coworkers. So…” She looked at him, her bottom lip between her teeth. “Thanks for pointing that out to me.”
Then she did fully turn and walk away. Back to work.
Dax sat at the table by himself for a long time after she left. Thinking.
Dax almost never sat—or did anything alone anywhere—for any extended period of time.
But the true sign his world was tipping on its axis?
He didn’t even really want to play Ping-Pong.
4
Jane approached the door to the break room on Monday with trepidation. She’d avoided it Friday and had been off for the weekend. She was always glad to have the weekend off, but she’d welcomed the time away from Hot Cakes even more than usual. After her sit-down with Dax the day before that, she’d been shaken. By him. By his ideas and his sexy smile and his desire to make things better for everyone and the way he’d gotten her thinking about things.
The guy with the gummy bears in his office wasn’t supposed to make her think about things.
But today she was going in there. Because… she wanted a cappuccino.
No, that wasn’t true. Entirely. Those were pretty damned good. Especially the way Dax put cinnamon on the top of his. But that wasn’t what was drawing her toward the break room today.
She’d been at the nursing home yesterday, and the nurses had told her that her dad had been in his room and hadn’t wanted to come out for the last couple of days. He wouldn’t come out with her either. He said he had no interest in doing anything that was happening outside of his room, so why would he come out? Which was logical. Though sitting in his room all day wasn’t great either. Jack’s mind was fully functional except for the fogginess one of his medications caused at times. But he took that at night, so during the day, he was mentally functional. It was his body that was failing him. And none of his nurses danced around the fact. His condition wasn’t going to get better. The best they could hope for was to treat the symptoms, like the tremors and muscle tightness, and hope the disease could be slowed. But all the experimental programs were happening in bigger cities, and they simply couldn’t afford for Jack to participate in any. It was one of the truths of living in a rural area. Medical advancements didn’t get here as quickly and specialists were spread thin.
Which left relatively young men, whose minds were still intact inside of failing bodies, living in nursing homes with people who could be their parents and who needed a different type of care.
Jack just didn’t want to do the activities offered at the home a lot of the time.
Jane was so frustrated. She felt guilty he had to live there but knew she couldn’t care for him herself. He’d be sitting in her apartment alone all day if he lived with her. And there’d be no one there to help him with even the simple things like getting up to the bathroom or eating. Things the tremors and muscle spasms made impossible for him to do on his own.
He needed another person to physically help him up and down, and as the psychologist had explained to them while they’d been dealing with the move to the nursing home, it really was easier for everyone most times if that person was a professional. Not only because they knew safe techniques for helping but also because helping your father use the toilet was just something that was difficult emotionally for both the child and the parent.
Still, when Jack said he spent his day reading and watching television for days on end, she felt terrible. She visited three times a week, but it was so hard to get there more often. She had to check in on Kelsey too. She had friends and coworkers—with sick kids and dogs that needed sitting—that needed her too and… frankly, she sometimes just needed time to sit in her apartment alone.
She understood the beauty of alone time. She really did.
If that’s all Jack was going for, it would be different.
“Yes!”
The shout came from the break room and jerked her out of her thoughts.
Last night had been really hard. Typically she would be out in her car, eating a sandwich in total silence, just breathing, not up for being with people.
Today, though, she was standing in front of the break room door, knowing Dax was inside, and hoping he could distract her.
Actually, she knew he could.
She wanted that.
But she was worried. Worried she’d get really addicted to that. Addicted to him.
She couldn’t just ignore all the stuff going on in her life. She couldn’t make a habit of letting Dax take her mind off everything. She needed to deal with everything. She should probably be on the phone with the nursing home administrator or Zoe and Josie, someone who could give her advice.
Instead, she wanted to drink cappuccino and flirt.
“Hey, you joining the tournament?” Gabe, one of the other guys in the shipping department asked, passing her on his way to the break room.
“The tournament?” she asked. She started after him. Now that someone had seen her in the hallway, she had to go in. Not going in would be silly.
Just today. Just this one time. Just one hour of distraction.
“The UNO tournament,” Gabe said, pushing the door open. “It’s Monday.”
She assumed that was supposed to make sense. It didn’t, exactly, but she knew Dax was behind it, and that was really all she needed to know to know it was something fun and popular.
Honestly, the employees really had been talking about him a lot. How funny he was. How enthusiastic he was to learn everything about the factory. How self-deprecating he was about getting a lot of it wrong. Apparently, the mixer had “somehow” gotten switched to high with very few ingredients inside and had sprayed runny pink batter everywhere yesterday. He’d been coated in it.
Jane was suspicious. She wouldn’t put it past Dax to mess a few things up on purpose just to help everyone around him relax and to give them a good laugh at his expense.
But she wasn’t going to ask him about it. It made her like him more, and if he confirmed it, she might have to admit she had a little crush.
The noise from inside the room rose as she and Gabe stepped inside and she took in the sight. The tables were full. Four to six people sat at each one and they were all playing cards. It looked like a poker tournament. Other than the brightly colored cards and lack of cigar smoke and bourbon, she
supposed. Instead, they had glasses and cups beside them. She assumed those held soda and cappuccino. Bowls of pretzels and M&M’s and chips sat around as well, and yes, gummy bears. Seeing those made her smile and she searched the room for Dax.
She found him lounging at a back table watching the whole thing. His chair was tipped back on two legs and he looked pleased. Happy. Almost proud. And looking at him just then, simply watching other people having fun, she realized this really was him. He really did like to make other people happy.
And if she’d had a crush on him, it would have grown a little then.
Or a lot.
She needed this. Just today. Just for this hour. Not for good. But yeah, for right now, this seemed like a great idea. Not the card game. She didn’t want to play UNO. She wanted to talk to Dax though.
His gaze found her when she was halfway across the room. The front legs of his chair hit the floor with a thump and his grin grew. It made her heart thump hard in her chest. The last time someone had looked that happy to see her had been last night when her dad had seen her come through his door. But that thump had been accompanied by sadness and guilt and anger about how unfair the whole situation was.
This thump, the one Dax caused, was all about fun and anticipation and how good that Hot Cakes t-shirt looked on him.
“Well, hey there, Ms. Kemper.”
“Hi, Boss Man,” she returned.
He chuckled but shook his head. “See, I can think of some ways that could sound hot as hell, but not here and not like that.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “That could sound hot as hell?”
He pushed out a chair at his table for her. “Sure. ‘How can I help you today, Boss? What can I do for you, Boss? Would you like me to clear out the conference room, Boss?’”
Jane took the chair, avoiding his eyes so he wouldn’t see she was actually unable to smile at any of that or come up with a sassy comeback. Because she was breathing a little faster, and she was afraid her fair skin would give away that she was a little hotter now than she’d been a few seconds ago.
“But no,” he said, sitting forward and shaking his head. “I think it would be better with ‘sir.’ As in ‘Yes, sir,’ and ‘Whatever you want, sir.’”
Forking Around (Hot Cakes Book 2) Page 7