“This is for you,” he said, holding out the coffee. “I’m sorry for messing up your schedule. Tomorrow, please come in at your usual time.”
Biting her lip, she took the cup from him. “I was blathering, wasn’t I?”
“I have that effect on people. Comes with the job.” He smiled and looked around. Where was April? He probably shouldn’t ask. Even though most people seemed to find him completely opaque, he had to be careful. He shouldn’t ask direct questions about April until her appeal had worn off—within the next day or two, he hoped, if he immersed himself in her department and the thrill of having functional hormones wore off.
“There’s usually only one freelancer here at a time, so it was easy to find you space. I’ve cleared this desk for you,” Rita said, ushering him to the cubicle across from April’s. They’d be sitting back-to-back.
His heart began to pound. Right now would be a good time to get a fucking grip.
One or two days. That would do it.
Clenching his teeth, he set his laptop on the desk.
“Is it okay?” Rita asked. “I’ve got another spot over here, but it’s cramped. Three monitors take up a lot of room.”
“No, no, this is great.” He met her gaze and smiled politely.
“Oh my God,” a voice burst out from the other side of the cubicle wall. “I will never, ever, ever be a morning person, and if one of those early bird worm-loving freaks gets in my way, I’m not responsible for what happens.”
Zack, a morning person, had sensed she had arrived even before she spoke—it wasn’t just the fruity perfume she was wearing, but the squeak of heavy rubber soles in the hallway that gave her away.
“Good morning,” he said. He could feel his smile brighten from polite to puppy-happy.
Be careful, you dork. He had a reputation for being about as flirtatious as a filing cabinet, with excellent results. He was young but serious and responsible. Sexual harassment was a claim he advised his clients to take seriously. He could hardly commit it himself, even accidentally.
He noticed her frown just as she tried to hide it by turning away to sit at her desk. “Morning,” she said softly.
He untangled his laptop cord and plugged it in, adjusted his bag, phone, and laptop on the desk, and removed his full-sized notebook and one of his many pens from inside the bag. A glance at his phone told him it was 8:03 a.m., a typical start time for him. He let out the breath he’d been holding, telling himself it was funny, not terrifying, that he had a crush on a woman who wore a torn Beavis and Butthead T-shirt to the office.
The two women in the office with him didn’t say a word for thirty minutes. He was lost in his own work, transcribing his notes from the day before, when Rita knocked on the hard edge of the cubicle to get his attention.
“Will you be needing me for anything? I have a meeting at nine, so if you wanted to talk to me, now would be a good time,” she said.
He really did have to justify crashing into her office like he had. “I’d love a quick demo of the software you use. Not the off-the-shelf packages, but…” He trailed off. He wasn’t convinced that all the specialized equipment Fite had was worth the fortune the company had poured into it. He knew how tempting shiny new software, computers, and toys could be—especially to fashion designers who made a living chasing trends and looking cool.
Rita’s face tensed, as if she’d had to defend the expenses before. “I’ll want to give you a proper demonstration.” She looked at her watch. “Is ten fifteen all right? I just got called into a meeting. It’s with the Men’s team, and they’re already upset with—well, they’re always upset, honestly, but we have to get some revisions in the afternoon FedEx shipment to New York, and it really can’t wait—”
Zack held up a reassuring hand. “You don’t have to take time out of your day for me. I’ll just watch”—he hesitated, as if not sure of her name—“April. While she’s working. That way I’m not slowing anybody down.”
Rita shook her head. “April hasn’t learned FreePeat yet. That’s the software you’re talking about, I think, because it’s so expensive.” She ran nervous fingers through her fair hair. “Right?”
Zack glanced at April, who had her back to him. The monitor over her head was filled with black and pink stripes. “I think that was the name,” he said. “That’s not what she’s using right now?”
“No, that’s just Illustrator. For screen prints, we can use either.” Rita looked at her watch again. “Look, maybe I can reschedule that meeting with the Men’s team. They’re probably just going to ask for a color change, and I can rush that over lunch—”
“Don’t skip your lunch just for me,” he said. “You already came in early. I’m really not here to cause trouble. I try to blend in. Impossible, I know, but don’t change your schedule for me. I’ll adapt. Is ten thirty a good time?”
“Yes, but are you sure?”
“Absolutely,” he said.
Rita nodded, smiling tightly, and retrieved a tablet from her own cubicle before running for the door. “Be right back! April can show you what she’s working on if you’re interested.”
When she was gone, April rotated halfway in her chair and met his gaze over her shoulder. A handful of her curly hair was swept up in a round ponytail at the back of her head that looked like a yarn pom-pom on a winter hat. Her gray eyes were rimmed with cobalt-blue eyeliner that was the same color as her skin-tight jeans. “Are you interested?”
His hands began to sweat. Hell, yes, but why?
He stood up and came over. “Do they usually hire freelancers who don’t know how to use the software?”
She rotated away from him and grabbed the mouse. “I know how to use the software. See?”
“Not the specialized software, though. Is it that rare?”
“You’d have to ask Rita,” she said. The window on her screen closed, opened, closed. Another graphic appeared, this one with the Fite logo in earth tones. It zoomed across the screen, F-I-T-E, and then disappeared. Her fingers tapped on the mouse.
She was nervous.
Why?
He’d allowed his resurrected sex drive to distract him from learning something important. Big mistake. In spite of the high flirt risk, he rolled his chair over from his side of the cubicle and sat down next to her. “So, April,” he began. “What exactly were you doing in here the day we met?”
Her hands settled on the desk. After a second, she said, “Trying to learn the software so I could get a job in this department.”
“Where were you working before?”
She didn’t answer.
“April?”
“It’s funny,” she said. “I’m the one who screwed up, but if I tell you, other people will get in trouble.”
He instinctively clicked his pen. “I’m not the police.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I’m not,” he repeated.
“Fine,” she said. “Why are you here?”
“I was hired to find ways to establish the company’s long-term financial health.”
“In the art room?” she asked softly, raising one eyebrow.
His pulse accelerated. She’s on to you.
No, she was just trying to scare him away. Donning his coldest, most filing-cabinet persona, he said, “Each license of that design software costs as much as the combined annual salary of two associate merchandising assistants,” he said. “And yet you don’t know how to use it.”
“Big deal,” she said with a shrug. “The combined annual salary of two associate merchandising assistants is about fifteen bucks.”
“A little more than that.”
“Not much more. Seriously.” She snorted. “Why do you think I work in here?”
“That’s what I’m wondering.”
Her smile vanished. “I’m an artist. I have a degree. I’m good, ask Rita.”
“Did you use to be a merchandising assistant?”
She ran her fingers through her hair, roughly releasing t
he fluffy ponytail. Brown curls floated around her face. Her eyes darted around the carpeted walls, settling nowhere. “I don’t suppose if I tell you, you’ll promise not to tell Liam? You can file it away in your notebook and move on to more important things?”
“I can’t promise anything, I’m sorry.”
“Then I won’t tell you. I can’t. Assume the worst if you have to, I’m not squealing.”
He put the pen down, trying not to laugh. “This isn’t the The Godfather.”
“You don’t know my br—” She turned to the computer again and brought up the stripes. “Never mind. Do you want to see what I’m working on or not?”
“You do know I can find out all this in HR, right?”
“Go ahead.”
He frowned at her, more confused than ever. Making a show of taking out his notebook, he asked, “What’s your last name?”
“Shit.”
“Unusual name.”
“It’s French,” she said.
“April…”
“That’s English, I think. Or Latin.” She peered at the computer. “You could look it up.”
He would. But in the meantime, he’d let her know what he suspected. “You know somebody who works at Fite. While you were visiting them—or more likely, that’s why you were visiting—you poked your head in here to look around.”
The corner of her mouth quirked up. “And then?”
“And then you got a freelance job. Either because of your recon mission or in spite of it.”
“Will you tell anyone about your theories?”
“Why should I?” he asked.
“Isn’t that your job?”
“No,” he said. “In fact, it’s not.”
“What exactly is your job?”
He held out three fingers and ticked them off. “Process. Product. People.”
She rolled her eyes. “Please.”
Stifling a laugh, he said, “Seriously. It’s in my brochure.”
“Pencils,” she said, holding up three of her own fingers. “Pillowcases. Penguins.”
He held his straight face and pointed at the design on her computer. “Pants?”
With a grin, she turned to the screen and zoomed out. “Pink!”
He waited a beat, then said, “Pretty.”
She laughed. For a moment, his chest felt light—as if the anvil that had fallen off the cliff and crushed him into the dirt had been lifted. He didn’t know his lungs could expand with so much air, that his ribcage was so flexible.
She sobered. “Seriously, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone you saw me in here that day. At least until I’ve been here a little longer.” She held his gaze. “Please?”
Of course he couldn’t promise. He didn’t even know her last name.
“Okay,” he said, feeling the pressure returning to his chest, the joints of his ribcage contracting. His filing cabinet unlocking. “As long as you show me those pretty pink pants.”
Chapter 6
LATE THAT THURSDAY AFTERNOON, APRIL lay little Merry down into the bassinet attached to Bev’s side of the bed. After spending her first three eight-hour days at Fite, she was happy to spend the afternoon with Merry. The workload had slowed, she could study the manuals at home, and Zack made her nervous.
Besides, the deal was she babysat in the afternoons anyway. It really didn’t have anything to do with Zack. Or the way he watched her through his glasses with those curious navy-blue eyes and then flushed like he couldn’t help himself.
You’re thinking about him again, she berated herself, leaving Liam and Bev’s bedroom to tell her mother she could stop playing the piano now.
Her mother had bought the piano for her first grandchild the day Liam and Bev told her they were moving into the house next door. Even before their furniture arrived, the piano store delivered a new baby grand, planting it right in the middle of the living room overlooking the Golden Gate. Her mother sat there now, playing Mozart softly in the upper register, little tinkling notes she insisted made Merry happy, brilliant, and sleepy. Proof of her skill at the piano, Stool curled on the floor near the pedals, finally letting April disappear into the other room without following her. The three Chihuahuas were curled up on the sofa. They had accepted Stool’s existence as long as he kept his distance.
“She’s out,” April told her, patting her back. Her mother had broad shoulders, strong from gardening, dog care, piano, weight lifting (that had been the idea of Mark’s fiancée, Rose), and mothering.
Trixie Johnson waved her arms a lot when she mothered.
Now she was resting her hands on the keys, gazing off into space. “What a magnificent child.”
“Thanks,” April said. “I learned everything I know from you.”
She tilted her head back and beamed at her. “You’re joking, but it’s true. You’re wonderful.”
“Right back at you, lady.”
“I haven’t asked you about your work at Fite—”
“Which I appreciate,” April said.
Her mother made a face. “But I’ve been very curious.”
April sat on the bench next to her, bumping her hip against hers. “Yeah?”
“Mm-hm.”
“You seem to know everything, even if nobody tells you anything,” April said.
“I merely observe,” her mother said. “Like Sherlock Holmes.”
April smiled, imagining her tie-dye-wearing Berkeley mom in a plaid Victorian hat with earflaps. It was surprisingly easy to conjure the image. “You tell me, Holmes. How’s it going for me at Fite?”
“You’re doing very well with the artwork, of course…” her mother began.
April waited. “Yes?”
“But you’re having social trouble of some kind.” Trixie tapped her ribs with her elbow. “I’m good, aren’t I?”
“That was an easy one,” April said. “Interesting troubles are always social.”
Her mother smiled. “I admit that.”
“Seriously, though, I’m fine.”
“What’s his name?”
April groaned. “Why would you think there’s a guy involved?” She shook her head. “Fite used to have one straight, single guy, and that was Liam. Now that he’s married Bev, the company is all women, gay men, and married old-timers.”
“Sure,” Trixie said. “That makes sense. It’s the fashion business.”
“And I told you—I’m done with men for a long time. The binge is over. Cold turkey.”
“Of course you are.” Her mother began playing Bach’s Minuet in G Major.
April listened for a minute. “I know what you’re doing. Mark and Liam are hitched, so now you’re going after me.”
Frowning, Trixie stopped the minuet and struck a loud minor chord. “Mark isn’t hitched yet. I don’t know why people spend so long planning a wedding. It’s been almost a year since they were engaged. It’s not like it used to be—you can walk down to city hall and get married in a day or two, can’t you? You don’t even have to go to Nevada anymore—which, by the way, is right up the road. A few hours and it could be settled.”
Mark and Rose had pushed their wedding to the following spring, after initially planning to get married the previous summer, around when Bev and Liam, with Merry on the way, had gotten married in a small family ceremony at the house. Mark said they didn’t want to compete with Liam and Bev for any of the wedding glory, but April knew they’d seen how much work it was, not just for them but also for the guests who had to travel across the country, and they’d dragged their feet a little bit about their own big day.
“They wanted that particular winery for their wedding,” April said.
“Why? Why does everyone make such a fuss about one little party? It’s the marriage that’s important. If people put half the time into planning that, nobody would ever get divorced.”
“Never?” April asked.
Trixie played another gloomy chord. “Be quiet. What’s his name? The man you aren’t going to tell
me about unless I make you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Another chord, louder than the others.
“Shh, you’ll wake the baby,” April said.
“Merry does whatever she wants to do with no input from any of us, just like you,” Trixie said. Then she smiled. “It’s wonderful. I’m so happy to see you two grow up together.”
“Thanks. You just called me an infant. As if I don’t get that enough from the general population.”
Trixie laughed. “You’re a late bloomer. Smart of you, given the two flashy acts you had to follow. I don’t know how I could’ve handled having Liam or Mark as my brothers—winning gold medals, being in the news, making millions of dollars, and all so young…”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t rub it in,” April said.
“I’m just grateful you didn’t move to Pennsylvania or Berlin.”
“What’s in Pennsylvania and Berlin?”
“Not you, thank goodness,” her mother said. She resumed playing Bach in the high notes.
April listened for a full minute before saying, “There is a guy, but it’s not what you think.”
“Mm.” Trixie kept playing.
“His name is Zack. He’s a business consultant. He’s at Fite for six months, is totally not my type, and is going to move back to New York, where he lives, as soon as he’s done firing everyone at the company, which probably includes me.”
“Zack,” Trixie said. “Does he like dogs?”
“Sure, Mom. Rescued greyhounds are his favorite, but he’ll tolerate a terrier mix if it’s not much of a barker.” April began playing harmony in the lowest register.
“Ask him to dinner,” Trixie said. “I bet he hasn’t had a good home-cooked meal in ages.”
“We’re not on those terms.”
“For crying out loud.” Her mother slapped her hands on the top of the piano. “Your father and I met, married, and had a baby within a year. He still died before you reached high school. How long do you think life is? It’s short, April. Short. You have to seize it. You have to take it and grab it now. Now.”
Not Quite Perfect (Oakland Hills Book 3) Page 5