by Connor, Anne
Her friend from the bar is sitting at the kitchen table with a foil wrapper of street meat spilling out onto a paper plate, her eyes wide, a grin slowly starting to replace her open-mouthed expression of surprise.
“Would you care to let us know why a billionaire real estate mogul is fixing a leaky sink in Brooklyn?” she asks after picking her jaw up off the floor.
Of all the buildings in the city, my mom’s friend has to own the one my new object of desire lives in.
“I just wanted to get away from it all for a minute,” I say, making my way past Molly and setting my toolbox down on the kitchen counter.
“And you landed here?” she asks, drumming her fingertips loudly on the kitchen counter.
“Obviously, I couldn’t get you out of my head after I met you on Friday. So I decided to leave it all behind so I could serve your every whim. Clogged drain, leaky faucet, I’m your man. Anything you need.”
“No, quit messing with us. What are you really doing here?” Jess peers, her eyes narrowing on me.
“Like I said, I just wanted to get away from all the drama back home. I’m here hiding out, and like it or not, I’m going to be here for at least a couple of weeks, unless anything drastic happens at the firm.”
The girls look skeptical. Surely they don’t really think I could be stalking them. That would be some certifiably insane shit.
“Well,” Molly says, grabbing a water bottle from the refrigerator and handing it to me, “now that you’re here, maybe you could do your job and take a look at this leak I’m having.”
“You need help with your plumbing? You called the right guy.”
Jess laughs. “Really, with that? You’re a walking cliche! Plumbing?” She shoots Molly a quick smile. “But I don’t think she minds.”
Molly slaps a hand over her mouth as if she didn’t get my little joke at first. She doesn’t know how hot she is, which makes her even more beautiful. And she doesn’t know how adorable she is, which makes her even more special.
“So, what seems to be the issue with your plumbing, ma’am? You may not know this about me, but I’m pretty good with this kind of thing.”
“As a matter of fact, I didn’t know that about you. I thought you were all about making deals and impressing the movers and shakers. I didn’t know you would be able to get down in the dirt with the rest of us.”
She shoots a hip out, cocks her head to the side and crosses her arms in front of her, her pretty pink lips drawn up at the corners and forming a little smile.
I can’t take how adorable she is when she gets sarcastic with me.
I sit down on the floor in front of the sink and scoot down a little, getting a clear view of what’s going on beneath the sink.
The girls might think I’m playing a character, but I really am good with maintenance issues.
In high school, I was Mr. Fix-It. It was the combination of my shop and engineering classes that made me the guy to call in case of a loose roof shingle or a clogged gutter.
“Oh, this is a simple fix. I just need to tighten a washer right here, and it’ll be good as new. You were right to call when you did.”
“I was calling all afternoon before I finally got you. Where were you?”
“Woah. We just started dating, and you’re already on my case about not answering my phone?”
“I’m sorry, what? All I did was ask you to come by and take a look at something in the apartment.”
“Don’t act like you’ve been able to think of anything but me since Friday night.”
If her friend wasn’t here, I would be telling her that I know she’s been thinking about my tongue on her body since Friday night. That she probably’s probably masturbated multiple times since then, imagining it was my fingers traveling over her instead of her own, my fingers sinking into her, my mouth and tongue making her say my name.
“You’re unbelievable!” she says, waving her hands in the air, but she doesn’t seem annoyed. Instead, she seems flustered and her cheeks are blushing.
I imagine her beneath me, squirming with pleasure. I already know I can get a rise out of her, take her places and make her feel things she hasn’t before.
“Okay, I’m unbelievable. That’s fine. Can you please hand me the medium-sized wrench in the tool kit?”
“Here,” she says, thrusting it in my direction.
“Okay. This will all be fixed up in just a second.”
I slide out from under the sink when I’m done and prop myself up with an elbow. Molly is still standing over me, the toe of her white sneaker tapping rhythmically against the tile floor.
“Is that all you need for now, ma’am?”
She crosses her arms in front of her chest, but again, that little tug of a smile on the corners of her mouth and the flush in her cheeks tells me more than the rest of her body does.
“That’s all. And don’t call me ma’am. Please.”
“Okay, boss.”
“That either!”
“Whatever you say, baby. Is that better?”
“Better, but still not my first choice.”
I take the water bottle from the counter and drain it down my throat. Molly doesn’t have the air conditioning on in her apartment. She just has the windows open and a fan set to low, and clearly this is a place that doesn't have central air like mine does.
“You know what to do if you need me,” I say, leaving the apartment.
The door closes behind me. Shit.
What are the odds? It’s like I’ve been given a gift. Like fate dropped this amazing girl into my lap not once, but two times. I have a chance to convince her of what I already know to be true.
13. Molly
Between the new job and the fact that the new super in my building is Drew Anderson himself, in the flesh, looking devastatingly hot in old jeans and a workman’s shirt, I can barely sleep at all.
I thought Drew looked good in a suit, a twelve thousand dollar watch and shiny, polished Ferragamo shoes. But I was wrong. He really looks good on the floor of my kitchen, his shirt creeping up his stomach to reveal his abs, and his strong arms flexing beneath my sink.
And I can’t believe I didn’t just get down there and straddle him and press his lips to mine. Well, I can believe it. I would never, ever do that. But you know what I mean.
He really is unbelievable.
I keep going back to how he acted. How cocky he is, and how hot he makes it. He isn’t just cocky. It’s obvious that he thinks any girl would just throw herself at him. But it isn’t just that - he also has a genuine confidence. Like he knows that whatever he wants, whatever goal he sets, he’ll be able to achieve it with hard work and a good attitude.
It must be nice to live in a world where hard work guarantees success.
Not that I want to minimize everything he’s accomplished. But it all just seems to come a little too easily to Drew Anderson.
But still, I can't stop thinking about those abs. His flashing green eyes looking up at me from the floor. The way he got down there with as much confidence as he had when ordering a drink at the bar. Eye contact, and a swift command, and whatever he wants is brought to him instantly.
Not like me. I have to leave ordering the drinks to Jess. If it was me getting the drinks, I’d be waiting for a week. I’d have my twenty-dollar-bill in my hand, and stand there sheepishly, while the rest of the patrons went up to the bar and got their drinks.
Move fast or get left behind. I still have that lesson to learn.
“This is your desk. I’ll show you where the kitchen is. There’s fresh coffee all day, and you’re going to need it. You drink coffee, right? Come with me.”
Natasha is the second personal assistant to the editor I’ll be working for. There’s a full bio of every employee of the paper, from the Editor-In-Chief to the assistants.
She’s just out of college and wants to be a novelist. She works at the paper part-time, taking care of Mr. Bradshaw’s personal affairs along with his first personal
assistant, and does a number of human resources-related tasks, like on-boarding new hires.
Stacks of folders and papers are piled high on every surface, every cubicle and office humming with people trying to get the scoop, making calls and trying to get ahead of the competition.
It’s one of the last papers in the city that actually has a large print circulation, and they are trying to position themselves to hold onto that for as long as possible. They believe it will give them an edge over the rest of the papers in the city.
The Editor-In-Chief is an old-fashioned guy, and he’s been the editor for 20 years. He wants to capture the heart of the city, and believes that having a physical paper to read on your commute to work every day is part of that. At the same time, however, he’s turned the paper into a leader in online content.
Unfortunately, part of that transition has involved more gossip-oriented content and less of a focus on hard news and feature stories. I guess this is just a fact of life for the extant daily newspapers in the city.
“Coffee? Yes, I drink coffee. I love coffee.”
“Good. Because you’re going to need it with the kind of schedule Mr. Bradshaw keeps. Now, you’re just going to be nine-to-five, at least to start off with, but it’s going to be a busy day. The day will go by fast. Blink, and you’ll miss something.”
“Got it. I can handle it.”
“We know you can handle it. Mr. Bradshaw has complete confidence in you. Now, let’s go back to your desk and I can give you your first assignment.”
She beams at me with the kind of pride a mom shows her child when they come home with a straight-A report card.
She turns on my computer as I sit down. I’m not in a cubicle - not yet, anyway. I’m seated outside Mr. Bradshaw’s office at a long table with the other editorial assistants.
“Now. The first thing we need you to do is summarize some clips from our paper files. You’re going to go down this list and see what needs to be pulled from the archives, and you’re going to enter a summary of each story here.” She indicates a blank text field in on the screen with her perfectly manicured finger.
“There are fields for by-line, date, and headline. And usually, you can summarize the article by just typing in the first sentence of the story. This task is a little bit boring, but you’ll be able to see what kinds of stories we’ve published in the past. It’s not that difficult. And it might even be a little bit fun, if you’re lucky enough to get papers that have sexier and more interesting articles in them.”
“Okay. Got it. I can do this.”
“For sure.” She beams at me. “Plus, you’ll just need to do whatever Mr. Bradshaw asks of you. He is a really nice guy. And you won’t have to do any personal kind of stuff. He’s already got two assistants for that. You’ll just do stuff like make copies, maybe grab a coffee for him. I think you’ll like him a lot. And if you have any questions at all, I sit right over there.” She nods her head toward a desk outside the boss’s office.
“Great. Wow! Thank you so much!”
“Don’t mention it. Just settle in, get into this assignment, and enjoy yourself. Bradshaw might bark a lot of orders at you all at once, but you’ll be able to do it without a problem. I know it.”
It’s so nice for someone to have so much faith in me, implicitly, based on my credentials and background. Based on me. On what I can offer.
I’m not really used to that.
It’s around lunchtime the next time I look up from my computer. I spent all morning summarizing and indexing articles for digitization like Natasha showed me. And she was right - everyone’s so nice, including the boss.
At around 12:30, my phone vibrates from inside my desk drawer. I’d tucked it away and promised myself I wouldn’t look at it until lunch, because I don’t want to look like a slacker on my first day. I mean, I don’t want to look like a slacker on any day, but I want to look especially good on the first day.
It’s Jess, of course, checking in on me. Even though she’s a little bit more advanced than me in the job department, having already established herself as a working woman, she supported my desire to hold out for the job I really wanted, even if it delayed me moving out of my parents’ house.
Well, how is it?
I text her back and tell her everything I did that morning.
I don’t mean the job. I mean your new love affair with Drew. Kidding, I meant the job.
I didn’t exactly try to seek out articles about real estate, but maybe I did spend a little bit of extra time reading them once I did find them. And I didn’t exactly have Drew in my thoughts all morning, even though he had kept me up all night by refusing to get out of my mind.
But I did think about him from time to time.
I wonder how long he’ll be at the building, and how the hell he landed there in the first place.
I know I’ll be stuck with him for the next couple of weeks, at least, and part of me is excited at the idea of him being near. But of course, part of me is also afraid I might do something that will lead to me getting hurt.
“Okay, people.”
My boss pokes his head out of his office and everyone around me gets up and makes their way over.
I look to Natasha for help, and she waves her hand at me to let me know that I’m included in “people.”
I shuffle into this office with the other employees on his team, and we all sit around a small table in the corner. Everyone turns their chairs to face him at his desk, where he’s perched on the corner with a legal pad and pen in his hands.
Mr. Bradshaw is in his mid-50s and has the kind of look that brings to mind Albert Einstein meets Hugh Laurie. Absent-minded looking, with disheveled hair. If he continues to be as nice as his reputation and Natasha indicated to me, I know I’m going to love working for him.
“Thank you all for being here. I just wanted to check in for a minute on this gorgeous day.” He lets a hand drift to his floor-to-ceiling window, at the grey sky and puffy white clouds rolling by.
The group lets out a little collective chuckle.
“Laugh. Laugh it up. But I’m not kidding around. Every new day gives us an opportunity, doesn’t it? So it doesn’t matter if it’s raining or snowing or you’re up to your eyeballs in...I don’t know what...old newspapers.”
Everyone laughs again.
“Let me ask everyone to welcome our new editorial assistant, Molly, if you haven’t already met her. She is going to be a fine addition to our team.”
The group smiles and waves at me and everyone mumbles an individual hello.
“Now. If anyone has an idea for a story, let me know. Anything. Even celebrity gossip. We aren’t above the gossip page. Isn’t that what news is, anyway? Something everyone is talking about? We elevate it by digging into the facts, of course, but all news starts as a kernel of something.”
Damn. I realize I have a hot tip. Seeing Clarissa with some guy the other day would certainly count as celebrity gossip, and I haven’t seen any other media outlet report on it yet.
No. I’d keep it to myself. I can’t imagine that Drew would want it to get out. And besides, maybe I misunderstood the whole thing.
“Nothing? Okay, get back to work, then. Welcome, again, Molly.”
“Thank you, Mr. Bradshaw. I’m very happy to be working here.”
14. Molly
I have a cold compress on my forehead and a glass of white wine on my coffee table, and a NASA astrophysicist is on TV talking about black holes.
It’s finally Monday night, and I had a very busy first day at my job.
Natasha was right. Mr. Bradshaw is the nicest guy. Certainly the nicest boss I’ve ever had.
He’s also very theatrical. Between the meeting he held in his office before lunch and his constant barking to get so-and-so on the phone, and his random shouting to ask how to spell random words, he approaches every action like it is a matter of great importance.
And for him, it is. I’m sure I’ll grow into having that attitu
de eventually.
But for now, I’m just exhausted and want to put my feet up and relax.
I’m about to turn the TV off when I hear a knock at the door. I recognize the knock. It’s like when you can hear someone’s footsteps coming and you know who it is, from the weight and force they use in each step.
I know that knock to be Drew’s. My heart beats just a little bit quicker when I hear it.
I’m already in my pajamas and practically in bed. The cold compress is helping my eyes feel less strained after a day of staring at a computer screen in my contact lenses, and it’s blocking out the sunlight in the apartment.
Even though it’s already past 7:00, it’s still light outside. I wonder if I forgot to pay my rent this month. Today’s the 4th, but there’s a 5-day grace period, not that I need it. I know I paid my rent on time, so I don’t know why Drew could be wrapping at my door this evening.
“Hello? You in there?” his deep voice booms from the hallway.
“Yeah! Coming!”
I throw the compress on the table and make my way over the to door. I check my appearance quickly in the mirror. I look tired and a little bit grey. But Drew’s sort of acting in place of my landlord now, and I figure that I have an obligation to open the door.
“Hello.”
Drew has his hand on the doorframe and is leaning forward slightly. He’s wearing an old white tank top and jeans, and his scent is divine. It’s like a fresh glass of water on a scorching hot day, mixed with a high-end, masculine cologne with notes of tobacco and lavender.
“Hi,” I respond, tucking my hair behind my ears and shifting from one foot to the other.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in? I don’t usually stand at a girl’s doorway for this long. Coming or going.”
I move aside.
“How rude of me. So, are you here to collect the rent? The check is in the mail. I promise,” I say, putting a hand over my heart.
“You seem like the kind of girl who would pay your rent on time. But don’t worry. I won’t tell Rich if you need to pay a little late this month. Maybe you and I could even work out some kind of arrangement,” he says as he strides into my apartment.