by Tawna Fenske
I was still mulling my options in a fuzzy purple bathrobe and my pink hard hat when the doorbell rang.
“Daniel,” I said as I flung open the door. I struggled to keep my voice even, ignoring the flood of warmth I always felt at the sight of him in a well-starched shirt and tie. “I want to talk to you.”
“I know, I got your message,” he said, planting a soft kiss on my lips. “I came over right away.”
My trusty feline companion, Blue Cat, leapt onto the arm of the sofa and began butting his head against Daniel’s hand. Daniel stroked his blue-gray fur, earning himself a drooly purr and a smear of cat fur across his pant leg.
Clearly, Blue Cat had not gotten the message that I was very angry with Daniel.
I folded my arms over my chest and tried to look stern. No easy feat given the purple bathrobe and pink hard hat.
“What is this I hear about you threatening the engineering guy at the landfill and telling him I have asthma?” I demanded. “Or how about the whole story you made up about how county co-workers can’t date?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. I wanted him to tell me none of it was true. He sighed and stroked Blue Cat’s spine.
“JJ, I wanted you to be healthy. I may have exaggerated a little when I left that message expressing concerns about the work environment, but I was worried about your well-being.”
“So talk to me about that. Not my new co-workers. Especially not one I might want to date, since that’s apparently not off limits, right?”
I saw him flinch at that, and almost regretted my words. Almost. I couldn’t tell from his expression if he was trying to come up with a convincing lie, or if he really, truly didn’t know what I was talking about.
“Here,” he said, taking his hand off Blue Cat and flopping his briefcase open on my dining room table. I watched as he pulled out a thick manual and handed it to me. “Turn to the page on employee relations.”
I did as he asked, locating it quickly in the table of contents.
“What does it say?” he prompted.
I studied the words, gritting my teeth. “Supervisors, managers, executives or anyone else in sensitive or influential positions may not become involved in a relationship with another employee beyond a platonic friendship.”
I kept reading quietly to myself for a moment before closing the book and studying the cover. “August 2006?” I raised an eyebrow at him as I handed the packet back to him.
“I didn’t realize the policy had been changed until you left me that voicemail earlier today. A lot of people didn’t know. The county slipped the change into the manual a few years ago without making a big deal of it, so everyone who’s been here awhile had no idea.”
I gritted my teeth, wanting to stay mad, but also wanting to believe him. It was better than the alternative, which was accepting there must be some reason he didn’t want anyone to know he’d been dating me for three months.
“I’m sorry, JJ,” he murmured, touching my arm. “I really didn’t know. And it’s not like anyone else in the administrative department has been running around having public flings. That place is like Survivor. The second people think you’re forming alliances, you’ve suddenly got a target on your back.”
“Not at the landfill,” I pointed out. “They date openly there.”
“I’m sure a lot of things are different at the landfill.” He didn’t sound pleased about that.
I sighed. “Daniel—”
“Let me make it up to you,” he said, stroking his hand along my arm and making the goose bumps rise. “How about I take you to dinner right now. To celebrate your new job?”
“I have plans with my new co-workers.”
He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it, probably rethinking whatever snarky thing he’d been about to retort. Instead, he pulled me into his arms and kissed me.
Kissed me really well, dammit. Hard to stay angry at a guy with lips like that.
I kissed him back without thinking, a little annoyed with the traitorous way my body responded by twining my fingers behind his head and pressing my pelvis against him.
“Mmm,” he murmured against my lips. “I really am sorry, JJ.”
I pulled back, a little disappointed to end the kiss, but not wanting things to heat up until I got my head on straight.
“It’s fine, Daniel,” I sighed. “I just – maybe we could cool things off a little? At least until I wrap my brain around this career switch and all the changes in my life right now. I’m just feeling a little—”
“Confused? Smothered?”
“Yes,” I agreed, not sure whether to be pleased at his perceptiveness or annoyed about the confusion and smothering.
And admittedly, my blood was still pumping hot from that kiss. I wasn’t entirely sure cooling things off was the best idea, but now the idea was out there—
“I understand,” Daniel said. “I can give you space and time if that’s what you need.”
“It’s not a breakup,” I clarified. “Just a— a—”
“I understand.”
I wasn’t sure I did, but I at least felt comforted by his understanding.
“Thank you,” I said. “I should probably get dressed now.”
He gave my hand a squeeze, planted a kiss on my forehead, and gave Blue Cat one more scratch behind the ears.
Then he grabbed his briefcase and smiled. “Have fun with your co-workers.”
He didn’t say “don’t sleep with any of them,” but I suspected the sentiment was there.
GOOMBA’S PUB WAS located just two blocks from my sister Lori’s downtown handbag boutique. The upside of starting my landfill workday at 6 a.m. was that the 3 p.m. quitting time made it pretty easy to hit happy hour. Not wanting to be the first to arrive for the outing with my co-workers, I parked in front of Lori’s shop and went inside to kill a few minutes.
“Hey there,” she said, looking up from a catalogue of paper samples and beaming at me. “Perfect timing. I’m getting new business cards. Do you like this cardstock or this one here?”
I reached over her shoulder to stroke the paper swatches. “This one,” I said, jabbing a finger at the page. “The other one’s too sharp on the edges.”
“That’s what I like about it.”
I shrugged. “You don’t want to give people paper cuts when you hand them your business card.”
“Good point,” Lori mused as she folded the page over and set the catalogue aside.
The storeroom door flew open at the back of the shop and Macy, my sister’s globetrotting intern, strode toward us with a big box of wallets, an even bigger smile, and a killer tan.
“Hey, Lori, I got the storeroom organized, but I think you should have someone look at the mold in the back corner,” Macy said as she plunked the wallets down. “Did you see that thing on the news about the poisonous mold that’s taking over Portland?”
Lori rolled her eyes. “Don’t say that in front of JJ. With her overactive imagination, she’ll be calling at midnight to see if I’ve been attacked by killer spores with fangs and talons.”
“Hey, Macy,” I said, ignoring my sister. “Back from Jamaica?”
“Tahiti,” she replied happily as she bent down to tuck the wallets behind the counter and then stood up with a red silk pouch in one hand. “Jamaica was last month. I flew to Tahiti the day after you got canned, remember? Here, I brought you something.”
She opened the silk pouch and pulled out a gorgeous black pearl bracelet. Before I could protest the extravagance, she’d clipped it on my wrist.
“That’s a great color on you,” she said. “I almost went for the cream-colored one, but then I saw this one and thought that’s totally JJ.”
“Wow,” I said, a little awestruck. “It’s gorgeous.”
“She brought me one, too,” Lori said, holding up her wrist so I could admire it. “Pink Tahitian pearls.”
“You’re so sweet to always think of us on your trips,” I said, looking
at my wrist with more than a little awe. “Thanks, Macy. Good to have you back. How’s your family?”
Macy’s expression darkened a little, but her smile didn’t waver. “I haven’t actually talked to them since I got back. Busy, you know? Hey, Lori – I’m going to grab a sandwich. Need anything?”
“I’m good. Thanks again for the bracelet.”
She gave us a parting wave and then sashayed out the door.
I turned back to Lori. “That was nice of her.”
“Totally.”
“Very sweet.”
“Yup.”
“Think you’ll see her again this month?”
Lori sighed. “Sometimes she takes a couple weeks off between trips.”
“True, but the last time she went out for a sandwich, you got a postcard from Paris.”
“She did bring me the sandwich two months later.”
I shrugged and draped my handbag over the back of the stylish leather barstool beside my sister. Lori had taken Macy on two years earlier when Macy had declared it her life’s ambition to learn about handbags from her favorite designer. Kooky as Macy was, I knew Lori enjoyed the novelty of having an intern – even one whose tutelage was hampered by her frequent globetrotting. We had learned to tread carefully around the subject of Macy’s family, particularly Uncle Sophronia who owned a Portland shipping company with a questionable reputation. Though Uncle Sophronia had raised Macy after her parents died when she was twelve, Macy wasn’t close to the man, and got tense when someone speculated about the family’s mob ties.
“So tell me about your first day,” Lori chirped. She patted the chair in invitation, beaming at me with undisguised eagerness. A good three inches shorter and a whole lot cuter than me, my younger sister possessed an elfin charm I had envied from the moment I first peered over the edge of her crib.
Lori, on the other hand, liked to braid my long hair, covet my height, and grouse that she’d rather be elegant than cute.
I hoisted myself onto the seat and grinned. “You’re this excited about the dump? Must’ve been a slow day.”
“Come on, don’t leave anything out.”
I laughed and began to tell her about Burt and Ernie, about Pete and Collin and the other people I’d met, and about my proposal to slow things down a bit with Daniel.
“So you’re splitting up?” she asked.
“Not exactly. Just cooling things off.”
“Haven’t you done this before?”
“A few times.”
“Right. Kinda hard to actually break up when you haven’t been allowed to acknowledge you’re together in the first place.” She shrugged. “Whatever. I like Daniel just fine. At least you get to keep having the amazing tonsil-hockey sessions you’re always telling me about, plus the added bonus of knocking boots with your new co-workers.”
I smacked her on the shoulder. “I’m not planning to—”
“Oh, please. You have that look.” She laughed. “So Bionic Cyber Cops in Monster Trucks, huh? Is it some sort of D-movie?”
“Probably a little further down the alphabet.”
“Must be a guy thing,” she said with a little shrug. “So you really like it there.”
“I really like it there. Way better than a desk job. And the people are great. I’m actually meeting them at Goomba’s for drinks in a few minutes. You should come.”
“Sorry, can’t. I’ve got that photo shoot for the Harper’s Bazaar piece on the nation’s hottest handbag designers. And I have to make six more of those little animal zipper pulls for a trade show next week. I’m thinking of doing a zebra and a lion. What else?”
“Have you done a wildebeest?”
“Do women want wildebeests on their designer handbags?”
I shrugged. “You’re the expert. You only make one of each animal, right?”
“Right.”
“There’s bound to be someone who wants a wildebeest.”
I gave her a swat on the butt as I left the shop and headed out into the drizzly evening, walking the two soggy blocks to Goomba’s. By the time I got there, the whole team was already clustered around a table with several crew members I hadn’t met yet.
Ernie spotted me first and waved me over, practically vibrating with joy. “JJ, you made it!” she called. “Sit down right here, I saved you a spot.”
The spot was conveniently located right beside Pete and right across from Collin. Pete did that charming half-stand men do when they aren’t quite certain whether etiquette requires them to rise when a lady is seated.
Being the lady in question, I used the opportunity to check out his ass.
Collin stayed seated and intently focused on a bucket of peanuts in the center of the table.
“You look very nice,” Pete said.
“Mmph,” Collin said, and eyed me with something that looked an awful lot like suspicion. Then again, he was looking at his beer the same way.
“Thank you,” I said to Pete. “My cat enjoyed rolling on my landfill clothes.”
“The benefits of your career change keep accumulating,” Collin said dryly. “I’m sure there are plenty more you aren’t sharing just yet.”
I was about to ask him what his problem was when Ernie interrupted.
“Looks like we’re the only girls here tonight, JJ,” Ernie said with a grin. “Green Barbie had a tanning appointment.”
“That’s too bad,” I said, as I scanned the testosterone-fueled figures clustered at the table.
“We were just getting ready to order appetizers,” Burt said, holding up the menu. “You want to share nachos?”
I eyed Burt’s hands, which still bore remnants from the crate of rancid papaya we’d demolished three hours earlier. And a smear of something brown.
“Actually, I think I want a cup of their French onion soup,” I said, setting the menu down. “It’s my favorite.”
“Mine too,” Pete said. “The bowl is only a dollar more. Might as well splurge.”
“Good idea.”
“Fancy a beer?” Collin asked, holding the pitcher.
He wasn’t smiling, and part of me wanted to ask if he’d just spit in it. Instead, I held my tongue and held up my glass. Collin moved down the table, refilling glasses for everyone, and I watched to see if any of them dropped dead after taking a sip.
It’s possible my sister had a point about my overactive imagination.
“Burt was explaining you worked in the PR department,” Collin said. “This is quite a peculiar switch for you. Strange, really.”
“Strange, yes,” I said, taking a sip of beer. “I’m open to change though. And this seems like a very nice department.”
A door swung open behind Ernie, and someone tall, dark and disturbingly familiar strode through it.
“Hey, Aunt Ernie,” he said, stooping to kiss her on the cheek as he pressed a set of keys into her palm. “We replaced both sets of brakes, plus two CV boots. Don’t wait so long next time, okay?”
“Thank you, honey,” Ernie said, beaming up at him before turning to look at me. “Adam, this is JJ Shultz. She’s the new heavy equipment operator.”
Adam’s face went from happy to dumbstruck awe. I saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “JJ Shultz?”
“Hello, Adam,” I said, pasting a smile on my face to greet my sister’s long-lost high school sweetheart.
The bastard.
“Long time no see,” I added.
“JJ,” he repeated, still looking stunned. “My God, you look great. And Lori. How is she? I just got back into town a few days ago and I’ve called her three or four times hoping maybe we can reconnect.”
“Right,” I said. “You might not want to hold your breath on that one.”
Ernie’s eyes flew wide as she looked from me to Adam and back to me again. “You’re Lori Shultz’s sister? Oh my, I didn’t realize! What a little angel she was, always so friendly and just the most creative little thing with—”
“Lori’s fine,” I interrupted,
smiling sweetly at both aunt and nephew as I fought the urge to hug one and kick the other. I focused my attention on Adam and tried not to scowl. “After graduation when you broke her heart to smithereens and told her she’d never amount to anything if she didn’t go to college like you, she went on to become a wildly successful handbag designer with her own boutique.”
I expected Adam to frown or blush, or maybe even flee the building. Instead, he shook his head sadly.
“God, I was such an asshole.”
I was taken aback. “Well—”
“Really, I was such a snob. You know what I’m doing now?”
“Um—”
“I’m a grease monkey,” he said. “That’s what I’m doing with that fabulously expensive college degree.”
“Oh,” I said, trying not to feel smug. I’d have to remember to tell Lori that. As much as she liked to pretend she was completely over her high school romance, I knew she still had mixed feelings. Part of her still cared about Adam. Part of her wanted to hear he’d been killed in a freak blender accident.
That second part of her would be pleased to hear how the mighty had fallen.
“He owns the biggest chain of auto repair shops in the Northwest,” Ernie clarified, patting Adam’s hand. “He’s moved all over the region opening a branch in a new city each year. The business degree wasn’t entirely wasted. He just moved back to the area a couple days ago so he can run the branch here.”
Adam shrugged. “I love what I’m doing, don’t get me wrong. But I’ve learned a lot about life and careers and the fact that education doesn’t entitle you to be a dickhead. So you really don’t think Lori’s going to return my calls?”
“Well—” I began, trying to avoid mentioning the fact that dickhead was precisely how Lori thought of him most of the time. She’d mentioned the messages from Adam on the phone last night, but neglected to tell me he was back in town.
Or maybe she didn’t know. My baby sister could be awfully quick with the voicemail delete key.
“It’s okay, I don’t blame her if she hates me,” he said, smiling a little. “She’s still in town, right?”
“Right down the street,” I admitted. “Crimson Handbag Boutique.”