“Attempting to study,” I replied, trying to sound mad, but it was impossible to be cross with Tate. Ever since our dad died when he was just a baby, I’d always felt protective towards him, especially when mom’s depression meant that she couldn’t look after him properly. He was the motivation I needed to keep up my studies, even though there were days when I was so tired, I could barely focus enough to put one foot in front of the other. I knew that Shelby thought I was a little flaky sometimes. I just hoped that my joke about her replacing me didn’t contain a grain of truth.
“Do you have to? I was hoping you could come out and play Pokémon Go with me. I’ve heard that there’s a Tauros in the park and I want to see if I can catch it.” He gazed at me with puppy dog eyes. “Please?”
I looked at the textbook sitting on my desk. I had a lot of work to do if I was going to stand a chance of getting a decent grade in the quiz.
“Please, Jess?” Tate urged. “You haven’t spent any time with me all week. You’re always too busy. And if you take me to the park, I promise I won’t tell mom the next time you forget to pick me up.”
“It was only that one time,” I growled, before shaking my head in frustration. “All right. I guess I can’t do much cramming in the half hour before dinner’s ready. We can go to the park, but after dinner, I have to study, okay?”
“Yes!” Tate fist pumped the air.
As he raced off to get his jacket, I tried to ignore the knot of anxiety forming in the pit of my stomach at the thought of how much study I still had to do. Somehow, I’d managed to maintain a decent enough GPA, but if I didn’t step up my game, I wouldn’t be able to keep it up for much longer.
Still, it would make Tate’s day to get that Tauros and I always got a kick out of making him smile. Trying to study in half an hour was a dumb idea. I’d just get into it and I’d have to stop to go eat with the family. Maybe a bit of fresh air was just what I needed to sharpen up my thinking.
“I’m taking Tate to the park, mom,” I yelled out, slamming the door behind me as I headed after my brother.
“Come on,” he called over his shoulder. “We don’t have long and I want to find a Tauros!”
I ran after him, but once we reached the park, I flopped down onto a bench, watching as he wandered round glued to his cell as he tried to catch the elusive Pokémon. It wasn’t long before he hooked up with some friends to find it, leaving me free to think about the weird day I’d just had.
In the space of a few hours, I’d discovered that not only was my boss dating a shifter, I was now working alongside three more of them and it was something else. Although Nick was obviously the hottest, Matt and Justin were both pretty darned cute in their own way. Not only that, they were a lot more easy-going than their arrogant boss. Give me a choice and I’d pick personality over looks any day.
I wondered if Justin was single.
“Yeah, right, Jess. Like you’ve got time for a relationship,” I muttered to myself. Between school, Tulips and helping mom with Tate, when would I be able to see a boyfriend? My life was complicated enough already.
Still, at least having Matt and Justin around had made work a little more fun. Justin had a wicked sense of humor and he’d kept me laughing all day, while Matt was so laidback, he was practically horizontal.
I guess they needed attitudes like theirs to deal with Nick. Just one day in his company and I was dreading seeing him again. He seemed to know everything and nothing I did was up to his standards. I might have put on a brave face for mom, but what if he told Shelby that he thought I should be fired? Would she listen to him and replace me with Matt or Justin?
And what was Caleb doing, putting someone in charge without talking to Shelby or me first? It was her store, not his, and I was the chief sales assistant. If anyone should have been made temporary manager, it should have been me. It would have been the perfect opportunity to show Shelby that I deserved a raise. We could certainly do with the extra money right now. Mom was trying her best, but she’d been looking for a job for a long time without success. The way things were going, it would be a miracle if anyone hired her, so every cent counted.
Maybe I could persuade Nick to put in a good word for me when Shelby came back.
The moment I had the thought, I couldn’t help but laugh. Like Mr Perfect was going to do that when, according to him, my flower arrangements sucked, my customer service needed work and I couldn’t be trusted with the most basic of tasks.
Well if that’s what he thought, I was going to show him how wrong he was. By the time I was finished, he’d be forced to admit that I was the best sales assistant he’d ever met.
“Jess! I got it! I got the Tauros!”
Tate’s delighted cry snapped me out of my thoughts.
“Look!” He rushed over, holding his cell out to show me.
“Wow, Tate. That’s great,” I beamed, happy for him, even if I didn’t have a clue what that meant.
“It’s all right, Jess. You don’t have to pretend that you understand how cool this is,” said Tate.
“Yeah, I do. I’m your big sister. It’s my job to pretend that every little thing you do is super cool!” I replied. “But you know what the really cool part is?”
“No. What?”
“The fact that you found it just in time for us to go home for dinner. Mom should be done by now and we’d better get back before she starts stressing. You know what she’s like.”
“All right. But can we come back again later?”
“Sorry.” I shook my head. “I told you. I’ve got a quiz to study for. But we can come back later in the week if I get time. Is that all right?”
“’Spose,” shrugged Tate, looking as if his world was about to end as he turned to go home.
I wished that my life was so simple that the worst thing that could happen to me was I had to wait an extra day or two before I could go Pokémon hunting.
Chapter Three
Groaning, I rolled over to hit the snooze button on my alarm, but when I saw the time on the display, I was instantly wide awake.
“Oh no!”
I’d wanted to get into work early to make a good impression on Nick, but after a late night of study I must have slept through the alarm and now I was going to be lucky to make it in on time.
Throwing off the covers, I scrambled to throw on my clothes. I pulled my favorite outfit from my closet, the best thing I’d ever found in a thrift store. It was a vintage style swing dress with dark blue polka dots, the pulled in waist emphasising my curves with a neckline that was high enough to be respectable for work, but low enough to hint at cleavage. It was the perfect style to flatter my full figure. Wearing it gave me confidence and I was certainly going to need it with Nick in charge.
Slicking on a dash of lip gloss, I quickly pulled my hair back in a ponytail, adding a simple hairband to complete the look.
“Morning, Jess,” smiled mom, as I ran into the kitchen. “Sit down. I made pancakes.”
“Sorry, mom. No time.” I snatched the last banana from the fruit bowl and grabbed my bag before heading out.
“Wait! Jess! You should eat a proper breakfast!” mom called after me, but I was already gone.
My knee jiggled up and down as I checked my watch for the hundredth time while the bus edged through the city. It seemed as though we were catching every red light going, the universe conspiring to make me late, just when I needed to make a good impression.
I briefly checked my appearance in the window of a neighboring store before rushing in to Tulips. At least I still looked good. A few minutes of tardiness wouldn’t matter if I brightened up the store, would they?
“What time do you call this?”
Any hope I’d had that Nick might have been caught up in the same traffic was destroyed when I walked into Tulips to see him already hard at work preparing the deliveries.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was up late studying and then-”
“Save it for someone who cares,”
snapped Nick. “I know you’ve been working for Shelby for a long time, and maybe you feel that you should have been put in charge during her vacation, but if this is the kind of thing you get up to while she’s not here, then all I can say is thank goodness Caleb called me in. I won’t tolerate any kind of attitude.”
“That’s not fair,” I protested. “It wasn’t my fault that the traffic was bad.”
“But it was your fault that you didn’t leave earlier, just in case,” Nick countered. “You’ve been working here long enough to know what the traffic can be like. Where I come from, we try to make a good impression on a new boss, not try to take advantage of them.”
“I wasn’t taking advantage!”
“Whatever.” Nick waved away my objections. “There’s still a lot of work to be done. You can start on the corporate order. There’s not a lot of time before Jed gets here and those table arrangements aren’t going to make themselves.”
He turned and stalked back to the prep room, leaving me with no choice but to follow him, jaw clenched as I bit back the smart remark I wanted to make.
Nick had already made up most of the bouquets for our private customers. Either he worked really fast or he’d got here so early that even if I hadn’t slept through my alarm, I’d never have been able to get here before him.
Well, if I couldn’t get in early, I could at least impress him with the quality of my work.
“So where are you from again?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood as I gathered all the bits and pieces I needed.
“San Diego.” Nick didn’t look up from the flowers he was arranging, as I started to put together the table decorations we supplied to a local trading company.
“Really? That’s nice. I have friends who live there, but it’s been a while since I visited. Which part?”
Nick sighed, momentarily putting down the flowers he was working on. “Look, Jess. I get that you like the sound of your own voice, but in my experience, people who feel the need to talk all the time don’t last very long in my stores. I don’t see how you can focus on your work if you’re thinking about what you’re going to say next.”
I opened my mouth to defend myself, but he cut me off.
“And whatever you’re going to say, I can guarantee you that I don’t want to hear it,” he snapped.
“Well that told me,” I muttered, stabbing myself on a rose thorn as I prepared the stems.
A frosty silence reigned, occasionally broken by a request to pass something over. It was a world apart from the casual, relaxed atmosphere in the store when Shelby was here. I’d never been more grateful to see anyone as I was when Matt and Justin walked in.
“Morning, boss,” grinned Matt. “How’s it going?”
“Fine, fine,” replied Nick, smiling for the first time that morning. “All ready for you to open up. If you could go and let the customers in, that would be great.”
“Sure thing.” Matt went and flipped the closed sign to open as I positioned the final bloom in place for our corporate clients, just in time as Jed rapped on the back door. Justin helped me carry out all the flowers to the van as Nick went forward to deal with the first walk in of the day.
“Is Nick always so cheerful first thing in the morning?” I asked Justin.
“What do you mean?” Justin glanced over his shoulder to see what I was talking about.
“He practically bit my head off this morning, just because I was a few minutes late,” I told him. “It wasn’t my fault. I was up late studying and then the bus was delayed. Shelby always knows that I make up for any lost time.”
“Yeah, it might be worth getting an earlier bus tomorrow, just in case,” Justin warned me. “It sounds like you had a good excuse, but Nick’s not exactly a morning person at the best of times.”
“Tell me about it.” I rolled my eyes. “Maybe I should go out and get us all some coffee? Would that cheer him up?”
“Good idea,” grinned Justin. “I don’t know about Nick, but I could sure use a skinny latte.”
“I’m just heading down to Perk You Up,” I announced, going out into the store. “Any requests?”
“That you don’t take too long?” was Nick’s immediate response. I could have throttled him. Here I was, trying to do something nice for him and that was how he reacted?
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” I smiled sweetly. “It’s only a few doors down, so I’ll be back before you know it. Do you want me to bring you anything?”
“A flat white, please,” he replied, while Matt asked for a mocha Frappuccino.
I headed out, somehow managing not to slam the door behind me. If this was Nick’s idea of motivating his staff, then I was glad he was only going to be here for a couple of days. If I had to listen to many more of his snarky digs, I was going to scream.
As I waited in line at Perk You Up, I distracted myself from thinking about Nick by going over what I’d studied last night. I loved my psych classes, but they were hard work and if I wanted to get the grades I needed to go on to my Masters, I needed to do well in this evening’s quiz. By the time I’d gone to bed, all the studies I’d needed to memorize had been blurring into one and I still hadn’t gotten through them all.
I started reciting them over and over, trying to recall all the details and evaluations of the different studies. I was so focused on what I was doing that I didn’t notice Joe call to me until he snapped his fingers in front of my face.
“Sorry, Joe,” I said, flustered. “I was miles away.”
“No worries, Jess,” Joe smiled from behind the counter. “You look like you need a good coffee. The usual?”
“Not today.” I shook my head. “Shelby’s on vacation, so I’ve got a temporary new boss and a couple of co-workers who need to discover how amazing your coffee is. I’ll have a skinny latte, a flat white, a mocha Frappuccino and my caramel latte.”
“Coming right up.” Joe turned and grabbed some takeout cups.
“So what’s your temporary boss like?” he asked, as he started to make the coffee.
“Ugh,” I snorted. “Don’t ask. He’s a nightmare.”
“That bad, huh? You have my sympathies. But you did say he was only temporary, right?”
“Yes, thank goodness,” I nodded. “It’s just for a couple of days and then Shelby will be back. And maybe once he’s tasted your coffee, he’ll chill out a bit.”
“Well, my coffee has been known to work miracles!” joked Joe, as he poured out the final cup. “Here. Have a blueberry muffin on the house. You look like you could do with it.”
“Thanks, Joe.” I took the muffin and bit into it, holding it in my mouth as I picked up the container with the four cups. I waved goodbye as I pushed the door open with my back and headed off to Tulips.
“You’re an angel!” beamed Matt, when I came in, coming to take his coffee from me, as Justin followed close behind.
“Where’s Nick?” I asked, surreptitiously wiping the remaining muffin crumbs from the corner of my mouth, feeling guilty that I hadn’t brought one for my fellow sales assistants.
“Out back,” Justin told me, taking a sip of his coffee. “Wow. This is incredible.”
“Yeah, Joe makes a mean coffee,” I smiled, hoping that Nick would have the same reaction, as I went to take him his drink.
Nick barely looked up from the order book as I went over to stand next to him, carefully placing his cup so that it wasn’t resting on any of the paperwork. I didn’t even get a grunt in acknowledgement.
“You’re welcome!” I smiled brightly.
“What?” Nick frowned and shook his head. “Oh. Yes. Thank you.”
He looked as though he was going to say something else, but the phone rang.
“I’ll get it.” I reached over and picked up the handset. “Tulips Are Better Than One, Jess speaking. How may I help you?”
“Hi, Jess, it’s Shelby.”
“Hey, Shelby,” I replied. “How’s it going?”
“Great,” she told me. I c
ould practically hear the love struck smile in her voice and I was glad for her. She and Caleb made a cute couple. “In fact, I’ve decided to take a longer vacation. Is Nick there? I want to see if he can stay on a while.”
“Sure.” My heart sank as I passed the handset over to Nick. A longer vacation? I could just about cope with Nick when I knew that he was leaving in a couple of days, but if he was going to stick around for a while, work would be unbearable.
“Please say no. Please say no.” I closed my eyes and whispered a little prayer I listened to Nick talking to Shelby.
“That’s fantastic!” he exclaimed. “Yes of course I can stick around. It’s no problem to watch over things for you. It would be my honor. I was thinking about expanding into the area anyway. Don’t worry – I wasn’t going to open another florists. I wouldn’t dream of going into competition against you. I also have a restaurant chain and I was thinking that now would be a good time to open up a new branch round here. This will give me a chance to get a feel for the area and my potential customer base. You take as long as you like. Tulips is in good hands.”
I didn’t wait to hear any more. I escaped out to the front of the store where Justin was saying goodbye to another satisfied customer.
“Hey, Jess,” he smiled, but it faded when he saw my expression. “What’s wrong?”
“Shelby’s decided to take a longer vacation,” I replied.
“Awesome! It means I get to spend more time with you,” he grinned. “That has to be a good thing, right?”
“Yeah, but it also means that I’m stuck with Nick,” I moped.
“I think you missed the important bit here.” Justin nudged me with his elbow. “You get to spend more time with me.” His eyes grew bigger, becoming amber in color as he let his wolf peek through and I felt myself blushing.
“That’s enough!” barked Nick, coming through to the store front. “This is no place for romance and I’d appreciate it if you flirted on your own time.”
My cheeks reddened, but Justin simply grinned, snapping back to his human features.
“Right, well as I’m sure Jess has already told you, we’re going to be here for a little longer,” Nick announced. “Matt, Justin, if you need to get back home, I completely understand. Just let me know so that I can arrange for reliable help to take your place.”
Loving Bear: A BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance (Love Laid Bear Book 2) Page 2