by Kristi Rose
I come face to face with a freshly scrubbed-face kid with bleached out hair. He’s tall enough to be confused for a basketball player but is so thin it’s a wonder he can defy gravity and remain upright.
“How’s it?” he says, wiping his hands onto a towel. It’s as if he’s used to seeing me every day and this is our customary greeting, no response needed.
“Hey. I saw an ad in the paper for an administrative assistant. Is this the place?” I smile at him and relax my shoulders. This kid doesn’t scan me up and down or stare only at my chest. He looks at me with no never mind whatsoever.
“Yeah, this is the place. You’re looking for Mark, the owner.”
“Is he here?”
“He’s through the door and down the hallway. That’s where all the offices are.” He nods toward a door on the far wall that’s labeled Employees Only.
“Great, thanks. I’m Josie by the way.” I stick out my hand and wait. When he shows me his still greasy hand, I shrug and take it.
“I’m Zach, Zach Smith, nice to meet you. I sure hope you stick around. You seem all right and we need that around here.” He does an eye roll and offers me the rag to wipe my hand.
“Fingers crossed.” I hand the rag back. “Nice to meet you,” I say with a backward step. We smile at each other before I turn around and stride through the doorway.
The layout makes sense to me now. When I pulled up I saw the doors that lead to the office portion of the hangar but they were on the side of the building and out of sight of the parking lot. It’s a quirky design to say the least. Through the main door is an outer office and waiting room of sorts. The desk is piled with papers lying askew and some have fallen to the floor.
Thin floor-to-ceiling partition walls divide the space into three rooms, all sitting behind this one. I consider waiting patiently on the faux leather couch that rests against one wall but it’s unlikely this Mark character, who I’m assuming is the man I hear yelling at someone from the far left inner office, will even think of looking out here.
I walk up to the door leading into the inner office and give a closed-lip smile. The man is tall and wearing the typical man clothes: a golf shirt and shorts. Unfortunately, he’s paired it white socks and Crocs. He takes off his baseball hat, uses it to wave me in, then scratches his head before he puts the hat back on.
“Fine. I’ll pick up milk,” he shouts and slams down the phone. “My wife. She stays home all day. Why she can’t get the freaking milk is beyond me. Please tell me you’re here about the job. Please don’t be a half-wit. I’m Mark Thompson. I own this mess.” He plops down into the large executive chair behind his desk.
“I’m Josie Woodmere and I’m pretty certain I’m not a half-wit.” I don’t offer my hand because he has no interest but instead pass him my resume. He’s given me the once-over, twice, but he’s at least making an effort to not stare. He scans my resume, which excludes my Juris Doctorate but includes my business management bachelor’s, and the name of my alma mater. I’ve found omitting my education altogether works in my favor. But this job is for an administrative assistant, so I figured having a degree in business might work to my advantage.
With brows raised, he looks between me and the paper in his hands. “Yale? Well according to this you’re either pretty damn smart or the biggest half-wit I’ve met to date.”
“My father’s a very active alumnus.” I catch myself mid eye roll.
“Any particular reason you’re not out putting that Ivy League education to good use?” He puts a cigar in his mouth.
“I’m here because I want to be, not because I have to be. I’m here because this is what I want to do.”
“You sound just like my daughter,” he mumbles before leveling me with a stare, sizing me up presumably.
He chews on the butt end of a stubby cigar and I continue to meet his gaze. “Take a good look around, lady,” he says, tossing the cigar onto his desk. “We’ve got nothing but foul mouth men here and horny college boys. Someone’s going to say something obnoxious or crude. Definitely disrespectful and I can’t stop them. You think you can handle that without running out of here in tears?” He pulls out a fresh cigar from his desk drawer and taps it on his desk.
“I can handle myself.” I sit back in the seat, folding my hands in my lap. I can bring him to his knees in three or fewer moves.
“I sure hope so because if you can’t you’ll need to leave now.”
“What exactly are the job duties?” I ask.
“Whip this place into shape. My oldest, a girl, graduates college at the end of summer. She has yet to find a job and if she doesn’t she’ll be coming in here as the office manager. This job is until then. That’s all I can offer.”
“That’s fine. September is a long way off. I don’t make plans that far out.”
“It’s three months.”
“Exactly. I’m pretty good at whipping things into shape. I might be able to get it together sooner than the end of summer.” Clearly this place is up and running. It’d be a different story if they were dead in the water. All this place needs is some organization and streamlining.
He nods in appreciation. “You manage that and I’ll give you a bonus. I’m trying to spend more time on the course, like to get involved in some other business ventures, but mostly I want to spend less time here. I have a GM, but look how that’s working out. This place needs someone who can organize it.”
“You have a GM?” From first appearances it looks like the GM is pretty useless, but I hold my tongue. This time.
“Yeah. He’s new at the GM stuff. He’s my instructor. Whip him into shape too,” he says with a chuckle.
“You want all this done today or can I do some tomorrow?” I smile.
His laugh is a short bark. “I like you. You can start right now.” He hands me a stack of paper to fill out.
“Any chance we can keep quiet about where I went to school? I’ve found people tend to...treat me differently when they find out.”
“Listen, this is the south. We only care about your college’s football team. It’ll work to your advantage to keep it mum where you went to school. Have they ever been to a bowl game?” He guffaws and slaps his hand against his desk. “Call down to the kid if you need any help.” He tosses the new cigar into his mouth and chews on the end. He picks up the phone, dials a number, and nods for me to leave. Clearly we’re done.
I walk out to the desk and throw my purse onto the chair. I pull open the drawers and find them in worse shape than the top of the desk. I decide to get the lay of the land first. Other than the waiting room and front office combination, Mark’s large office, a smaller office, and a storage area make up the last two spaces. The storage area is poorly organized with filing cabinets, a folding table, several five shelf racks, and a box of office supplies and forms thrown haphazardly into the space. The other office is sparse, as if it rarely gets used but there’s an inbox tray, pencil holder, and a computer on the desk. A fine layer of dust coats the entire area and not a potted plant can be found.
I know nothing about running an aviation company, but it appears this place has grown with little attention to the administrative aspect. It’s a wonder they make money. What I do know is how to put this place back together. I’m exceptionally good at doing that. I clasp my hands together with anticipation. I love a good challenge.
I enlist Zach to help me pull out the folding table and set it up behind my desk then I stack all the loose papers on top. We move the filing cabinets to the far wall of the storage room so we can access them easier and I pull all the papers out of those as well. It’s lunch before I realize and I stop briefly for a taco and a large iced tea. The room looks as if I’ve made it worse, not better, but inside the storage room looks amazing.
I love this shit. More importantly, I’m good at it.
Zach found me a stepladder and I’m stacking old files and forms on top of the shelves, feeling pride at my achievements
, when I hear the GM come in.
“Mother of all that’s holy. What the hell has happened here?”
“In the storage room,” I call and try to push the box onto the shelf.
I know he’s come into my space when his hand reaches over mine and shoves the box into place.
“Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing?” he says.
I turn on the ladder and come face to face with McRae. He’s in dark cargo pants, a white T-shirt, and a dark navy flight vest that stores a small notebook, pens, and I’m guessing whatever else he uses when flying. Aviator shades hang from his front collar and his hair is mussed. In a surprising response, my knees buckle from the impact of immediate attraction and I lean against the file cabinet for support, half sitting on the top of the ladder. The space is small and narrow and I’m very aware of how he fills it completely.
“McRae. We meet again.” I let the smile come.
There’s no use fighting it. Something warm fills me; I like seeing a face I know. Especially his. I totally cyber stalked him over the weekend. After seeing him walk out of the sea, water streaming down his body, I became so hot for this guy it seems obsessive. I’ve yet begun to understand any of it.
Of course, he has virtually no online presence other than his LinkedIn profile and a reference to him being an adjunct professor at Emery Riddle University. His résumé is impressive. But hell, not as impressive as watching him swim the ocean. If I was the creepy stalker type, I’d have stolen a picture of him on my phone, but I’m not, so I’m stuck trying to visualize how his shorts clung to his muscular thighs when he walked back up the beach toward me. He looked powerful, a total alpha male whose domination would be a welcome gift, and I wasn’t the only one watching him. He’s the sort of guy who could take care of a girl during a zombie apocalypse. There’s a depth to his eyes that tells me he’s lived and seen things, and flesh eaters wouldn’t faze him a bit. He’s a survivor and I find that makes me antsy to put my hands on him.
“What’s going on here, out there?” he asks sharply, waving to the outer office.
“I’m the new administrative assistant.” I tuck my hands behind my back and meet his gaze.
“The hell you say.” Bracing one hand against the wall, he runs the other through his hair. “I wish Mark would’ve run this by me.” He says the last bit to himself.
“Well, it was run by the owner, so I’d guess that’s sufficient enough.” I try not to take his reaction personally.
“I don’t like it,” he says, as he surveys the newly organized shelves.
“You don’t like being organized or you don’t like me?” Honestly, at this moment I’m betting it could go either way. McRae at the beach is not the same as the one I’m staring at.
“I don’t like being out of the loop.” He tries to frown down at me. “Have you ever worked in aviation before?”
“No.”
“How do you know if you’ve done all this correctly? Maybe you’ve wasted your time. Then I’ll have to fix it all and I’m pressed for time.” He gestures to the shelves.
Ah, so that’s the real problem.
“Don’t be such a douche. I’ve had”—I glance at my watch—“nearly seven hours of uninterrupted time to work on this. You’d have gotten this far, too. Rest assured, it’s done to a standard even you would find acceptable. It’s not that hard to file gas receipts with gas receipts and flight logs with flight logs. Funny enough, I’m pretty good with the alphabet and sequencing items numerically. I can also read and reason.” I shrug as though it’s a crazy notion. “You could say hi, you know.”
His brow is furrowed and he opens his mouth as if he’s going to say more on the subject but instead pauses and the crease between his eyes relaxes.
“Hi,” he says with a smile. “Small world.”
“Isn’t it?” I grin back.
His smile is so genuine I can’t help make my own wider.
“Looks like you’re settling in. I admit I’m surprised by that,” he says.
I like McRae. I like the fact that he doesn’t always stare at my chest and talks to me like he talks to everyone else. Often men come at me with one objective, to get me out of my clothes, and I’m OK with that. I have hormones, too. But don’t talk to me as if I’m too stupid to know the agenda.
“Really?” I ask softly. “Why are you surprised?”
He shrugs. “I suppose I assumed you’d find Daytona a little too sleepy.” The way he emphasizes assumed is more a jab at him than me.
“I find Daytona to be just right. Odd how our paths keep crossing.”
He nods. “Yeah, the bar, the neighborhood—”
“And now here.” I laugh, touch his arm, and almost jerk back as sparks tickle my fingers. Goodness, he emits testosterone. There’s something seductive about a man in charge who isn’t waving his cock around to prove it’s big.
“So you plan on staying in the area for a while? I kinda figured you traveled around, preferring not to be pinned down anywhere.”
“Oh yeah? Why so?”
“Well, at the hotel your badge said you were from Washington. You sound like you’re from up North, not the Pacific Northwest.” He gives me a skeptical look. “And you moved down here with what...four bags? Strikes me as someone living on the fly.”
“More like someone just trying to experience life before I settle down.”
“I get that.” He nods, briefly lost in thought.
“So you’re the GM and the flight instructor?” That explains why this place is in the state it’s in. The owner is distracted with everything outside of his business and this guy’s carrying the load of two jobs. Maybe more.
“Yeah.” He rubs his palms over his eyes and stretches his shoulders back before he returns to brace himself against the wall. “I contract with other schools as well. Or I use to until this grew.”
My mind flashes back to the beach and it’s as if I have x-ray vision as I imagine his muscles rippling under his clothes.
“Well, now you have me here to help. I aim to please.” It’s a simple line that has no secondary meaning until I look from his green eyes and a muscle in his jaw jumps.
Drawn from my current reality, I go to a fantasy place where we take off all our clothes and try to steam up this little space to the point where it rains inside. He stands there all cocksure and large, his strong arms corded with muscles. Even his large black aviator’s watch turns me on. His white T-shirt stretches tightly across his chest, hinting at what I know is underneath.
“So, ah, you want to show me what you’re doing here? I mean, about all this.” He pushes off the wall and gestures to the reorganized storage area.
“Sure, and if you have a minute I’d like to schedule some time with you to go over the books. There’re some things I don’t understand.”
“There are lots of things I don’t seem to understand,” he mumbles and crosses his arms over his chest.
“Well, let me show you.” I turn back on the ladder. Using everything I have in reserve to not go primal and jump him, I channel the energy into showing him how I’ve organized the old files and stored them overhead. Inside the cabinet, easily obtained, are all the current records needed at a moment’s notice. I’ve also inventoried the office supplies and am keeping a running list on the computer stationed at my desk as well as a purchasing calendar. No more running out of fuel while I’m in charge.
“Wow, I don’t think this company has ever been this organized. What about the mess out there?” He points to the outer offices before he steps back and gestures for me to precede him. The space is small enough that I have to turn sideways to get past him. When I do, our fronts brush against each other and I place my hands on his biceps.
“Excuse me,” I say. Even in heels, my head reaches only slightly above his collarbone, and when I look at him, I see McRae in a whole new light. Perhaps he won’t need as much priming as I first thought.
May
be it’s because I’m satisfied from all of today’s organization or because I really like this town. Maybe it’s how studly he looks in the flight gear or that he looks driven. Whatever the reason, I want him not because he’s cut from the cloth of gods, but because there’s loneliness in him I identify with. How his smile doesn’t always reach his eyes or that he thinks happiness can be found in a sweater-set-and-pearl-wearing socialite who’s likely been conditioned to climb the social ladder. A lifestyle like that never brought me happiness, and McRae is disillusioned if he thinks it will bring some to him. He’s got too much depth for the vapidness of pageantry.
He stares down at me and his green eyes wander to my piercing. His lips twitch. The sound of his vibrating phone breaks whatever was passing between us.
Rolling my eyes, I move out into the main office and see why he was so shocked when he first arrived. The place looks ransacked. Paper is everywhere, boxes thrown around the floor with recycling or shredding flowing out of them. I turn to make a joke about the mess but he’s totally engrossed in his phone, thumbs flying madly across the screen.
“Holy crap. I’ve never seen a phone be so busy as yours. Any of that business I can help with?” It’s annoying as hell. I want to snatch the phone from his hand and stomp on the screen. He’d definitely thank me later. Once he got past the shock and withdrawal.
“It’s mostly all business. We’ve always been short on office staff, so I sent all the calls to my phone as well as the emails. Some of it’s from my job at the University.”
“All the calls?” That explains why the office phone is so quiet.
“Yeah, students, other schools looking for instructors, you name it.”
“Give me your phone.” Palm out, I wait. After he hands it over—reluctantly I might add—I repress the urge to smash it, instead set about loading some apps. “I’ve put everything on an online calendar and can send you daily emails with the following day’s schedule. I’ve also set up reminders about when orders need to be completed. Like jet fuel.” I give him a knowing smile and hand back his phone.