How to Deal

by Shey Stahl

  With his own cup of coffee in hand, Tathan walks past me, but stops as his shoulder bumps into mine softly. With a gentle breath that blows warmth over my cheek, he leans in, his lips dangerously close to my ear. I draw in a deep breath that sounds like a wind tunnel.

  Do I flinch back like I should? No, hell no, my damn knees are weak. I stand there, jelly legs and all, like a fucking idiot waiting in front of the lion who’s stalking his prey.

  “See you at work, Amalie,” he says, eyes twinkling as he walks away.

  Momentarily I’m stricken by his good looks again. Stricken stupid apparently because I have absolutely nothing smartass to say to him.

  What’s happening to me?

  Should I call in sick? I need time to think.

  After being pushed from the lady behind me, I finally awake from my daydream—the one of us being zipped in a sleeping bag together in the farthest reaches of the Antarctic with nothing but the warmth of our bodies keeping us alive. It’s a great dream.

  At the counter, I whisper, “Tall mocha and a chocolate croissant warmed.”

  The girl, remember. . . the one Tathan was flirting with? She barely even acknowledges me. She does, however, get my mocha and croissant and slides it across the counter. “Here you go.”

  I hand her a ten-dollar bill.

  She shakes her head. “Tathan took care of it.”

  Tathan took care of it? I shift my weight from one foot to the other, still holding out my money. “He did what?”

  She looks at me like I’m that dumb. “He bought your coffee, ma’am.” She motions for me to move out of the way. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to help this customer behind you.”

  He bought my coffee. Damn it. I’m trying to hate him, and here he is being nice and friendly to me.

  “Well, thank you.” I give the ten dollars to the man behind me. “Your coffee’s on me, dude.”

  Pay it forward, right?

  He smiles, thanks me, but hands it to the woman with three kids behind him. Apparently, there’s some humanity left in this world.

  I check my phone once I walk into my office building, which just happens to be around the corner from the café. I can’t walk and look at my phone at the same time, so I stop. I even go so far as to stand against the wall, so I don’t trip. One embarrassing display of road rash and I’ll never text and walk at the same time ever again.

  There are sixty messages. Sixty! They’re all from Casey and Zane wondering who I was dancing with last night and where the hell I disappeared to. I avoided them like the monkeys in Outbreak, disease infested little shits they are, and I’m amazed my phone can even hold that many messages. The thing about my friends, they gossip and insist on being in everyone’s business.

  I don’t answer any of their messages because it’s better to explain in person.

  At my desk, I notice Tathan is there, smirking as he drinks his coffee, smugly. “Mornin’,” he says, winking.

  There’s something undeniably sexy about the way he says mornin’, like him cutting the word short makes it sexual somehow.

  “Good morning,” I reply with a smile and for a moment, just a small fraction of a moment, I glance over his appearance. I never got past his eyes in the coffee shop. I usually never do.

  It’s Friday. Fridays he wears jeans and usually a button-down shirt he rolls the sleeves up on. The top few buttons are undone, and a little chest hair is peeking out. Fucking sexy as sin. I want to walk up to him, straddle him in his chair and rip the buttons of his shirt open one by one and then lick his chest. Every inch of it.

  And then he speaks, and I remember why I need to hate him.

  “Like what you see, honey?”

  Yes.

  No.

  This is why I can’t stand him and need to stay away from guys like him. He can’t actually have a conversation with anyone that’s not filled with innuendo or lewdness that revolves around him and his amazingly fuckable body.

  “No, I don’t.” Reaching forward, I turn on my computer. “Every time you talk, I want to throw up.”

  “You seemed very willing while we were dancing,” he notes with a laugh under his breath, undeterred by my harshness. “Come to lunch with me today.”

  Here we go. He’s relentless. The thing that gets me is why he’s so hell-bent on me going out with him. That right there warrants all kinds of red flags for me. No one is that determined, and if they are, there’s an ulterior reason as to why.

  “No, I think I’m coming down with the flu,” I tell him, slurping my coffee, trying to annoy him. It doesn’t work. He smirks despite my slurping. “But thanks for the coffee.”

  I couldn’t not thank him. It’d be rude, right?

  “Like I said. . .” He pauses and grins. “. . .you’ll give—”

  He doesn’t finish his sentence. A box of rubber bands sitting on my desk prohibits this.

  Shuts the cocky hottie right up.

  Rubbing his temple, he smiles, “I like it rough.”

  I bet you do, asshole. I don’t say that because I know it will only encourage him.

  I open my e-mail and leave him rubbing his face. There’s one from Casey reminding me of the Arizona Bridal Show this weekend, yet again.

  She’s hoping to catch a glimpse of Elliott Warren, the famous photographer who just so happens to be from Phoenix and is also attending this wedding expo. From what I’ve heard about this Elliott guy, he photographs everything, but specializes in weddings, capturing the most amazing moments of every event he photographs.

  Before you go thinking I’m stalking a photographer, I’m only repeating what I’ve heard endlessly for the last few months since Casey got engaged. It’s only everything she talks about. Almost everyone around town has photographs by him. Hell, even some photos inside Madsen Construction are from this dude and sport the familiar signature logo he has.

  Normally I would want nothing to do with attending a wedding expo because, let’s face it, me getting married or even planning a wedding is pretty far off.

  Unfortunately, I have a weak spot for Casey. She’s been my girl for years, held my hand when I cried over Colton, helped me set fire to his car and was right there with me with a shoulder to cry on when my dad died.

  For those reasons, I’ll be there for her too.

  Zane shows up twenty minutes late for work, and he’s dressed better than I am and watching Tathan drink his coffee. It’s like watching art.

  “If you don’t fuck him soon. . . I’m going to,” Zane tells me and winks at Tathan, who shakes his head with a smirk of his own and types away on his keyboard.

  Zane and Tathan together, that’s an image I don’t want. An image I do want is one of Tathan’s fingers as they glide over his keyboard effortlessly. I can imagine it being my body, more importantly, my clit. Despite Zane talking to me, I watch Tathan’s fingers, wondering what those fingers can do for me, long slender and. . . shit. . . focus.

  With her usual yogurt in hand, Casey approaches, examining Zane, then me, and holds out her hand for the publication on company insurance she needed to have printed for our next staff meeting.

  I turn toward her, handing her the copies. “Here’s the penetration you asked for—” I realize quickly that came out wrong when I see Tathan’s shoulders shaking with laughter, and Zane’s eyes widen in amusement. “Publication. . . here’s the publication you asked for!” I say to Casey, who is just as amused by my pornographic word vomit as Tathan is based on the sudden burst of laughter.

  If I had enough office supplies on my desk, I would have thrown shit at all of them.

  Casey rubs my back. “You really need to get laid.”

  No shit.

  “I can help with that.” Tathan nods like he’s eager.

  Zane giggles, his cheeks flushing. “I bet you can, big guy.”

  Oh boy.

  Tathan laughs, again, the ringing of his phone preventing him from answering him. He picks it up, winking at Zane.

  Ev
ery day. It’s like this every damn day lately.

  It’s nearing ten, and I’m supposed to be scheduling a meeting for Paul with Connor Development, but instead, I’m watching Tathan eat an apple, wishing my pussy was that apple.

  I have to physically turn my head from him, and even that doesn’t help right away. I have to force myself to pay attention to the call I’m on.

  The conference call ends, and I’m starving, so I purchase M&M’s from the vending machine on the second floor. Back at my desk, I empty the entire bag, count them and then organize them by color before I eat them. I’ll admit I’m a little OCD when it comes to colors and chocolate.

  My lunch break goes by too fast, and I’m then forced to figure out how to pass the time for the rest of the day since Paul left for a meeting downtown. It’s not like he’s been around much the last six months, and I’m very efficient at my job, so it leaves for a lot of downtime in the afternoons.

  My entertainment?

  Craigslist.

  It’s my way of getting back at Tathan for all his teasing. I post an ad on there for a handyman looking for extra work. I address the title as: Construction Worker looking for Handy Work.

  In the description for work, I add: Will accept trades for payments, known to work without my shirt.

  Then I put Tathan’s desk phone as the contact number and nearly burst out laughing thinking of his face when he gets that first call.

  It’s not the first time I’ve posted an ad on Craigslist for him. Clearly. Remember the car ad last night? Two weeks ago, I posted an ad on there for a construction worker looking for a cleaning lady. It’s amazing the response you get when you add the word construction worker. That time I gave them Tathan’s address and sat at my door with a bowl of popcorn and gummy bears watching the congregation of ladies file through.

  Tathan wasn’t amused.

  I was.

  He made the mistake of answering the door in his usual attire, no shirt. By the tenth woman, he’d added a sweater, and a North Face winter jacket even though it was ninety degrees out.

  Forty-one minutes and sixteen seconds after posting my newest ad, Tathan picks up his phone that has been ringing non-stop.

  “Madsen Construction,” he answers, his eyes on his computer screen, seeming annoyed.

  “Who?” Confusion marks his eyes. “Um, no. . . I didn’t post an ad. . . . Who is this?” He pauses, shaking his head. “Zane, it’s me Tathan.”

  Tathan peeks around his computer and smirks. He’s a quick fucker. He catches on fairly soon I’m the one who posted it.

  I almost wet my pants trying to stifle the laughter that’s begging to erupt. Zane saw the ad on Craigslist without me even letting him in on my plan. That boy has a fetish for construction workers swinging their hammers. This is why he works for Madsen Construction.

  With a black bag over his shoulder, Tathan leaves the office after an hour of smirking and winking at every X-chromosome that walks by.

  He stops by my desk, like he always does before he leaves. “Dinner tonight?”

  “Not a chance,” I say without looking up. Despite my response, he lingers. I continue to pretend to type something and accidentally send an e-mail to Casey with just a shitload of letters jumbled together.

  “Come on, Amalie, I just want to have a meal with you.” I can feel him staring at me. “And I think you owe me one after your dog peed at my door.”

  “I replaced your doormat. And you don’t want a meal. . . you want to make me the meal and throw me in the Bucket of Sluts.” I spin in my chair to face him, getting a little dizzy in the process. “I’m not bucket material.” I click my pen obsessively to keep my hands busy.

  If they weren’t busy, I’d probably be unbuttoning his jeans or fanning myself with a manila folder as I envision myself unbuttoning his jeans with my teeth.

  Tathan sighs as his one hand adjusts his bag, the other on the cubicle partition. “You’re right. I do want you, but not in my bucket. I don’t even know what that means.” He chuckles when he says bucket. So do I because the way he says it is funny. The thought isn’t lost on me that we have something in common—we think the word bucket is funny which makes me think we have similar personalities and we’re probably fairly compatible.

  “See. . . you like me,” he points out when I laugh with him. “I don’t know why you try to avoid me.”

  “I have to work. What do you even do here?” I don’t think Tathan does anything at work. He sits at his desk, watches me, and leaves around noon most days. Sometimes he’s in Paul’s office, and sometimes he’s working on the computer. Not often.

  “Please go to dinner with me.”

  “No.”

  Paul comes around the corner, having returned from his meeting and hands Tathan a note.

  “Okay.” Tathan nods after reading it and turns to leave, he pauses to adjust his bag and stares at me. “Are you sure?”

  No. “I’m sure.”

  I watch him disappear down the hall. Actually, I watch his ass in those jeans until Paul clears his throat.

  I snap my eyes to his. “What do you want?” I ask, forgetting who I’m talking to.

  He laughs, the same laugh all his sons have. The kind that makes me smile, warm and toasty, “snowy winter day with hot chocolate in front of the fireplace” kind of warm and toasty. Not that I’ve ever seen snow. I live in Arizona and have my entire life.

  “You know, Amalie.” He pauses, twisting around to walk back to his office. “I like you.”

  “Yeah, people keep saying that to me today.” I face my computer and flick the monitor. “Must be my winning personality.”

  Tathan doesn’t show back up the rest of the day; this makes me happy and sad. I have no idea what my plan was and why I need to hate him. My problem is I kinda like the guy.

  Tathan’s shiny Lexus is in the parking lot at our apartment building when I get off work, the silver paint gleaming in the setting sun, parked next to Casey’s car.

  Casey usually stays the night with me on Fridays since Bryan works the night shift on the weekends.

  I’m inside the lobby with its air-conditioning blasting my face. I check my mailbox, and sure enough, he’s taken my mail, again. I want to remind him stealing someone’s mail is a federal offense, but I’m sure to a guy like him that wouldn’t matter. I’d call the cops, but he’d probably wink, and the officer would let it go. Or my luck a female officer would show up, and he’d invite her in.

  Instead, I ask the receptionist who usually ignores me. “Excuse me, Ms., can you tell me how someone could get into my mailbox?” I hold my keys up, dangling them in the air. “My mail is missing nearly every day, and my neighbor takes it.”

  Ripping out her earbud, the girl behind the counter stares at me like I’m speaking a language she doesn’t understand. “What?”

  I frown, knowing I’m not getting anywhere with this gum-popping twit. “Never mind.”

  Making my way upstairs, I pound my fist on Tathan’s door and almost die when he opens it. He’s still wearing the jeans from earlier only the shirt is gone. It’s everything I can do to, one, not run my fingertips over the muscles popping out, and two, not stare, but when he turns his back, I do wipe the drool from the corner of my mouth and follow him inside.

  “Where’s my mail?”

  He gives a small grin, rubbing the back of his left hand down the side of his jaw. “Where’s that dog of yours?”

  “Haven’t freed him yet.”

  “I set your mail over there.” He points to his dining room table.

  Okay, so he’s making me get it myself. Probably so he can trap me inside and tie me up. Not that I’m against that sort of thing. I’d probably let him tie me up at this point. Sadly.

  I’m not sure what to expect when I step foot in the apartment as I’ve never been inside before. We’ve lived next door to each other for months now, and this is my first adventure inside.

  Not gonna lie, I half expected to see whips and chains
around the room or maybe an X-rated room like Jade as well as a box of porn on the counter, but no such luck.

  He’s actually normal.

  Lining the walls of the entryway are family photos of him and his brothers. Even some of Aldon and him when they were younger. The more I look around, the harder it is to remember why I hate him.

  Earlier today, I googled the symptoms of Chlamydia in a female so I could repeat them to myself whenever I have a lapse in judgment, like now. I try to repeat them, but I can’t seem to recall even one of the symptoms.

  Casually, I glance around the apartment, which is exactly the same layout as mine, but still seems different. His furnishings are modern, with cool spa-like colors on the walls. It’s somewhat relaxing with the framed black-and-white photos everywhere.

  Immediately, I recognize the style of them. They have the same markings as the ones in the office at work, the same ones in the coffee shop, and the same ones in the foyer of our apartment complex.

  The photographer Casey’s trying to land. This Elliott Warren is literally everywhere I look.

  Though I have no reason to be annoyed with this Elliott guy, I’m annoyed at how everyone worships his photography. Nobody is that good at taking pictures that the whole city has to treat him like he’s the Paris Hilton of the photography world.

  I’ll admit hating this guy has more to do with the fact that everyone loved my ex-boyfriend in high school. Everyone. Even my dad thought he was the greatest. And look how that turned out. It was awful. He was lying, deceitful and a bastard.

  “Not you too,” I groan. “Everyone is obsessed with Elliott Warren. I mean Christ, you’d think the guy was a member of the Beatles or some shit.”

  Tathan smirks and looks up at me with a contemplative expression. “Hmm. . . well, he’s good at what he does. Don’t you think?”