by Jewel E. Ann
Cringing at his use of the F-word, I felt insecure and completely exposed. I had no idea Fisher Mann would teach me so much during our time alone.
Chapter Six
“What?” I looked down at my jeans, gray tee, and white tennis shoes as Fisher leaned against the back of his truck with one foot propped up behind him on the bumper, eyes taking way too much liberty with inspecting me.
“Approximately seventy percent of my young male crew will try to get into your pants. I’ll do my best to keep them from humping your legs and licking your face, but I just want you to remember that they went to public school and lost their virginity before they could legally drive a car.”
I hugged my arms to my waist. “And that makes it okay to act like animals?”
“No.” He laughed, pushing off the truck. “They’re not animals. Just guys being assholes because they haven’t had a good woman to keep their dicks in check. Give them a day or two to get used to you before you go filing any sexual harassment complaints because they looked at you the wrong way or whistled a little too loudly. They’re good workers. I need them more than I need you.”
I should have been offended that he was suggesting I turn a forty-eight-hour blind eye to his crew’s bad behavior—but I wasn’t because I was too preoccupied with how he didn’t need me. “If I’m nothing more than a burden, I don’t have to work for you. I’m sure there are plenty of other people who would love to have me.”
Fisher’s crew? Ha!
He looked at me the wrong way, rarely keeping his gaze on mine. My boobs? Those he could have picked out in a lineup.
“Oh…” he forced his wandering gaze back to my face “…I’m sure there are lots of people who would love to have you. But for now, you’re mine. So get in the truck.”
Did I want to be his? Pfft … No.
If God was keeping count of my lies, that one got a tally mark.
As soon as we pulled out of the driveway, he played music from a playlist on his phone. I hadn’t heard the song. It was loud. Hard rock. Littered with swear words. And all about sex.
Conflict muddled my thoughts. I was an adult. I could hear bad words, even if I wasn’t comfortable saying them. Technically, I could get married and have sex. So explicit music should not have felt so wrong. After all, it wasn’t my playlist. But I felt uncomfortable because, like all sin, it tempted me. It tempted my mind. It made me think inappropriate things about my new boss.
“Too loud?” he asked, after the song ended.
I shook my head, a tight shake.
“Why are you so stiff?”
Blowing out a slow breath, I tried to relax my body and my mind. “Just … just nervous about my first day.” I pulled a pad of paper and pencil out of my backpack and opened it.
“Is that a crossword puzzle?” He turned down the music.
I nodded, adding boxes for my next word.
“Are you … solving one or making your own?”
“I’m constructing my own.”
“Why?” He laughed, but it was an odd laugh, a little forced.
“Because I enjoy doing it. My dad was an architect, and he also enjoyed crossword puzzles. Then he started making them just for fun. Eventually, he was submitting them to different places for publication.” I wrote out the next clue.
Seven down: Clownish
Then I filled in the four letters: ZANY
“Doing it makes me feel like he’s … not as dead.”
Fisher glanced over at me for a beat. “Not as dead. I like that. So … what do you do with your puzzles?”
“Not a lot at the moment. However, when I was in school, I got extra credit from my English teachers for making them. The school had an online newsletter, and it included my puzzles. I don’t know what I’ll do with them now. Maybe I’ll look for an online publication for them like my dad did. Maybe…” I grinned without taking my gaze off my paper “…they’ll make it in The New York Times. That would get me some blogger buzz.”
“People blog about crossword puzzles?”
Chuckling, I nodded several times. “Um … there are bloggers for everything. There are plenty of programs to generate puzzles now, but this is authentic. I hope big publications always favor the diehard cruciverbalist.”
“The diehard what?” He held his hand to his ear.
“Cruciverbalist. A person who is skilled at constructing or solving crossword puzzles.”
“Damn. You’re a nerd, Reese.”
“No. I just do slightly unusual things to keep the memories of my parents alive.”
“Parents? Your mom is still alive. You know this, right?”
“Yes. But I felt like I lost her five years ago.”
“Did you do something that made you think of her like your dad and the crosswords?”
On a nervous laugh, I glanced up from my pad of paper and watched the traffic for a few seconds. “I … do. Uh …” More nervous laughter filled the air.
“What?”
“Just … I collect stuff that she used to collect. Now that she’s out of pris—” It occurred to me that Fisher might not know her past. Maybe he didn’t do background checks on his tenants. I wasn’t sure if Rory freely offered that information to people.
“I know she was in prison.”
On a breath of relief, I nodded several times. “Okay. I mean, I figured she probably mentioned it. Background check. References. Surely she had to be accountable for the previous five years.”
“I didn’t ask. No background checks. She told me.”
“Oh, okay.”
After a few seconds, where I hoped he would forget what we were discussing, he cut his eyes to me for a few seconds. “So … what did she and then you collect?”
As a young girl, my mom’s hobby was cool. And I benefited from it. As an eighteen-year-old young woman with a slight crush on a guy ten years older than me, my mom’s hobby that I took over no longer felt cool. In fact, embarrassed was the only word to describe it.
“She collected…” I needed to remind him that it wasn’t really my hobby “…toys from Happy Meals.”
“McDonald’s Happy Meals?”
“Yeah. She felt certain that, eventually, they’d be worth a lot of money. So she bought Happy Meals. Lots of Happy Meals. Sometimes the same toy would be offered for a week or two, maybe even longer if it was really popular. When that happened, I scored a trip to McDonald’s for a Happy Meal. She’d get two so I didn’t feel cheated out of the toy. But when there were multiple interrelated items available at the same time, like collector cards or something like that, she’d buy so many Happy Meals just to get all of them. And since she was likely to get a lot of repeats before getting one of each … whatever it was … she’d buy more than we would ever consume, even taking a minivan full of my friends. So she’d take Happy Meals, minus the toys, and give them to homeless people. Well, I take that back. When the toys were repeats, she’d give them the toy too.”
Fisher said nothing for a minute or two. The longest minute or two of my life. What must he have been thinking of Rory? Of me?
“And now you get Happy Meals for the toys?”
He was right. I had a nerd gene I didn’t like to admit. But when he made that statement, even I couldn’t deny I was a little zany.
“I don’t, really. Not now, of course, because she’s out of prison. There’s no need for me to do it now. If she wants to continue, she can do it on her own.”
The grin on his face swelled, and I wanted to crawl in a corner and die. “Did she ask you to do this while she was in prison?”
“Not exactly.”
“Have you told her you did it?”
“Not yet. I really haven’t had the chance to talk to her. I no sooner showed up and she left for California. I’ll mention it when she comes home.”
“But you’re done? You won’t be getting anymore Happy Meals. I mean … isn’t there an age limit for that?”
I rolled my eyes. “What are they going to do? As
k for the birth certificate of the child for whom you’re buying the Happy Meal?”
Fisher shrugged. “They probably should. Wouldn’t that be an interesting twist. Your mom going to prison for something that’s now legal in most states, and you going to prison for Happy Meal fraud.”
Covering my mouth, I giggled. He was being so ridiculous.
“Good thing you’re done now.”
I wasn’t exactly done. There were Pokémon cards that month, and I still had three to get. Then I would be done. It felt weird ending with something as incomplete as Pokémon cards. “Yup.” I popped my lips. “Good thing.”
“I collected rocks.”
Glancing at him as his attention remained affixed to the road, I ate up that grin of his—a mix between boyish and mischievous. “Like geodes and crystals? Precious stones?”
Pursing his lips upward a bit, he inched his head side to side. “No. Just rocks. Yard rocks. Playground rocks. Pebbles stuck in the soles of my shoes.”
Biting back my smile, I nodded. “Sounds awesome. Do you still have your collection? Or do you still collect? I bet you find a lot of rocks in your line of work.”
“I think my mom still has my shoeboxes full of rocks at home. I’ll have to ask her. Why? Do you want to see it? I can show you my rocks, and you can show me your Happy Meal toys.”
Again, he made me want to laugh, but I didn’t trust myself to not be too transparent with my tiny crush on him. So I cleared my throat and swallowed back my amusement. “I didn’t bring the collection with me. It’s uh …”
“A lot of shit? It has to be. I mean … five years of collecting toys, you must have boxes and boxes of them? Or are they in a safe? Maybe safe deposit boxes for when they become collector items and you or your mom decide it’s time to retire early?”
If he only knew …
A few Christmas-tree sized Rubbermaid containers in my grandparents’ basement.
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her. I just tried to continue her hobby while she was incarcerated. It’s not like I got all of them. I was in school. I had other things going on. No time to keep militant track of Happy Meal toys.”
I didn’t miss a single one. If I were honest with him, I would have confessed just how much of my hard-earned money I spent not missing a single toy. And I even continued her tradition of giving out the Happy Meals to homeless people during times that required lots of purchases in a short amount of time. So really, I was a Good Samaritan. Feeding the homeless. WWJD? He would have handed out Happy Meals to everyone.
“I think that’s cool. I mean, that you did that to feel connected to your mom. Just like the crosswords and your dad. Rory’s a good person, even if she took the leap of faith and trusted me to keep an eye on you.”
“Wait …” My head jerked backward. “What do you mean by that? You make it sound like it was foolish of her. Which it might have been. I was a little surprised she trusted you. And for the record, I don’t need anyone’s eyes on me.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“No.” I shifted my attention to the side window to hide my truth. Did I trust him? Not really. Did that give me a slight thrill? Unfortunately.
A hint of amusement lingered at his lips as he focused on the road. “That’s fair. But I’m your boss during the day, so save your distrust for nights.”
Oh my gosh …
“That’s … a little creepy.”
“Oh, Reese … we’re going to have so much fun.” He turned up the music again. I glanced at his phone.
Matt Maeson, “Put It on Me.”
The base vibrated my bones, and the lyrics rushed through my veins like ice water. A seductive and chilling song. It did nothing to make me trust the naked fisherman.
Rory must have felt desperate to find a friend—any friend—which made her susceptible to blind trust.
Chapter Seven
“Morning, Bossman.” A wavy-haired blonde glanced up from a tiny desk nestled between a water cooler and a coffee machine.
“Morning. Hailey, this is Reese, Rory’s daughter. If you have stuff for her to do here in the office, she’ll hang with you today. Otherwise, I’ll take her with me.”
“Hi.” I gave Hailey my best smile, silently begging for her to have some office work for me.
“Hey, Reese. Nice to meet you. I don’t really have much today. But Monday you can help me enter bids in the computer and send them off.”
Fisher grabbed a cup of coffee and sat at a desk opposite Hailey’s. It was the smallest office I had ever seen.
“Or we could do it today,” I suggested with a little too much enthusiasm.
“Sorry. I’m cutting out early for a doctor’s appointment.” She refocused on her computer.
I stood in the middle of the dinky room with my hands folded behind my back.
“Guess you’re with me,” Fisher said with a half grin, shooting me a quick glance before returning his attention to blueprints taking up his whole desk—sans a small corner where he set his coffee. “We need to get you some boots anyway.”
“Yay …” I said with zero enthusiasm.
“Atta girl, way to bring so much energy on a Friday.”
Hailey snorted. “You’re one to talk. I was surprised I got a full good morning from you today. Weren’t you up extra early to take Rory to the airport?”
“Mmm … yes, I was.” He studied the plans, and I quickly learned I liked looking at him with or without clothes. He’d turned his baseball cap backward as if the bill somehow blocked his view or disrupted his thinking process.
“Fisher is not a morning person or a Monday person. He doesn’t like his coffee cold or his water warm. He growls when he’s mad at someone else and grumbles when he’s mad at you.”
“Hailey is full of shit. None of that is in the employee handbook.”
“Because we don’t have an employee handbook.” She rolled her eyes.
“Not true. You just never took the time to read it.” He reached in his pocket for his phone. “Fisher,” he answered.
I made mental notes.
Growl = mad at someone else.
Grumble = mad at me.
“You’re young.” Hailey eyed me. “Sixteen? Seventeen?”
She wasn’t exactly old either.
“Eighteen.” I tipped my chin up and pushed out my chest. I was five-nine with a solid B-cup. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight, like Bossman.”
I wouldn’t have guessed that. Maybe twenty-three or twenty-four.
“I’ll make sure the guys don’t razz you too much. Except Jeremiah. He’s twenty-one, really cute, and single,” she said.
“Well, I’m not sure how long I’ll be staying. My plans are just for the summer at this point.”
With a conspiratorial grin, she winked. “Nothing wrong with hooking up just for the summer.”
I wasn’t hooking up. That would have required getting married, and I wasn’t rushing into marriage just to have sex.
“Ready to head out to the first job site?” Fisher slipped his phone back into his pocket.
“The one they’re roofing today?” Hailey asked.
“Yeah, that’s one stop.” Fisher turned his hat the right way again while nodding at me to head toward the door.
“Jeremiah is there. Make sure you introduce him to Reese. I said he’d be a good summer hookup.”
“Reese isn’t hooking up with Jeremiah this summer.”
“Why?” Hailey asked as if I wasn’t standing in the middle of their conversation about me and my sex life.
“Because Rory left me in charge of her.” He disappeared out the door, and I shot out after him.
“Hey, you’re not in charge of me. Maybe you’re my boss when I’m working, but Rory didn’t leave you in charge of me. I’m an adult.”
“You’re eighteen.” He hopped into the truck.
“Yeah …” I fastened my seat belt. “Eighteen is a legal adult.”
“Legal yes.
But not in the practical sense.”
I scowled at him, but he ignored me. When we got to the first site, I started to climb out of the truck.
“Stay put.” He opened his door.
“Why?”
“Because it’s a work site, and you don’t have a hard hat yet.”
I peered out the window at the crew roofing the house. “They’re not wearing hard hats.”
“They’re on the roof. Nothing’s going to fall onto them.” He started to shut the door.
“Where’s your hat?”
“I’m hardheaded. I’ll be fine.” The door shut before I had a chance for a rebuttal.
For three job inspections in a row, I waited in the truck and basically got paid to work on my crossword puzzles. Then we pulled into a supply and apparel store parking lot.
“Let’s get you some boots and a hard hat.” He jumped out of the truck and strode a good twenty feet before he turned around. After holding out his hands, he let them flop to his sides, returning to the truck and opening my door. “Did you already forget how to operate the little lever called the door handle?”
“No. I just wasn’t sure if I was allowed to exit the truck yet.” I hopped out of the truck, and he shut and locked the door.
“I said we’re getting you boots and a hard hat.”
“Yes, Boss.”
He glanced over at me, one eyebrow peaked. “Boss, huh?”
“That’s what Hailey calls you. Bossman.”
“I’m not sure she means it with any sort of respect.”
“I’m not sure I’m saying it with any respect either.”
He laughed and shook his head. “You’re a spitfire, like your mom.” Opening the door to the store, he waited for me to go inside.
I nodded for him to go first. “It’s not a date.”
“You’re right. My mistake.” He stepped inside and let go of the door.
It quickly started to close, and I grabbed the handle. My shoulder jerked in the direction of the door. It was a lot heavier than I anticipated. After I lugged it open and squeezed inside the store, I jogged to catch up to Fisher who was already halfway toward the back of the store.