Both he and Buddy stared at her.
“You’re on Ritalin?” Buddy asked, echoing Ty’s thoughts.
“Yeah, totally. Yeah.” Her voice had the dreamy, checked-out quality of the stoned.
Ty released his hand from Buddy’s arm. “Why are you on Ritalin?”
“Oh, I need it for my brain!” Middleton wrinkled her delicate nose. “Oh, I shouldn’t have told you that, Mr Henderson, please don’t tell any of the other guys?”
Ty compressed his eyelids together as tight as he could, hating everything and everyone, primarily himself. He opened his eyes. “Middleton, can you please just get up so we can leave?”
His employee looked down at herself, as though puzzled to find she was still on the floor. “Oh. Maybe.”
Ty watched her struggle for a few seconds, then against all his better judgment, extended a hand. She took it, her skin unnaturally soft, the bones in her fingers as delicate as a bird’s. Ty knew he was filing that information away for unsavoury purposes and hated himself a little more. As soon as she was on her feet he dropped her hand. “Let’s go.”
“Okay.” Middleton turned to Buddy, wobbling slightly like a newborn foal. “Want to come back to my hotel room with me?”
The kid beamed as though he’d just been handed a free pint. “Sur—”
“No, he fucking doesn’t!” Ty snarled. “You can’t fuck someone if you’re off your head on pills!”
She gave him a sugary ‘I’m a good girl’ smile, the kind that haunted his jerk off sessions. “I’m fine! The fuzziness goes away pretty fast.”
“That doesn’t fuckin’ matter. Besides, Buddy has a big exam tomorrow. He needs to go home and study, don’t you, mate?”
Buddy glared at him. “My name’s…yeah, yeah I do have to study. Sorry, Katie.”
Middleton sighed prettily. “That’s bad luck, good night kiss?”
He smirked. “Sure.”
They moved toward one another and the awareness that Middleton was going to suck face with her would-be webcam predator in front of him snapped something inside Ty.
“Okay, we’re done here.” He bent down, grabbed her around her middle and threw her over his shoulder. Buddy made a noise of outrage but Middleton merely tapped his back. “Mr Henderson, can you please put me down so I can kiss—”
“No. Say goodbye to Buddy.”
He felt her body turn in Buddy’s direction. “Goodbye, Buddy. Good luck with rugby!”
“I…but…?” The younger man caught sight of Ty’s face and fell silent.
“He’s really nice,” Middleton said as he strode toward the front door.
“No, he isn't.”
The remaining patrons were so drunk they barely noticed a man carrying a girl out of the pub but behind the bar Sandy let out a theatrical snort. “You did get a better offer then? Bit young, isn’t she?”
Ty thought it better not to respond.
“Who was that?” Middleton asked, as he walked them down the mercifully empty street toward the hotel.
Ty ignored her. “Can you walk?”
“Um, maybe?”
He groaned and hefted her a little higher on his shoulder. He couldn’t put her down only to have her collapse, but carrying her like this was a long way from professional; the sooner he dropped her off at her room, the better.
She tapped his back again. “Mr Henderson, I’m not what that woman said. I know I have freckles, but I’m twenty-five. That’s super legal.”
Ty clenched his teeth and willed himself to walk as fast as he could on footpaths still slick with afternoon rain. Why did she have to call him ‘Mr Henderson?’ Everyone at work called each other by their nicknames. To the other staff at GGS, he was ‘Hendo,’ ‘Nirvana’ or ‘Ty.’ He didn’t want her calling him those things, but hearing her say ‘Mr Henderson’ in her sexy little girl lisp was worse.
Middleton tapped his back in a line, like she was playing itsy bitsy spider. “Mr Henderson, why’re you helping me? You don’t even like me. I’m pretty sure you hate me.”
Ty stayed silent.
“You know how I know? You never talk to me. You won’t look at me. You always schedule jobs, so we never have to go out to sites together. Sometimes I see you glaring at me like you’re trying to give me cancer with your eyes. Is any of that ringing a bell?”
Again, Ty said nothing. He had an arm slung across Middleton’s thighs, and he could feel the muscles twitching beneath her skin. She had good legs, as far as he could make out through her endless pairings of thick patterned tights and knee-length skirts. Maybe she got them from roller derby. He entertained himself for a second, picturing what she wore when she played. He’d never seen a game, but he’d always had a thing for girls wearing roller skates. Sometimes when he was cranking one out he imagined sitting on a chair and having a girl ride him with nothing but skates on, the wheels spinning uselessly in the air as he fucked her…
“Are you carrying me like this because you used to be a firebag?”
That got Ty’s attention. “What?”
“A firebag,” Middleton repeated. “Shoot, I mean a firebag.”
He heard a soft smack that told him she’d slapped her own forehead. “Fireman,” she gasped. “I mean fireman, sorry, I feel weird.”
“Ritalin does that to you?” Ty asked, unable to help himself.
“No, I had a couple of vodka raspberries, it’s been a while since I’ve been drunk.”
“I didn’t see you drink anything.”
There was a short pause. “How do you know? Were you watching me?”
Ty clenched his jaw and vowed not to speak again.
“Anyway, back to my original point about you hating me.” Middleton’s voice was as bright as if they were discussing newborn puppies. “I kind of get why we never talk. I mean, we don’t have anything in common. I’m a girl, and you’re all ‘I’m Tyler Henderson. I’m from Regional Queensland! I never smile!’”
She said all this in a gruff attempt at a man’s voice, her body stiff as though she was flexing her muscles. “Or maybe you’re just like all the other guys on the crew, and you hate having a girl around because you can’t rearrange your testicles in front of everyone anymore.”
Ty was so surprised she said ‘testicles’, he almost dropped her. “That’s not true,” he told her. “No one resents you being there.”
Though they did tend to adjust themselves more freely when she wasn’t.
Middleton made a soft clucking noise with her tongue. “You still hate me. Admit it!”
I do, Ty thought. I hate working with you. I’d love for you to get another job. Just take your long hair and jiggly tits and sweet smile and get the fuck away from me. I had enough problems before I started panting after your ass like a stray dog, and after tonight I’m only gonna have more.
Silence fell between them as Ty cursed the distance between the pub and the hotel; it hadn’t seemed this fucking far when he walked over. Middleton’s fingertips traced his back once more, making the hairs on Ty’s neck stand on end. “This is a beautiful coat. Where did you get it?”
Distracted by her touch, he said, “Ireland, my ex picked it out for me.”
“Is that your ex-fiancée that no one is allowed to talk about?”
Ty said nothing.
“Hmm, well, either way, it suits you. It makes you look like, I don’t know…”
A stranger you fall in love with on the train, Veronica’s voice whispered in his ear. My perfect gentleman, Tyler.
“Sherlock Holmes,” Middleton concluded. “Like the Benedict Cumberbatch version of Sherlock Holmes. Only you don’t have a sly badger face.”
“Right.”
They were silent after that. Ty walked as fast as he could and after a few minutes spotted the lights that marked the main street hotel. He congratulated himself on a job well done and patted Middleton’s foot. “We’re close to the hotel now. I’m gonna put you down, okay?”
There was no reply.
No response.
“Shit.” He slid her off his shoulder and held her in front of him. Her eyelids were closed, her breathing was even. He groaned. “You can’t do this to me, you just can’t.”
But she had, she’d passed out less than ten meters from her hotel room, and she didn’t have a handbag on her. He couldn’t rummage through her clothes for a keycard. He couldn’t call anyone to take her off his hands. He recalled that quote about how saving a man’s life made you responsible for him. He’d already saved Middleton from becoming an involuntary pornstar, he couldn’t abandon her to the freezing cold. As far as he could see, he had only one option.
He raised a palm to his forehead and hit himself a couple of times, then he hoisted Middleton back over his shoulder and walked toward the hotel. His room was as cold and bland as he’d left it, the bed made, his leather overnight bag on the side table. He dumped Middleton on the hard navy couch and studied her for a moment. Her dark hair was spread around her like a mourner’s veil and her eyelids were flickering with the telltale signs of REM. She had very long, dark lashes. Ty stared at her for a beat too long, then walked away shaking his head. Hopefully, she’d wake up after a couple of hours, realise what she’d done and sneak back to her room to avoid embarrassment. If not? Well, maybe waking up in his hotel room after blacking out would finally motivate her to seek employment elsewhere.
Ty flicked on the light, took a piss and brushed his teeth. He made as much noise as possible, hoping to wake Middleton up, but she dozed on. Unable to sleep naked the way he normally did, he pulled a fresh t-shirt and underwear from his bag and changed in the bathroom. His cock was heavy against his thigh, throbbing with an unwelcome eagerness. Bad thoughts swooped through his head like the fruit bats he could hear chattering outside. He ignored them, dressing and climbing into bed, pulling the cold sheets over his chest. When he closed his eyes it occurred to him that a gentleman would have let Middleton have the bed. He sat up, prepared to change places, then grimaced and fell back against the mattress. No matter what Veronica said, he wasn’t a gentleman. Not anymore.
Chapter 2
Kate had no idea where she was. Most women would be distressed by that, but for her, it was as familiar as donning her old school uniform. When she was a teenager, drinking and smoking sticky lumps of weed was the only thing that numbed her boiling hyperactivity. She had been a fifty-five-kilogram girl with the drug tolerance of a Keebler elf, so she passed out a lot. Once, at a house party, she’d climbed the stairs to the guest bedroom and fallen asleep on the carpet. Brent’s mother had found her the next day and they’d both screamed fit to bring the house down. Another time she’d blacked out in the bathroom at a Chinese restaurant and had to be carried out by one of the cooks. Ritalin had proved itself a much better mood-modifier than vodka UDL’s or home-grown cannabis, but it lowered her alcohol tolerance even more.
She couldn’t quite remember why she’d decided to drink tonight, but it was clear her inner lightweight had decided to re-emerge. She prodded her face and body for injuries and found none. That was good. She was fully dressed. Also good. Her back ached. She felt around herself. She appeared to be lying on a ridiculously hard couch. But where? And for what reason? Had she gone out and crashed at some stranger’s place? As her eyes adjusted to the dark she realised the room seemed familiar, familiar and yet somehow new as well…
“Hotel room!” She sat bolt upright. “Bendigo! Hotel room! I was nervous because it’s my first work trip! That’s why I was drinking!”
She smiled into the darkness, quite proud she’d managed to remember where she was and that she’d found her way back to her hotel suite, safe and sound. But that didn’t quite add up. If she made it back to her hotel room, why was she on the couch?
A low grunting moan came from across the room. She looked over and gasped, a little theatrical gasp that sounded like it was for show. There was a man in her hotel bed, or an enormous woman. Or a really big dog.
The thing emitted another grumbling noise, a man, definitely a man. How had he gotten here? Kate patted herself on the head, willing the thoughts to return. Had she broken her years-long dry spell and hooked up? If so, why was she on the couch with all her clothes on? She tried to retrace her steps, think back to whether or not she’d met anyone, but she could only picture the pub; old and dingy with a faded burgundy carpet. She had arrived with the other GGS employees, sitting at the edge of the group listening to the men discuss what was better—chicken schnitzel or chicken parmigiana. Tyler Henderson had been at the head of the group, his face set and his hair gleaming gold. He said very little and drank a lot. He glanced away whenever she spoke.
That he didn’t like her always would have hurt. That he didn’t like her and she was so hopelessly attracted to him burned. In the kind of all-encompassing obsession she’d only ever read about in books, but unlike books, her obsession never went anywhere or did anything. She just got sweaty palms whenever she saw him and it made her work-life very awkward.
Her obsession wasn’t even original. Everyone had a crush on Tyler Henderson. Women, gay men, straight men, more perceptive animals. It was like having a crush on a Hemsworth brother—it made you basic as hell.
Charisma, Kate had once written in an email to herself, means people are attracted to you no matter what their type normally is. It means being so compelling you transcend what people think they want and have them want you anyway. Tyler Henderson has that more than anyone I’ve ever met. Consequently, my crush on Tyler Henderson is lame and I need to get over it right now.
She’d signed the email and sent it to herself. But despite what she learned in self-development audiobooks, writing it down did not help her achieve that particular goal. If she closed her eyes she could picture him perfectly—tall and handsome as a captain in a military movie. Authority emanated from him like radiation. When he spoke, his words appeared to carry more weight than anyone else’s, as though they were made of gold. Everyone looked up to him, everyone wanted his approval. That Kate didn’t have it was a huge X beside her name when it came to her GGS status. Ty’s dislike of her seemed to predate anything she’d said or done. Her first week with GGS, they were approaching one another from opposite sides of a hallway and she’d tried to make conversation the only way she knew how. She whipped the lid of her baking tin off and smiled. “Hello, Mr Henderson, would you like a lemon-curd meringue?”
First, he had looked at her like she was a penguin that had learned how to talk, then his lip curled with the mild distaste she would come to know well. “No thanks,” he said, but his eyes delivered another message. You are stupid. Lemon-curd is stupid. Meringues are stupid. Stop talking to me and never do it again in your life.
Kate tried to oblige as much as possible.
It didn’t seem fair. Of all the men to instantly hate her, why did it have to be one who dressed like a French billionaire and smelled the way her first orgasm felt? Who had a voice like hot gravel and was so well travelled he made David Attenborough look like her mum? She’d have thought his dislike was garden variety sexism but Ty was famous (in an industry where referring to your wife as ‘the old ball and chain’ was still considered hilarious) for his progressive views. He frequently shut down regressive conversations with a curt, “if you feel that way, go join ISIS.” He was even, it was whispered in the darkest of office corners, a socialist.
Why would a socialist hate her so much? She loved sharing. That was what the lemon-curd meringues were all about. Kate exhaled, bringing her attention back to the mystery man in her bed. She needed to focus on something other than Tyler Henderson. She tried to replay her time at the pub. She’d sat there for hours while the men around her drank steadily and she’d been so bored she’d secretly ordered a vodka raspberry. No one noticed so she’d ordered another one, then another one. Once she was pleasantly buzzed, she’d gotten up and started playing the pinball machine. It had a dragon on it. She’d bee
n feeding the slot another dollar when…
The image of young guy burst into her mind—a nice smile, curly hair and massive shoulders. “Aha! Rugby Boy!”
The man in her bed let out a groan.
“Ooh, sorry!”
Rugby Boy groaned again, and Kate clapped her hands over her mouth. She remembered now. Rugby Boy had reminded her of the guys from home, sweet and countrified but without the surfer’s tan and sea-salt hair. He offered her a drink with such puppy dog eagerness, she’d said yes without even thinking about it.
As the night wore on and she became tinglier with alcohol, Kate had decided it was time to try again and that if Rugby Boy tried to kiss her, she would let him. He tried. His kisses had been toothy and a little too wet, but he was confident and attractive, and his body was as hard as stone. She decided she wanted to go home with him. That was where her memory reel ended, but Kate could pretty much piece the story together from there. She and Rugby Boy had come back to her room, one or both of them had decided she was too drunk for sex, and then she’d offered him her bed as a consolation prize. It was kind of unchivalrous of Rugby Boy to have taken it, but hell, this was meant to be a one-night stand. What could you expect?
Kate studied the man-bulge in her bed. It was a shame they hadn’t consummated their encounter, they might have had fun together. She had been thinking about sex all day. She’d have loved to blame that on ovulation, but the truth was being in such close confines with Tyler Henderson made it hard not to think about sex. There was something strangely intimate about seeing him in jeans and a plaid shirt, socialising with other men and nursing straight liquor in a pub like a cowboy. As she kissed Rugby Boy, she’d thought she’d felt his gaze on her. The mere idea had gotten her ridiculously excited. She knew how weird that was, she had hoped sleeping with Rugby Boy might go some way toward helping her with her dumb crush.
It still might. Maybe you just need to get into that bed and show him you’re sober and up for it?
It would be so unlike her, but that made the idea more appealing, not less. Why couldn’t she get into bed with Rugby Boy and see if he was still keen? Previous experience with any and all males said he would be.
So Steady: Silver Daughters Ink, Book Two (Silver Daughters Ink Book Two) Page 30