Neat

by Steiner, Kandi

  What was worse, I’d be training her — and likely to take the job I was rightfully owed.

  That was why I couldn’t sit still, why frustration and giddiness battled inside me as I waited for her to show.

  I wanted to see her.

  I hated that I had to see her.

  I couldn’t wait to talk to her after all this time.

  I couldn’t bear the fact that I had to talk to her at all.

  Not a single emotion made sense as they fought that war within me, and logic didn’t have enough time to show up and calm them all down before there was a knock at my office door.

  I dropped the stress ball in my hand just before it swung open, and I followed that bright yellow, spongey ball as it rolled all the way across the office and knocked gently against the toe of dirty, white, high-top Chucks.

  I’m not sure how long I stared at those shoes, only that it was a little too long. Because by the time my brain finally processed that I should stand and clear my throat and make my way around my desk to greet my guest, she was watching me with an arched brow and flat, beautifully painted lips.

  “Logan Becker?”

  I forced a smile, ignoring the way my name sounded rolling off her tongue. I couldn’t remember if I’d ever heard her say it before, though I was almost certain I hadn’t.

  I’d have remembered.

  She had a slight Tennessee lilt, which seemed a little out of place, given her appearance. She paired those high-top white Chucks with jeans that had more holes than fabric, revealing slivers of the tattoos on her thighs. Her t-shirt was black, with a band name I didn’t recognize, and more tattoos peeked out from under each sleeve. She had a blue and green flannel tied around her waist, accentuating a waist I wagered was just right for me to fit my hands around. Her hair — which had been purple just last week — was now a platinum blonde, parted down the middle and framing her face in a tight, shoulder-length bob. Her lips were painted a dusty rose, her blue eyes lined and shaped like a cat’s, and that septum piercing she was so famous for around town glittered in the fluorescent light of my office.

  She was everything that every other girl in this town wasn’t.

  And I loathed that it made me want her so fiercely.

  Mallory arched her perfectly drawn eyebrow even higher as the silence stretched between us without me answering.

  “Uh, yes,” I finally said, stepping away from my desk and extending a hand for hers. “That’s me. And you must be Mallory.”

  She popped the gum inside her mouth in lieu of an answer, which made my eye twitch before she took my hand and gave it a firm shake.

  “You changed your hair.”

  The idiotic statement flew from my mouth just as she pulled her hand from my grasp. She still had that one eyebrow cocked up to her forehead, and she tucked her hands in her back pockets, watching me. “And you know that… how?”

  I fought against the heat rising up my neck, praying it didn’t show on my cheeks. “They provided a headshot with your file,” I lied. “Your hair was purple in it.”

  The corner of her mouth quirked up, drawing my attention to the overly plump shape of them. She eyed me like she knew I’d lied, but thankfully, didn’t call me on it.

  “It was,” she finally admitted. “But Daddy said the Scooter Whiskey tour guides had an appearance to uphold, and I was forced to dye it.”

  I didn’t miss the sarcasm laced in the word daddy, and if I’d had any question as to whether or not she was here of her own accord or by the force of his hand, I’d just found my answer.

  Mallory twirled a strand of her platinum hair around her finger to illustrate the new color, tilting her head to the side as she took a step closer to me. “What do you think?” she asked, lips rolling into a pout. “Do I look as good as a blonde as I did with purple hair?”

  My next breath left my chest mid-inhale, which just made Mallory smirk more. She knew what she was doing — which meant I was doing a piss-poor job of hiding the fact that I found her attractive.

  But with another pop of that damn gum inside her mouth, I snapped back into business mode.

  My breath found me again, and with it, my common sense. I turned my back on her without a response, crossing to my desk and casually sitting in my chair before I pulled her file from where I’d placed it on the corner of my desk.

  “Please, take a seat, Miss Scooter,” I said, my expression leveled, my demeanor cool once more. “We have a lot to discuss before your training commences.”

  Mallory

  Logan Becker’s office was my own personal hell of a jail cell.

  Not only was it a symbol of my surrender to my father and the first day at a job I had been trying to avoid my entire life, but it also felt like a jail cell — or, at the very most, an uptight library.

  The walls were cream, the wood flooring dark and warm — but all that warmth was offset by the blinding fluorescent lights lining the ceiling. Not a single piece of art hung on the walls. In fact, the closest thing to art was the impressive wall of bookshelves behind his desk. They would have been beautiful, had they not been so meticulously organized that they felt more like a farce of comfort in a doctor’s office than a display of stories worth reading. The books were lined up by height order, and then by color, and then, I was sure, without even looking closely, by author last name.

  His actual desk was the same dark wood as the floor, held up by black, metal legs. His monitor sat on it, along with the file he’d just pulled — that I assumed had something about me inside — and a swinging ball pendulum that tick-tacked back and forth slowly.

  The entire office was colorless.

  I sighed, taking a seat in the chair across from him at his desk like he’d asked. He was still filtering through the file in his hands, so I looked around for something — anything — that wasn’t boring and bland. My eyes settled on a photo of a family at a lake — four young boys, a father, and a mother. One of the boys rode on the father’s back, ruffling his hair with his knuckles as they both laughed. The youngest boy was missing a front tooth, and the other two stood with their arms around each other’s shoulders, and their mother’s hands resting on their necks.

  I smiled, thankful there was a human hiding somewhere under that robotic façade.

  I knew Logan Becker.

  Well, I knew of him. It was hard not to hear the gossip mill churning about the Becker family, no matter how hard I tried to avoid it — and I did. Logan had been in the same grade as I had growing up, but of course, he’d never talked to me. He was too busy dating every girl who’d look his way before dumping her and moving on to the next. And when he wasn’t with a girl, he was with his brothers — probably getting into a fight or finding some other sort of trouble.

  I also knew that ever since his father’s death, he and his family didn’t exactly favor mine.

  My younger brother, Malcolm, caught on to that fact just as quickly as I did. But where I kept my distance and made it a point not to get caught up in the drama, Malcolm chose to thrive in it, instead. He’d been the root cause of more than a couple Becker brother fights — and honestly, I couldn’t say I blamed any of them for wanting to punch my brother in the nose after some of the comments I’d heard him make.

  But that wasn’t me.

  I got out of Stratford as soon as I turned eighteen, and if it were up to me, I would have never returned.

  Too bad life didn’t work like that.

  I stared at Logan’s young face, smirking as I recalled the fact that he’d called me miss, like I was ten years younger than him, rather than his same age. Then again, the way he was dressed in his dark, slim-fitting dress pants and Scooter Whiskey polo, he certainly looked a lot more grown up than I did.

  We were both the ripe ol’ age of twenty-six, which — when I was younger — I assumed was the age where you had all your shit together. It took years of struggling through school only to discover that the amount of jobs waiting on the other side of that diploma were abysma
l for me to figure out I was wrong.

  So, yes, I could admit that I looked younger than him in the current moment, but part of that was on purpose — because I knew showing up for my first day of work at the distillery in what I wore every day would irk my father. The other part was just that I found no reason to dress in a way I didn’t want to. I didn’t care to impress my father or Logan or anyone else.

  I had a job to do for my father, one that would give me my own dream in return. That was the only reason I was even in that stuffy office to begin with.

  I popped the gum in my mouth, a bad habit I’d picked up after I quit smoking a few years back, as I waited for Logan to say something. At that sound, his eyes flicked to me, to my mouth, and back to the file in his hands again.

  His hands gripped it a little tighter.

  “So, before we get started, I’ll tell you a little about me and then I’d love to hear a little more about you,” he said, his eyes still on the file. “Then, we can go over your training plan and I’ll take you for a spin around the distillery.”

  I had to fight the urge to roll my eyes at that last statement.

  My father owned the distillery, and every single member of my family worked there — save for my mother, who wouldn’t be caught dead doing anything even close to work a day in her life.

  “I’m Logan Becker, as you know,” he started, and I smirked, sitting back in my chair and folding my arms over my chest as he recited what I was sure a speech he’d been practicing. “I’m the Lead Tour Guide for Scooter Whiskey, and I’ll be the one training you over the next few weeks. I started at the distillery when I was eighteen and I’ve been working my way up the ranks ever since. I’m very knowledgeable when it comes to our distillery, to our whiskey, and to our process, so I think you’ll find I’ll be a great teacher.”

  I raised my brows. “I’m sure.”

  “Why don’t you tell me a little about you?” he asked, dropping the file to the desk.

  “Wait,” I said. “Is that it? You didn’t tell me anything about you. You told me how long you’ve worked here, and your job title.”

  “I think that’s all that needs to be said right now.”

  “Are those your books?” I asked, ignoring his attempt to avoid telling me more.

  Logan followed my gaze to where it rested behind him, then faced me once more. “They are.”

  “They’re so… organized.”

  “I’ve been told I have a touch of OCD,” he offered, picking up the file again. “So, it says here you attended the Tennessee School of Arts for seven years.”

  His brows shot up at that, and I knew he was thinking what everyone else did — why so long? But when you’re in no rush to go back home, have nowhere else to go, and art has been your only escape your entire life? Well… seven years doesn’t seem like a long time, at all. In fact, I’d argue it wasn’t long enough.

  “You have your Masters in Arts Management, with distinctions in photography and drawing.” He frowned, eyeing me over the pages. “That’s impressive. What brought you back here?”

  “Did you miss it in all your research about me that the school I attended is in severe financial trouble and is no longer accepting new students because they’re closing their doors soon?”

  Logan didn’t answer.

  I shook my head. “Well, it’s a fortune telling for my entire career, I think. Finding a job as an artist when you don’t do graphic design or something similar is difficult. And so, here I am,” I said, sweeping my hands over our surrounding area before I folded my arms over my chest again.

  Logan opened his mouth like he wanted to ask me more, but thought better of it. He reached deeper inside the folder, instead, pulling out two copies of a very colorful sheet of paper.

  “Alright, then,” he murmured. “We’ll get to know each other better at a later time. For now, let’s go over your training schedule.”

  The Becker brothers were known for being as devastatingly handsome as they were mischievous, and I couldn’t help but appreciate that fact as Logan started pointing out the various sections of my schedule. His skin was a mixture of olive and bronze, his hair a sandy brown shade that reminded me of the bark of an oak tree. His eyes were a bright hazel, almost like the golden yellow of a cat’s, and ringed with a darker shade of olive around the rim. He was considerably taller than I was, which I noticed when he stood to greet me, and his body was lean and fit. I found myself wondering if he got up to run every morning, or if he spent his evenings doing calisthenics workouts in his back yard.

  But of all his physical features that demanded a second look, it was his smile that was the most mesmerizing.

  He’d only flashed it at me once since I’d walked in that office, but it’d been genuine enough for me to see the slight pinch of a dimple in his left cheek, to note the way those pearly whites of his spread across his entire face. His mouth was large, his jaw broad and sharp.

  It was no surprise to me that he didn’t let a girl tie him down. Why would you with a face like that?

  “… and the yellow indicates lunch, which you’ll see I’ve paired you with a different lunch buddy each day of the week for the first two weeks. I figured it’s a good way for you to get to know some of the people who work here.”

  I chuckled, snapping back to the moment and finally noting the — impressive? crazy? — amount of colors on the spreadsheet in front of me. Every minute of my day over the next few weeks was mapped out in blues and oranges and yellows and greens and purples.

  Logan paused. “Is something funny?”

  I popped my gum, giving him a smile. “Just you. You’re interesting, Logan Becker.”

  “Why, because I have an organized schedule for you as a new employee? Because I have my books in order?” The muscle in his jaw clenched when I popped my gum again. “I’m not naïve to the fact that you’re making fun of me, Miss Scooter, and I’ll have you know that I don’t appreciate it.”

  I laughed harder at that, but it was cut short when Logan’s fists landed hard against the desk.

  Everything on it rattled and shook, the little ball pendulum being thrown off track before it slowly swung back into rhythm. My eyes widened, and Logan’s narrowed, his next breath coming hard through his nostrils like that of a dragon.

  “Why are you even here?” he asked, furrowing his brows. “You’re not taking me seriously, you clearly don’t want to be here, you’re dressed like a teenager and you have the manners of one, too. So, before you waste any more of my time, tell me — why are you here?”

  It was the first time I’d seen Logan Becker’s backbone since I walked in that office, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t turn me on in the strangest way.

  I’m here because I fucking have to be, I wanted to say. I’m here because if I do what my father wants, then I get what I want. I’m here because life isn’t fair and the starving artist life sucks.

  “It’s none of your business why I’m here,” I said instead, leaning toward him over the desk. “And I wasn’t making fun of you. I think it’s endearing that you took so much time to create a color-coded training schedule. I apologize if I offended you.”

  Logan narrowed his eyes even more, searching my gaze like he was looking for some sign of sarcasm. When he didn’t find it, he sighed, sitting back in his chair and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Look, I don’t want to do this anymore than you do, okay? Training the new employee isn’t exactly high on my list of things I’d like to do, just like I’m sure working as a tour guide when you have a Masters in Art isn’t high on yours.”

  My gut twisted.

  “But, this is where we’re at. Okay? So, are you going to cooperate and let me show you the ropes or not?”

  I just stared at him, wondering why I liked the severity of his expression now more than I liked the friendly one he offered before.

  Something about that scowl…

  “Good,” he said when I didn’t answer, tucking his copy of my training schedule
back in the file and slamming it shut before he stood. “Come on, it’s time for the tour.”

  He didn’t look behind him to see if I was following, and before I could stand, he offered one last remark over his shoulder.

  “And for God’s sake, lose the gum before I have an aneurysm.”

  “So, this is another area where photos are forbidden,” Logan said as we walked through the barrel-raising area. I noticed him give a slight head nod to his older brother, Noah, who eyed me with a scowl that told me he didn’t like that I was there.

  You and me both, buddy.

  “Because—”

  “Because we’re one of the only whiskey distilleries who still makes their own barrels,” I finished for him. “I know. You forget that my father owns this place.”

  “Trust me, I didn’t forget,” he murmured, and then continued on with his spiel.

  I listened — or at least, pretended to — as I watched the team of four arrange staves of wood in perfect order within a metal ring to make a barrel. Noah slid the top ring down on a barrel he’d just put together, sending it down the line before he started the next, and I hated how much he looked like he loved his job.

  Because I had a feeling it wouldn’t be there much longer.

  My father was all about innovation, about being the best of the best, being ahead of the times. Other members on the board had been fighting for tradition for years, urging him to keep the staples that made Scooter Whiskey a household name in the first place. But, those members of the board were thinning out, and slowly, Dad was turning the tides and showing why innovation should be at the forefront of their mind — especially with more and more craft distilleries popping up.

  The team of four in front of me were some of the most important people in this distillery and had been for years.

  And I couldn’t be sure they’d have a job in six months’ time.

  Logan snapped his fingers beside me, and when I turned to face him, he cocked one brow. “Well?”

  Oh, shit. Did he ask me something?

  I smiled. “Uh… I’m sorry, could you repeat the question?”