Neat

by Steiner, Kandi

  An amused grin split my best friend’s face as he took another sip of champagne. “I never said anything about dating him, Mallory… but apparently that’s a subject that’s been on your mind.”

  He cocked a brow as I stood there like a guppy, mouth open, catching flies.

  I rolled my eyes, trying to play it off. “I was just making a statement.”

  “Mm-hmm. You know, this actually would be kind of perfect.” He gasped. “Oh, my God. It’d be like a modern-day Romeo and Juliet! Oh, please, can you do it? Date Romeo, Mallory. It’d be so fun!”

  “You do realize that play is not romantic in the slightest, and that both Romeo and Juliet die in the end.”

  He waved me off just like he had when he first arrived. “Logistics.”

  “Logan Becker will never be my Romeo,” I said definitively. “Now, can we get back to the subject of how the hell I’m going to survive the deal I made with the devil that is my father?”

  Chris chuckled, standing straight and wrapping me in a bear hug with his glass of champagne still firmly in hand before he rested his chin on the crown of my head. “Oh, darling. Don’t think of it that way, okay? This is a trigger for you. You hate to feel manipulated or controlled in any way, and that’s what this feels like. The one man you’ve been trying to establish your independence from is the one man you can’t seem to escape.”

  I sighed.

  “But, that’s not what this is,” he continued. “You’re a bad ass business woman, and you made a business deal. It’s five years of sacrifice, and then?” He pulled back with a supportive smile. “Then, you’re free — and this place really will be yours.”

  I swallowed, looking around as emotion threatened to surface. I didn’t do emotions — but standing there inside of a blank canvas I’d been painting in my imagination since I was a little girl, I couldn’t help but tear up.

  “So, first thing’s first, show me your uniform so we can make it cuter. If you look good, you’ll feel good,” he said, releasing me and draining the last of his champagne before he refilled it to the top. He spun, looking around at the empty space with a mix between an optimistic smile and a timid grimace. “And then, we start on this mess.”

  Logan

  On a normal Monday morning at the distillery, I’d be happy to be back at work. Of course, I’d be missing the weekend just like anyone else, but for the most part, being at work never bothered me. Even when I was a newbie and had to work tours on the weekends, I never complained. I was in my element when I was talking about history, and I was always happy to do it.

  But today wasn’t a normal Monday.

  Today was the day Mallory would shadow me, which meant I’d be spending all day long with her. And as much as I’d spent the weekend pretending like that didn’t faze me, like she was just another new guide and it would be business as usual, the unease in my stomach that Monday morning proved it’d all been bullshit.

  Still, I schooled myself as much as I could, revisiting her training plan and making notes on important things I wanted to cover. That was my M.O. — throw myself into what I could control to avoid what I couldn’t.

  I couldn’t control the fact that I should have hated Mallory Scooter, but I was intrigued by her, instead.

  I couldn’t control the fact that I had to train her when she didn’t even want to be here.

  And I couldn’t control the fact that she was most likely here to take the job I’d been working my ass off for years… no matter how much that fact killed me.

  All I could control was how well I trained her, how well I demonstrated that it was me who was made for the management job, who was destined to lead this team of tour guides — not her. It wasn’t much, but it was something I could throw my all into.

  If they gave that job to her instead of me, I wanted everyone in this company to know the wrong decision had been made — including the ones who made it.

  I was still making notes in the margins of the day’s agenda when there was a knock on my doorframe, and I looked up to find Mallory leaning against it, arms folded and an amused smirk on her face as she eyed my stack of highlighters.

  “Mornin’,” she said. “I see you’re already color coding the day.”

  “And I see you’re already making a habit of being late,” I countered, checking the time on my watch. She was supposed to be in my office at eight, and it was eight twenty-two. “Have a seat, I’m just finishing up my thoughts here and we can go over the plan for the day.”

  “Can’t wait,” she muttered, and it wasn’t until she unfolded her arms and made her way into my office to the chair across from me that I realized what she was wearing.

  My eyes bulged — so much so that I knew there was no use in trying to hide the reaction. Her tight midriff was exposed by the tour guide polo that she’d maimed with scissors, cutting it into a crop top. A belly button ring glittered under the fluorescent light as she took a seat, and she crossed her right leg over the left, looking around my office like there was nothing out of the ordinary. She’d cut the hem of the sleeves, too, which caused them to roll slightly and show more of her toned arms. Tattoos crawled around the bicep of her left arm, and black script lined the skin of her right forearm. There was even the tail end of something peeking out from under her top, something that appeared to line her ribs and dip down to the top of her navel.

  Feathers, I realized.

  And for a split second, all I could think about was lifting that shirt to see the rest.

  I blinked, clearing my throat and turning my attention back to my notes as I shot that thought down like a skeet disc.

  “How was your weekend?” I asked.

  “Oh, as thrilling as it can be in Stratford,” she joked, still looking around my office. “How about you? You get into any trouble?”

  “I’m a Becker,” I answered, finishing my last thought on the agenda. “Trouble finds me.”

  “I did hear you all made an appearance at The Black Hole Saturday night.”

  The Black Hole was the pet name for one of the more popular party spots in town, an old barn with a huge fire pit that was always crawling on the weekends.

  “Did you now?” I mused. “And what is the rumor mill saying my brothers and I did this time? Rode a wild hog? Got in a fist fight with twenty, full-grown men? Drove a car into the creek?”

  “Actually, they’re saying Mikey threw his guitar in the bonfire, and that you took Sadie Hollenbeck home with you… for the fourth time in three weeks.” She lifted a brow at that. “That’s like a record for you, isn’t it?”

  I frowned. “Mikey’s going through a rough time… and that guitar is old, anyway. Maybe he just wanted to give the fire something more to keep burning.”

  “Right. Because the mound of firewood wasn’t enough.” Mallory rolled her lips together. “And what about the part about Sadie? That true, too?”

  The way she watched me, I would have sworn she was a little jealous that rumor had it I’d taken a girl home from The Black Hole on Saturday night. I would have sworn it — had I been naïve and ignorant of the kind of girl Mallory was. She’d never had a boyfriend in Stratford — not since middle school, anyway. I’d heard she’d dated someone in college, but he’d never come home for holidays or made an appearance at any of the hometown hangouts.

  I didn’t think there was a man interesting enough for Mallory Scooter, and I knew for a fact that she didn’t give a fuck who was warming my bed at night — which, though the town gossip would apparently argue otherwise, was no one. I didn’t invite women back to my place, though I was never opposed to going back to theirs.

  Sadie was a good girl, and she was going through a tough break-up with her high school sweetheart — who everyone now knew had been cheating on her for years. He’d already moved on, but Sadie was a mess. So, last month, I listened to her cry at The Black Hole and convinced her that he needed a dose of his own medicine.

  I then offered to be that medicine.

  So, yes, I�
��d gone home with Sadie a few times — but we hadn’t done anything we couldn’t do in church. Mostly, it was her testing out her baking recipes on me and me playing shrink, trying to help her heal and move on from her asshole ex.

  Still — Mallory didn’t need to know all that.

  “Maybe.” I shrugged. “But a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”

  She snorted. “Right. And you’re the gentleman in this case, I presume?”

  I pressed a hand to my chest, leaning back in my office chair with feigned offense. “I can’t believe you’d insinuate otherwise.”

  Mallory just rolled her eyes, nodding at the agenda I’d just finished. “So, what am I in for today, boss?”

  My smirk climbed higher when she called me boss, but I subdued it, picking up the piece of paper and reviewing it with her. “You’re shadowing me today, so we’re going to do two tour groups together. The first one, I’ll lead, and you can take notes and follow like you’re part of the group. The second one, I’ll give you a little more of a hands-on role, let you pour the whiskey at the tasting and answer some of the questions.”

  Her smile tightened. “Oh, joy.”

  “But, before we get started… you’re going to have to change,” I said, eyeing her midriff before I met her eyes again.

  “Why?”

  “Because it appears a bear got ahold of your uniform.”

  She glanced down at her shirt, lifting a brow at me like I was seeing something she wasn’t. “I made it look better. I made it fit, honestly, because it was like a bag on me before.”

  “We have smaller sizes in the back,” I told her. “And, it’s pretty chilly today. Let’s go back to the supply closet and get you a long sleeve, and we can see if there are any jackets, too.”

  “I’m not changing.” She set both feet on the ground, crossing her arms in defiance. “I look fine. Just because you’re offended by a woman’s stomach doesn’t mean I have to cover it.”

  “I’m not offended,” I said flatly. “You’re a tour guide, Mallory. You’re representing the company, the brand, and you’re meeting with tourists from all over. Plus, like I said, it’s forty-degrees outside. You really want to walk around like that?”

  “Like what?” she probed.

  I threw my hands up. “You know what, fine. Wear whatever you want. You are Mallory Scooter, after all, aren’t you? I guess the rules don’t apply to the princess of Stratford.”

  A shadow of something passed over her face then, her expression unreadable.

  I stood, snatching my clipboard off my desk and heading for the door without another look in her direction. “Come on. First tour is in ten minutes, it’s time to greet our guests.”

  I was going to strangle her.

  I was going to strangle Mallory Scooter.

  And not in the sexy, playful way like I did my first girlfriend after high school, who used to love to be choked and fucked from behind. That was just a light pressure, a hand around the throat, gentle squeeze to get the adrenaline pumping and send a spike of pleasure through her bloodstream.

  No, this was a different kind of urge — one that rang true somewhere right around throttle her.

  We were nearing the end of the tour, and with every new stop along the way, the urge had grown larger. Mallory was a sideshow, popping her gum loudly and texting away on her cell phone — all the while wearing our company’s logo on her chest with her fucking belly ring showing. She didn’t pay attention, didn’t take any notes, and whenever I asked her to assist with something, she rolled her eyes for everyone to see before obliging.

  At least she was shivering whenever we were outside. Staying out there a little longer just to watch her suffer was about the only revenge I could get.

  It was almost impossible to keep the group’s attention on me with all her gum noises and incessant texting — not to mention her barely there uniform. I’d introduced her as our newest tour guide at the beginning of the tour, and everyone watched her like they were wondering if the money they’d paid was for nothing.

  We were the face of the company, and Mallory made us look like a disaster on ice.

  She was still chewing away on her gum, gaze fixed on her screen, when the tour group followed me to the building where we had the whiskey tasting at the end of each tour. I held the door open, smiling at each of them as they passed, but before Mallory could follow them, I hooked her by the elbow, swinging her outside and letting the door shut, effectively putting a barrier between us and our guests.

  “Are you trying to look like an idiot, or is that just your natural state today?”

  Mallory cocked a brow, blowing a small bubble with her gum before it popped on her lips.

  I blew out a breath through my nose like a dragon.

  “Careful there, might pop a blood vessel,” she remarked.

  “You’re making a fool of yourself.”

  “I’m just acting like the princess that I am,” she smarted off.

  I released her arm with a scoff. “If there’s a point you’re trying to make, you can just go ahead and make it so we can all move on.”

  “My point is that a woman should be able to dress how she wants without someone trying to make her conform.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Mallory, that’s not why I asked you to change. I agree, women and men should dress how they want to — on their own time. But when you work for a company, and that company has a uniform, you just have to suck it up like the rest of us and wear it when you’re on the clock. That’s all I was asking of you.”

  “Well, that’s not how you said it. And besides, this entire training plan of yours is bogus. You’re treating me like someone who just discovered Scooter Whiskey a week ago instead of someone who grew up living and breathing every aspect of this distillery. I don’t need to shadow you to know how to give a fucking tour of my father’s company,” she reminded me, as if there was any way for me to forget. “You’re a tour guide, Logan — not a brain surgeon. So stop treating this job like it’s difficult, or special, or whatever else you think it is, and for the love of God, stop acting like I don’t already know everything you can tell me about Scooter Whiskey.”

  My blood boiled so hot under my skin, I was sure I’d turned the color of a beet.

  “I can do this tour in my sleep,” she continued. “And honestly, I’m annoyed that I’m wasting my day following you around when I could be doing better things with my time.”

  I clenched my jaw, lips flat as I stared down at those icy blue cat eyes of hers. She was so tiny, and yet so fierce as she stared back up at me, chest puffed, not backing down.

  I’d have found her cute if she wasn’t being such a brat.

  “You know what, you’re right.”

  She narrowed her eyes, ready to fire back when my response hit her, and everything on her face fell slack. “What?”

  “You’re right,” I repeated. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Of course, Mallory Scooter doesn’t need my help. Tell you what, you can lead the next tour.”

  She blinked. “Wait, really?”

  “Of course,” I said, glancing down at my clipboard and flipping through to check the times. “Let’s just wrap up this tasting, and the next group should be here within an hour. We’ll take a short break for lunch, and then you can lead the tour, and I’ll shadow you. How’s that sound?”

  Mallory opened her mouth, shut it again, and finally gave a firm nod. “That sounds great. Thank you.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  I didn’t say another word, just left her standing there shivering in the cold while I made my way into the tasting building. I finished that tour with the smuggest smile on my face — one I was sure Mallory couldn’t decipher, and for that, I was glad.

  She thought my training plan was bullshit, that this job was easy and she didn’t need any help? Fine. Time to show her the ropes the way my grandfather showed me how to swim — by tossing her into the pool without a floaty.

  Sink or swim, Mal
lory Scooter.

  Which will it be?

  Mallory

  I couldn’t wait to knock that smug smile off his stupid, too-handsome-for-his-own-good face.

  It didn’t take me long to figure out why Logan was so quick to let me lead the next tour. When he idled in the back of the group, arms folded, clipboard hanging from one hand and cocky smirk on his stupid face while I gathered everyone together, he might as well have been wearing a flashing neon sign that gave him away.

  He thought I would fail.

  No — he was certain I would fail, and that I’d eat crow and apologize.

  Well, he was mistaken.

  His first mistake was commenting on what I wore. I’d rebelled against my father for the same reason when I was younger. He wanted me to dress conservatively, professionally, “like a lady” — and I’d told him to shove his opinion on what I wore right up his ass — especially when dressing conservatively didn’t stop his piece of shit friends from ogling me once I had tits.

  If my own father couldn’t get away with it, there was no way in hell a Becker would.

  His next mistake was calling me the princess of Stratford. I was no stranger to that nickname, and he knew before he said it that it’d push all the wrong buttons.

  So, I gave him the princess he asked for. I’ll admit, it was a little immature, being on my phone and chewing my gum purposefully loud to make my point. But, I was already annoyed that I had to be here, and while I was perfectly content to do like Chris had told me and just bite my tongue to get through it in order to keep my studio, Logan had soured my mood instantly with his comments.

  Now, I didn’t just want to get through it.

  I wanted to annoy him as much as this entire situation annoyed me — by showing him that I could do his job with both hands tied behind my back.

  “Alright, everyone. Thank you for visiting the Scooter Whiskey distillery. Can everyone hear me okay?”

  The group nodded in unison, though everyone was watching me with somewhat confused faces. I noticed a few of them looking at my shirt, whispering to each other.