Yes, I considered her a friend because we’d worked together for five years.
And yes, I desperately wanted to talk to her about this entire thing. I wanted to tell her how I was hiding from the hot man who now signed my paychecks and covered my body in butterflies, and at one point in my life, I practiced signing my name as if we were married. The embarrassment was so real.
It was so bad that I hardly spared him a single glance during Amy’s meeting the day before.
Not one.
But I couldn’t tell her any of that because I was not in friend-mode for this particular conversation. I was the manager. I also didn’t tell anyone anything if I could help it.
I chose my words carefully. “Seems like he’s always been a pretty serious guy.” When she gave me a curious look, I shrugged. “I watched his fights, so that’s my guess, as much as you can judge someone you’ve never met.”
“I’ll have to take your word on that. I can’t stomach watching professional fights, so I didn’t even really know who he was when she introduced him.” Ohhhhh, to have that problem. “Isn’t he supposed to like, win us over?”
“Actually, I think it’s the other way around,” I told her. “He’s the new owner, Kell, and it’s up to us to show him we know what we’re doing.”
“Even if he’s physically incapable of smiling?” she asked in a glum voice.
I tossed her some gloves. “Even if.”
“These are some badass motherfuckers right here,” she said, pulling the plastic sleeve off so she could admire the matte and glossy black design. “Can I try a pair?”
“If you’re paying for them.”
She laughed. “You don’t think Mr. Smiley would let me have them for free?”
As the words hung in the air between us, his giant, non-smiling shadow appeared. My face fell, and Kelly started coughing—a horrible, hacking sound that did nothing to erase the fact that she’d just called our new boss
Mr. Smiley.
My stomach pitched sideways as I saw the muscle in his jaw—which looked carved straight from a mountain—clench dangerously.
“Morning, Mr. Hennessy,” Kelly said.
His eyes flipped from my face back to hers. “McKendrick, right?”
She nodded.
Because half of his body was covered by the boxes, I didn’t know what he was looking at when he glanced down at his hands. But when he came around the side, he was holding a disposable coffee cup, capped in a white lid, with her name scrawled on the side. He handed it to Kelly, who, after taking it carefully, sniffed at the opening.
In my peripheral vision, I saw her jaw fall open.
He produced another cup, this time handing it down to me. My whole body locked down like someone had poured me into concrete.
His eyebrow, dark and slightly foreboding, rose slowly.
Kelly cleared her throat loudly, and I blinked.
Coffee.
The cup.
Right.
On the side of the cup was my last name in black Sharpie, and I swear, my hand didn’t shake in the slightest when I reached forward to take it from him. Our fingers didn’t touch because I damn well made sure of that.
His eyes, steady and, yup, unsmiling, watched me as I took a wary sip.
My eyes widened when it hit my tongue because it was exactly what I normally ordered.
With a slight dip of his chin, he murmured a short, growly, “Ward,” in greeting and was gone. As he walked away, long legs striding easily over the black rubberized floor, I caught sight of another full drink carrier in his massive hands.
“What the fuck,” I whispered.
Kelly burst out laughing.
I gave her the side-eye. “You never heard me say that.”
She notched two fingers to her forehead in a salute. “Aye aye, boss.”
Like I was handling a pin-less grenade, I set the coffee cup onto the floor next to me and kept unpacking boxes with Kelly’s help. Only a few regulars were in, using the bags and the weights, so the gym was quiet.
After how long I’d worked there, the noises hardly even registered to me anymore. The clang of weights hitting a rack, the laughter of people talking, the music playing over the speakers, and the rhythmic tapping of someone on a speedbag in the corner should have all been comforting and made me feel better.
But everything was just … off. I couldn’t find my bearings in the place that was my touchstone.
“How many for your class today?” I asked Kelly.
Her face scrunched up as she thought. “Twenty-five, I think? I checked about an hour ago when I got here.”
“Yeah, why are you here this early?”
“I wanted to get in a workout.”
I glanced at her taking a leisurely sip of her coffee. “How’s that going for you?”
“Quite well, as I am helping my beautiful manager unpack these beautiful gloves from her hiding spot,” she said with a magnanimous gesture. Picking one up, she studied the design. “Now I get why Amy didn’t want the logo on the wrist strap. She knew what was coming.”
The pair I was holding lowered slowly into my lap because I hadn’t even realized it.
A change had been on the horizon for longer than I realized, peeking over the edge of my days unnoticed. It was me who hadn’t been paying attention.
Kelly chattered happily in my silence, but very little of what she said registered. Beyond the boxes, Aiden was familiarizing himself with the computer programs we used and reviewing the policies, schedules, and day-to-day information I knew like the back of my hand.
And I was hiding behind boxes because my reaction to him made me feel like I was bungee jumping naked from the Space Needle. A teenage crush was nothing to be embarrassed about, but there I was. Hiding.
“Iz,” Kelly said. By her tone, she must have been trying to get my attention.
“Huh?”
She grinned. “You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?”
“I …” My shoulders fell. “Not really. I’m sorry.”
Kelly waved that away. “I said that you should go in there and thank him for the coffee.” An innocent enough statement, but then she fluttered her long eyelashes.
My head tilted. “Are you high?”
“Never on Wednesdays,” she answered gravely. Her wide smile broke across her face, and I found myself laughing under my breath. “I’m only half kidding. You should thank him, but honestly, that man is gorgeous, and he’s single, and you two have a million things in common.”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.