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That earned him a smile. “No. Unlike you, I don’t feel the need to let everyone know.”
“Hey, you said you’ve been waiting for a year to have that step stool replaced. If I hadn’t caught you, you could have cracked your head open.”
“Oh, and screaming, ‘You almost killed the mayor’s daughter’ down the hall was the best way to solve that problem?”
Jesus, she was cute when she teased him.
“It got it done.”
“HR sent you a warning.”
“Worth it.” He winked. “But for the record, I’m sorry if it came across like I was using her to get in your good graces. I want to be in them, but on my own terms; not because of who your mom is.”
Sophie smiled. “Thanks.”
“Okay, I think I’ve got this now,” he said, waving a hand at the computer.Quit while you’re ahead, Langford.“Everyone signs the register, and no letting the docs out of our sight. You’re a good trainer.”
Surprisingly, Sophie didn’t duck and run the way he’d gotten used to. Instead, she blushed. Hand to god, it was the last thing he thought he’d ever see.
“Honestly?” she asked, flicking her hair over her shoulder. Today it fell in loose waves that probably took hours to achieve, if a million late-night infomercials were anything to go by. “I’m more likely to mess up than you are. I haven’t caught a single mistake from you yet. When I started, I accidentally sent a box of signed contracts to a branch in Canning Wells. It was lost in their back room for two weeks. I only recovered it because I drove out there to find it. I was this close”— she held her index finger and thumb an inch apart— “to getting fired. But you’ve done everything right. Not even a typo. It’s almost annoying.”
There was a compliment buried there somewhere. And now he’d have to addpraise kinkto an ever-growing list of facts he’d discovered about himself since working there. Right undermelts every time Sophie dances in her chair.
He must have been wearing a goofy expression, because Sophie rolled her eyes and threw one of his crumpled planes back at him. And when he caught it with ease, she cracked a smile of her own. It lit a spark in Mitch’s lungs that grew until his chest was on fire.
Fuck if she wasn’t the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. Acerbic (thank you, word of the day) and passionate and surprisingly shy under all her defenses.
He was so doomed.
* * *
In Mitch’s experience, the first few weeks at any new job tended to be uneventful. But he clearly needed to reset his expectations now. Because he didn’t even know where to start on the weird-ass shit that kept happening in the Vault.
Mitch, admittedly, was slightly left of “normal,” what with the whole Eva thing and his irrational hatred of baby voices. But even he couldn’t explain what the hell was going on.
During a rare moment where Sophie disappeared into the Archives for an hour, he finally confronted Eva about it.
“Want to explain what you’re doing, or should we pretend that my things aren’t magically finding their way into Sophie’s desk every other day?”
Eva did the little head tilt thing she pulled out when she was gearing up to go all PBS special on him.“I’m providing you with an opportunity.”
“You don’t think I can handle talking to another adult now? Is that what I need your help with?”
“No, I’m not saying that at all.”
“Then why would you—”
Eva perched on the end of his desk, her lithe figure folding delicately over the worn furniture. If imaginary friends had past lives, Mitch would bet anything Eva had been a dancer.
“You’ve been under my care for almost three decades. I’ve watched you grow from a carefree little boy to a capable young man.”
She couldn’t think he was all that capable if she was still meddling.
“But when you really want something,”Eva continued,“you sometimes get in your own way. Since my job is to guide you and ensure your happiness, I will use all the tools at my disposal to make that happen. Including,”she stressed, “encouraging conversation with the young lady you share this space with.”
Mitch huffed. Thirty years old and still being set up on play dates. “Sophie doesn’t want a bar of me, so maybe you should stop.”
“And maybe you should be thanking me.”
