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Her brow knotted in confusion. “Huh?”
“You kept talking about me leaving,” he reminded her. “Where am I going?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know.” She hit his chest lightly. “You’re supposed to go to Germany.”
“Germany?” Frowning, he pointed to himself. “Me? To do what?”
“To work for Mercedes-Benz.” She gave him a disbelieving look like she was surprised that she had to explain it to him. “Stop playing with me. Why are you acting like you don’t know?”
“I’m not acting. I really don’t know.” He was even more confused than when she’d barged into his house. “Since when do I work for Mercedes-Benz?”
“Since_” Xolani started then stopped. She canted her head to study Barry. “Didn’t you meet their scout today?”
“I did,” he readily admitted.
“Then why are you pretending like you don’t know what I’m talking about?” Xolani recited, “He offered you a job, and you took it.”
This was news to Barry and his face showed it. Not hiding his surprise, he denied, “No, he didn’t.”
“What?”
“I think there’s been some miscommunication.” Barry explained, “There was no job offer. At least not today.”
Xolani’s heard jerked back and her voice rose to a squeak. “What?”
“Aaron – the scout – offered me a job at Mercedes the same time Rayburn did. I declined because Rayburn offered me a better deal,” Barry explained. “But afterward, Aaron and I became friends. He’s in the city, and dropped by today to see me. As a friend.”
“Wait… so… he didn’t…” Xolani blinked rapidly like she was still trying to process what he was saying. She grabbed his forearm tightly as if it was an anchor that she was using to keep from drowning in shock. “But people in your department say… There was a handshake.”
It didn’t take much more for Barry to understand what had happened.
He gently scolded, “This is why you need to stop listening to the rumors from EV. They’re never accurate and always exaggerated.”
“So, you’re saying you’re not_” Xolani gaped like a fish out of water.
“No.” He finished the statement for her. “I’m not leaving. I was never leaving.”
She gasped and cupped her hands over her mouth. “Oh my God.”
His mouth slowly curved in a smile as delight swooped in. “So you ran over here because you thought I was leaving?”
“N- no,” she stuttered, her expression like that of a deer caught in the headlights.
“You ran here because you wanted to make me stay?” he asked. It was a rhetorical question. He already knew the answer.
“I- I said it’s not like that.” She leapt from his lap and dashed toward the hallway.
Barry wasn’t expecting her to make a run for it, so it took him a while to react. By the time he got to his feet and started chasing, she’d already opened the front door. But he caught her before she made it to her car.
Barry was grinning like an idiot as he grabbed her arm. “Why are you running?”
“I’m not running,” she denied while breathing harshly like a sprinter who’d just completed a race. While trying to jerk her arm out of his grip, she said, “I just need to go home. I forgot that I have an important_”
“Uh-uh.” He yanked her to him then hauled her right over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “You’re not going anywhere.”
He wasn’t an idiot. Of course he knew that her running was because she was embarrassed that she’d overreacted. If he were a better man, he would’ve saved her from her embarrassment and let her go. But, as she’d aptly put it when she’d unceremoniously barged into his house, he was a bastard.
“Put me down, Barry,” she demanded, swinging her legs in an attempt to get out of his hold.
