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“You’ll be great. Thanks so much.” He blows out a long slow breath as if a giant weight on his chest has been lifted. “I owe you one. Got to run now to secretly book a private plane for the honeymoon flight before Summer insists I book us coach on a discount airline. Thanks again, man. It means the world to me.”
And he’s gone.
If I looked up, I could probably see the axe dangling over my head from a thin cord that’s gradually fraying as the clock ticks down to launch day.
I step back and lean on the circular table behind me. Except I don’t lean on the table. I lean on the pile of files Charlotte put there that are hanging halfway off the edge. I turn to see the Japanese painted fern on top of them catapult into the air.
The files scatter on the floor, spilling their contents. The plant lands like a cherry on top. Its white ceramic planter, shaped like Marty McFly’s sneakers from Back to the Future Part II, smashes into a dozen pieces, and the black plastic pot inside splits open, spewing soil all over the documents and the carpet.
I drop my head back and stare at the ceiling. “Fucking hell. Would someone like to blindfold and handcuff me as well?”
“I’d never have guessed you were into that sort of thing.” Leaning against my doorway, arms folded, one ankle crossed over the other, with the most crotch-tingle-inducing smirk on her perfectly formed lips, is Charlotte.
“Back again? And so soon. Excellent. Glad you keep catching me at my best.”
I crouch next to Max’s scattered documents, which are slowly absorbing brown moisture from the soil, and pick up the biggest chunks of planter.
A pair of high-heeled feet enter my peripheral vision and stop next to the soggy pile. “That would never happen in the cloud, right?”
I slide my gaze from Charlotte’s feet, up her bare calves, over her black skirt and the gentle roundness of her belly, and meet her eyes, peering at me over the arms still folded across her chest, doing that thing where they pull the V-neck down again.
“Too damn right it wou— Ow, Jesus.” A bubble of red blood appears on the end of my finger.
“Oooh, careful.” Charlotte trots to my desk and bends over it, pulling that skirt tighter across her rear end. She yanks a handful of tissues from the box.
“Suck it,” she says, turning back to me.
“I beg your pardon?”
She half closes her eyes and shakes her head like she’s dealing with an annoying teenage boy. “Your finger. Suck the blood from your finger.”
I dutifully obey and get to my feet.
She holds out her hand. “Now let me see.”
As I offer her my freshly sucked finger, another bubble of blood appears. She immediately wraps it in a tissue and holds it tightly in her palm. “There you go. Just squeeze it like that for a bit.”
I nod at the pieces of ceramic sneaker sitting in the palm of my other hand. “I can’t.”
“I thought you were supposed to be the smart one here.” She’s long since perfected the art of the sarcastic eyebrow raise. “How about you put them down?”
I ignore her. She’s holding my finger, for fuck’s sake, and there’s no way I’m going to put an end to that if I don’t have to. “Why are you here again anyway?”
“I’m here to help you.”
“You had a premonition I was going to catapult a plant off the table and cut myself picking up the pieces?” I make a show of looking around the room. “Where’s your umbrella, Mary Poppins?”
“With the nonprofit launch, I mean.” She adjusts her grip on my finger.
“What?” This is who my brother has sent to help me?
“Okay,” she says. “I’ll say it slowly so even you can understand. Max is lending me to you for half my hours. Because you’re so overwhelmed with everything right now.”
Perhaps I’m losing more blood than I thought because the inside of my head does a little spin. And apparently I can’t form a sentence. Or even a word. And I’m fairly sure that’s fresh air on my tongue so my mouth must have dropped open.
“You seem surprised,” she says. “Did he not tell you?” She looks down at my finger and squeezes it a bit harder.
So not only do I have the extra pair of hands I need, I have the most organized and efficient pair of hands I could wish for. Which happen to be attached to the most amazing woman I’ve ever known. And one of them is currently wrapped around my finger.
