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“I’ll get you a bandage for that.” I head out to Greta’s desk and rifle through her drawers. She must have some sort of first aid kit in here somewhere.
“Anyway, Elliot,” I call back to him. “What’s the biggest priority for the launch? What should I work on first?”
“How are you at presentations?” His voice is closer. I look over the desk to see him leaning against his office doorway. “Owen’s too distracted to work on one. So he’s not going to do it. And he’s our front man.” He examines his wounded finger. “Bet you’d be good at that.”
Nothing in the desk, so I move to the row of cabinets behind it. “Not a chance. You don’t wriggle out of it that easily. You’re the head of the company. I don’t even work for you. You need to do it.”
Behind the third door, finally, a mini first aid kit. I search through it for an appropriately sized bandage.
“I can’t do presentations. Way too terrifying.”
“Oh, don’t give me that.” I wave the bandage in victory. “It’s not like you’re shy. Or lack confidence.”
“Ha. It’s funny you say that.”
“Why?”
“Ever since I was a kid, everyone’s always told me I’m shy and don’t have enough confidence.”
“That would only be people who don’t know you. You’re just more reserved than Max and the rest of them.”
By “rest of them,” I mean their middle brother, Connor, and the two cousins Elliot’s parents also raised, Walker and Tom. Not that I’ve met Tom—he lives in London—but he runs a giant music label, so he can’t exactly be reserved.
I peel the wrapper off the bandage. “This was definitely bought by someone who knows you.” I turn it to face him. “It has daleks on it.”
He gives me his cute wry smile. “Greta. She found them when she was making a first aid kit for her grandsons a few months ago. The kids got Pokémon, I got Dr. Who.”
“Give me your finger,” I tell Elliot. He starts to make the obvious gesture. “Yeah, yeah. Maybe you’re not so unlike the others after all.”
Perhaps this wasn’t a great idea. Now I have to touch his finger again. I didn’t think this through. I should have just given him the bandage to put on himself.
I need to get this thing on him as quickly as possible and with minimal touching. The last thing I want is to risk a repeat of that tingly business.
“So no, I won’t do the presentation for you.” I place the pad of the bandage over the cut. “You and Owen are the ones passionate about this project. You’ve been talking about it for as long as I’ve known you.”
I wrap one side around the back of his finger and smooth it down, taking care to touch only the bandage, not skin. “No one can talk about it and what it means to you the way you guys can.”
As I wrap the other side around, Elliot rolls his hand over so I can see what I’m doing. It traps my finger between his for a fraction of a second, but long enough for inappropriate parts of my body to take note of the skin-on-skin contact.
I yank my hand away and crush the wrapper in my fist. “You can finish it off.” I step back and toss the wrapper in the wastebasket. “Okay, well, anyway. I’m not going to do the presentation for you. But I’ve put together enough for Max, and been to enough functions where I’ve seen all sorts, that I can definitely help you draft it and practice.”
He looks up from the bandaging. “It’s not a skill I wish to learn.”
“Shame. You’re going to have to.”
His eyebrows appear over the top of his glasses. “You realize I’m the boss here, right?”
“Funny, Max says the same thing to me all the time.” I move toward the hallway. “I’ll be tied up with his stuff for the next couple of days. I’ll be back at the end of the day on Thursday for your Presentation 101 class.”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n.” He salutes me with his dalek-bandaged finger.
“Great.” I walk backward for a few steps, unable to take my eyes off that teasing twinkle in his eye. “In the meantime, email me the links to what Greta’s been working on and a list of your priorities, and I can be thinking about it all.”
“So you can make a list in a planner? Or maybe a journal?” There’s that glint in his eye again.
“Maybe.” I spin around and almost slam straight into the janitor, who’s carrying a broom and pan. “Sorry. The mess is over there.” I point toward the office.
“She means that,” Elliot says, indicating the pile of soil on the floor. “Not me.”
