AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His eyes go wide, and he takes a step back. Only then do I raise my hands between us in surrender. “Sorry. I thought you meant to follow you.”
“You operate under a lot of thoughts and assumptions.”
“Well, one of us does.” Cant. Stop. Mouth. It will be the death of me.
“Does what?”
“You just made a thought or assumption about me. Pot or kettle, your pick, Jackson.”
Shaking his head, he scrubs a hand over his face. “People call me Jax, and I highly doubt Dash meant for you to be here now.”
“Really? Does your brother go around making appointments without meaning to? If so, I’d suggest medical attention, though it’s not really my business. Let’s err on the side of him intending to meet with me.”
“Dash isn’t a morning person, meaning he rarely shows up anywhere before nine. So I know for a fact he wouldn’t schedule a meeting with you at six in the morning.”
I can feel the corner of my lips twitch, and my eyes blink faster than they need. I’m not going to cry because some dude is too lame to wake up at a normal hour.
But I can see I won’t be getting my interview.
“Oh.” It’s the best I can come up with as my ego deflates.
“Unless he was messing with you. Did you do something to piss him off?” Now he’s smiling as though he has some idea of what that might be. Like maybe his brother asked me out and I turned him down, or something stupidly dude-like.
I glare at Jackson likehemight be the one in need of medical attention.
“Well, considering I’ve never met him, I find it hard to imagine how, but I suppose anything’s possible.”
Without asking, Jackson takes the phone from my hand and glares at the screen. After a second, he hands the phone back, shaking his head. “He’s meeting you at six in the evening. Guaranteed.”
“What makes you say that?” I ask, looking at my phone where there’s no “pm” after the six in question.
“Because no normal person schedules an interview at six in the morning. Especially my brother. And the fact that you showed up here ready to roll at the crack of dawn tells me a thing or two about you.”
Great. I don’t need to ask what it tells him, but I’m a glutton for punishment, so I do anyway. “What, that I’m abnormal?”
When Jackson doesn’t say anything, his expression stony, I nod and drop my eyes to the floor in defeat. This is what I get for wanting something, for going after it, and for feeling hopeful for the first time in a long time.
My stomach is tangled in knots of disappointment and resignation, so I turn for the door. Walking back to my car, I tell myself I don’t care about his assessment of me. But just as my trembling hand reaches to open my car, Jackson’s voice startles me.
“No. It tells me you’re exactly the kind of person we ought to be hiring,” he calls after me, striding slowly in my direction. “Stay. Talk to me.”
I don’t reply. Inside, unicorns are leaping over rainbows in my heart, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of showing my excitement. So I do my best to play it cool.
ChapterThree
Jax
Squinting at me, she tilts her head. A few strands of hair drop down in front of her eyes, and she exhales hard, blowing them off her face before they settle in exactly the same spot. My hands itch to wrap them around a finger and move them away, but I don’t move.
“You don’t even know me. Why do you suddenly want me to stay?”
It’s a fair question, one I don’t have an answer to. I don’t really have a plan, which is unlike me, but something is telling me not to let her leave, so my brain scrambles to concoct a reason to keep her here.
“I’ll interview you. For the job.”
I shouldn’t find an eye-roll charming, especially when it’s accompanied by a scowl and what I’m pretty sure are muttered obscenities. But I do.
“Five minutes ago, you didn’t even know there was a job to interview for. Now you want to be my boss?”
