That was fine. A knee-jerk no wasn’t the end of the road. Change scared people.
“Can I ask what’s holding you back? Most people your age are already happily retired.”
“Maybe I don’t want to retire,” she snarked, glancing at the door over Des’s shoulder. “Maybe I want to work every day until the day I die.”
He paused, and then asked doubtfully, “Do you?”
Lenny sighed and pushed up out of her chair, then shuffled around her desk toward the door. He was being dismissed.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, shaking her head. “But don’t you mention any of this to Cami. I don’t need her worrying her job is going to up and disappear because some self-important Canadian got the urge to bulldoze something.”
It wasn’t the first time Des had been asked to keep the details of his business under wraps. Usually, it was because an owner’s family was expecting to inherit, or something along those lines, but if Lenny didn’t want her employees knowing there was an offer on the table, that was fine with him.
“I won’t say anything. But I will be in touch,” he said as he stood.
Lenny pulled the door open and strode out into the storefront, and he followed.
“It was very nice to meet you, Lenny.” He nodded toward Cami as she turned away from what appeared to be a textbook of some kind. “And you, Cami.” He let a genuine smile spread across his face, though it was maybe a little flirtier than he’d intended. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again soon.”
“Oh?” she asked, cocking her head to the side in curiosity. The straw-blonde of her ponytail swished with the movement, and he wondered if it was as silky soft as it looked.
“Des sells sex toys,” Lenny proclaimed, and he very nearly did a double take.
“Uh,” he said.
“Briefcase full of double-ended dildos! Wouldn’t you know it? He’s leaving now, though. Goodbye, Des, thanks for stopping by and hocking your wares.” Lenny shoved him gently at the door, and Des laughed, obediently taking a few steps in that direction.
“We’ll talk later, Lenny. You ladies have a wonderful afternoon.” He nodded his goodbye and pushed out of the store with Cami’s melodicbye!ringing in his ears.
2
There were only two things guaranteed to distract Cami Sutherland when she was coding: emails from Ancestry.com, and pictures of sex toys. When one of the latter popped up in the bottom right hand corner of her laptop screen, she did a double take and then whirled around to check that no one in the campus library had seen it. There was no one behind her, but her flailing drew the attention of the dark-haired girl in the cubicle next to her who inched her belongings away like Cami might experience a mental break and turn violent. To be fair, it wouldn’t be the first time that had happened in the campus library, but it wasn’t even exam season.
She reluctantly pulled out her phone and opened the text message, wishing belatedly that she hadn’t set up that phone link program on her laptop. It was from Lenny. The picture was of the endcap display for one of the shelving units, currently showcasing a selection of neon-colored clitoral vibes. It was serviceable, but uninspired.
And thoughts like that were exactly why she got pictures of sex toy displays on her days off.
I’ll fix it when I’m in tomorrow,she texted back, and then shoved her phone back into her pocket. The script she’d coded the night before wasn’t executing correctly and she wanted to get it figured out before she headed home for the night. Sex toys could wait.
She had made a little progress (by moving a solitary misplaced semicolon) when someone called her name.
“Cami.” She looked up to see Jeff, a boy in her program, approaching from one of the seating areas a little further down the way. She’d spoken to Jeff a few times since she’d started the computer science program at Santa Monica College, but only about class things. Maybe he’d missed the last lecture and wanted a copy of her notes.
“Hi,” she smiled. “How are you doing with the assignment for Java Programming?”
“Huh? Oh, fine.” He brushed off her question quickly enough that he either had a much better grasp on it than she did, or he didn’t care. “Look, I was wondering if you were free this weekend.”
For a moment, she just blinked at him. Was this a date thing? If so, how did she get out of it gracefully? He was cute enough, with blond hair a shade or two darker than her own, and the swimmer’s build that was so frequent among California guys, but he seemed so... young. She was only twenty-four herself, but most of the people in her associate’s program had started straight out of high school, which meant there was a sizable chance most of them, Jeff included, couldn’t even drink yet.
“Uh, I’m working most of the weekend.”
At least he had the grace to look mildly interested. “Oh, where do you work?”
Oh no.
She shifted awkwardly in her chair.Think of a lie, think of a lie.Suddenly, her brain was devoid of every business she’d everencountered and every part-time job she’d ever had besides the one she held now. “Sex on the Beach,” she admitted, finally.
For a moment, Jeff gaped at her in shocked silence. Then, he said, his voice taut with glee: “The sex toy store?”
