Page 24 of I Saw You First

“You scared me.” I clutch at my chest. “Can’t you see I’m in my groove here?”

“In your groove and not up front for the morning meeting,” he says, low and raspy and… grumpy.

Wil doesn’t raise his voice when he’s unhappy about something. He gets quiet and deliberate and sharp, like a hot poker, and that’s worse somehow. He always seems worried about something and has unhealthy, unrealistic expectations for perfection—a neat and orderly warehouse, flawless ad set, impeccable closing execution. Of course he’s stressed if he can’t let anything go.

“What are you talking about? It can’t be much past nine.” I narrow my eyes and glance at my watch. It’s 9:56, and we open in four minutes. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t hear the announcement!”

He points at the boom box. “Maybe you shouldn’t have the music up so loud.”

“I said I was sorry!”

“Don’t let it happen again.” He pauses. “You’re good at this. Fast. It’s hard to stay mad at you when you do your job so well.”

It’s hard to stay mad at him for growling at me when he says things like that. I smile, and he scowls. Scowls.

I take back what I said about him being nice, and I can stay mad at him. Not only would I not date him because he’s my boss, but I also wouldn’t date him because it turns out that he’s rude.

Not that he wants to date me, of course.

And—and why is he staring at my chest? Good grief, what is wrong with the men of this world? Patriarchal conditioning and entitlement are real. I lift my chin in defiance and am about to tell him off when he says, “Put your jersey on and get out to your department.”

I gesture at the sorting tables and the nearly empty pallet. “I’ve got two totes left. Can’t I finish?”

He ignores me. “Wheel out one of the carts. You can stock while you’re on the floor.”

Wil walks away and I huff. I smooth down my snug white T-shirt and realize there’s a Diet Coke stain on my boob. No wonder he was looking at my chest.

“Don’t let him get to you.” Sam’s voice comes from behind a shelf and my heart jumps into my throat. He comes around the corner, a big grin across his face.

“Geez, don’t scare me like that. Were you there the whole time?”

“Yep. Kind of a big deal if Wil tells you you’re doing a good job this early in the game.”

I toss on my Hometown jersey, do up the buttons, and twist my hair up, then secure it with a claw clip. “Huh. Sounded like it cost him a few years of his life to admit it. He’s extra crabby today.”

“He’s under a lot of pressure, you know.”

It doesn’t seem like he’s under any more pressure than the other managers. “What do you mean?” I crouch down to place a stack of soundtracks on the bottom shelf of the library cart.

“There’s no way you could be Jeff Wilshire’s son and not feel the pressure.”

I straighten and reach for my Diet Coke. “Who’s Jeff Wilshire?” I hear a loud guffaw from Eric a couple of aisles up.

“Who’s Jeff Wilshire?” Sam repeats as I take a long drink. “Founder and CEO of Hometown Electronics, Jefferson A. Wilshire the third? Heard of him?”

The soda goes down the wrong pipe and I sputter. “What? Wil is the son of the CEO? And his name is Wil Wilshire?”

Sam laughs again. “Yes, he’s the son, and no, his name is Jefferson A. Wilshire the fourth. He’s Wil, his dad’s Jeff, his grandfather was JW, and I have no idea what they called the first one.”

“What?!” My stomach drops and I can feel the color whooshing from my face. Wil’s the son of the CEO, like scumbag Ryan and his uncle Slick Dick at TC Weekly. I swallow hard. I haven’t thought about Ryan and his sleazeball hands for days. “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner? Why didn’t anyone tell me this?”

“I thought you knew. I figured Cesar would have filled you in on day one.”

Oh, I’ll be having words with Cesar about this. “Jefferson Wilshire,” I mumble to myself. “Sounds like an intersection in LA. What does the A stand for? Airplane?”

“Good one,” Sam says. “You’re actually perfect for this job.”

I blow out a breath and think back on the conversations I’ve had with Wil. I hope I haven’t said anything too unprofessional and wonder how I could have missed this key piece of information that honestly, someone should have told us in Team Training. I’m worried that this might change things—how hard I work, for example, even though I work damn hard already. I’ll have to be more careful to avoid mistakes, like missing the morning meeting.