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It took the entire weekend for her to get her head on straight.
Sure, he had a presentation. I believe him. Just like I believe I’m a supermodel!
One minute Matt was sitting there dunking cookies in his milk, and then she asked him about kids and he couldn’t bail fast enough. It was like he had a bottle rocket up his butt.
Lainey giggled.
“What’s so funny?”
She didn’t bother to turn her head, instead she just gave Janice the side eye. “Nothing that you would think was funny. How was your dentist appointment? Are they doing hair extensions these days?”
Janice whipped the extensions that didn’t match her other hair color over her shoulder. “My dentist appointment went just fine. He said I had perfect teeth.”
There were still four more months left on this particular banking intern rotation, and she didn’t know if Janice was going to survive. Of course, she’d never killed or maimed Bennett so Janice should survive. Her type of annoying was really just grade school compared to Lainey’s sister.
“So, why were you laughing?”
“Just thinking about my hot date on Saturday.”
“Yeah, sure. Like a stick in the mud like you would have a hot date. They talk about you around here. Every time somebody has invited you to go over to Home Port for a drink, you’ve said no. There isn’t a chance in hell you had a hot date…unless.”
Janice got up from her desk and planted one butt cheek on the corner of Lainey’s desk. She was going to have to use Lysol before she went home tonight.
“Did you set up a profile on Tinder? Did somebody finally swipe right on your picture? Come on, you can tell your good pal Janice. I won’t tell anyone. Was he like fifty or something? Looking for someone to stay home and bake cookies and raise his rugrats from his other three marriages? Is that who you dated this weekend?”
Janice leaned in. Lainey could hardly breathe, what with all the perfume that Janice was wearing.
“Or maybe it was something like this. It was somebody who was using a different picture, and you showed up at the restaurant and he was some bald, fat guy, who ate with his mouth open. Was that your hot date? It’s got to be something like that. Give me your phone. I want to see your profile. I can help make it better so you don’t attract those kinds of losers.”
“For goodness sakes, Janice. I don’t have an on-line dating profile. Those things scare me. I don’t want to go out with a total stranger.”
“Like hooking up with some guy in a bar and going home with him isn’t the same thing.”
Lainey shuddered. “Janice. You don’t do that sort of thing, do you?”
“Sure, I do. Everybody does. Get with the times.”
She thought about the conversation she had with Jada Harlow. The woman couldn’t say enough nice things about Matt. Of course, she didn’t know that he would turn into a butthead as soon as they started talking about kids. Heck, it wasn’t like she was asking him how many kids he would like to have when he got married. It was just plain weird.
“Janice, it’s not safe. You have to be careful.”
“Don’t sound like a granny.”
God give me patience.
“Haven’t you read any statistics about what could happen to a woman if she’s not careful?”
“I’m careful. I talk to them. I’m a really good judge of character. For instance, I know that the stick up your ass has been up there since grade school and needs to be surgically removed. I bet I’m not the only one who’s told you that, right?”
Lainey sighed. “Janice, why don’t you go back to your desk, and just concentrate on your work, and I’ll concentrate on mine? Don’t we want everything cleaned up and taken care of when Mr. Pine comes back from vacation?”
“Arnie won’t care. You just show him a little cleavage, and he lets things slide. Trust me.”
Janice slid off her desk, and Lainey waved her hand in front of her face, trying to dissipate whatever strong perfume the woman had been wearing.
“Oh yeah.” Janice turned back to her after she had sat down in her chair. “I got a weird phone call from some foreigner. He wanted to talk to the person in charge of cryptocurrency transfers. I told him that was you. I explained you were at lunch and you’d call him back. Here’s his number.”
She stretched across the aisle between their two desks and Lainey got up from her seat so she could snag the piece of paper that was actually a napkin. When she sat back down and looked at the message she let out a loud sigh that blew her bangs up from her forehead.
