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Katie spotted an exit and swerved toward it, weaving nimbly through three lanes of traffic. The gas tank was getting low.
“I’ve got payroll to figure out first.”
She caught herself right before the words left her mouth. I can do that when I get back.
It was the kind of thing a self-sacrificing doormat would say, not a slick professional. A decade of specializing in being a doormat had left her rumpled and ground down, with boot prints on her forehead.
Time to stop jumping to the rescue.
“You should hire somebody else to do payroll, now that I have a new job,” she said instead.
At the end of the off ramp she turned—a little too fast, perhaps, because she got distracted by the fact that Sean was looking directly at her. Somehow he made looking look like not-looking. As though he could see her, but he couldn’t be bothered to see her.
How was she supposed to concentrate on Caleb talking about payroll when Sean was not-looking at her that way?
She didn’t know what the guy’s deal was. It seemed as if he didn’t approve of her—though what it was about her he disliked, she had no idea. Her personality, her being on the job, her existence?
Sean had been working for her brother since the summer, and in that time he and Caleb had grown thick as thieves. He spent hours every week in Caleb’s office, a solid panel of pine muffling the mingled sound of their voices as they bent their heads over some obscure security challenge and Katie tried to get her work done at the reception desk a few feet away.
Then he would come out, fix her with that blue stare, nod like a robot, and leave.
She’d tried being nice to him, reminding him they’d gone to high school together and sat by each other in Algebra II and Trig. She’d tried ignoring him. She’d tried glaring at him and even, one embarrassing day, flirting with him. Nothing made a difference.
He didn’t speak to her. Not at all, not ever, not under any circumstances. It was extremely weird, and it drove her nuts.
Caleb was way too casual about it.
Don’t send me to Louisville with him, she’d begged. He hates me.
No, he doesn’t, Caleb had said. I’m positive he doesn’t hate you. You two just need to work it out between you.
She didn’t know how to work it out, but she refused to let Sean get to her. This job was the big chance she’d been waiting for—her opportunity to get out of Camelot and see new places, rub elbows with interesting people, become somebody independent of Levi and Caleb. Her own somebody.
Judah Pratt saw her potential. The singer-songwriter had asked for her specifically. And okay, yes, maybe Judah’s interest in her was largely carnal, but an opportunity was an opportunity. She’d only been in his Chicago apartment for half an hour when it arrived: he’d announced that he would hire Camelot Security, but only if he could have Katie.
He’d said it just like that, too. Only if I can have Katie. A week later, the memory retained the power to send shivers skittering up her spine.
Or it usually did. It was a little hard to get swept up in her Judah fantasies with Sean sitting next to her, emanating stony disapproval of … something. Her being assigned to work with him. The way she breathed. Her boots. Who knew?
“Katie?” Caleb interrupted her reverie.
“What?”
“Are you even listening to me?”
“Sure.” She rewound her brain, hoping to locate some phantom memory of what he’d said when she wasn’t paying attention. Nada. “What did you say?”
“When did you stop listening?”
“Uh, payroll?”
“Never mind. The upshot is, you’ve still got your old job when you come back.”
“Yeah, but after I completely blow your socks off, you’ll need someone else to do my old job.”
“Please don’t try to blow my socks off. Be safe.”
“Right, right.” She turned into the gas station. “I’ve got to go.”
