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He laughs, completely unfazed by my standoffishness and sarcastic retort, and leans his arms into the counter. “All right. Fifteen cents per page is fine, but I’m going to count, just to make sure you don’t overcharge me.” My heart jumps to triple its normal pace when he finishes with a wink.
“I wouldn’t expect anything less.” I turn back to the copy room and step inside before my cheeky reply really hits me.
Holy shit, where did that come from?
I have plenty of dating experience, but this kind of guy—this kind of outright cockiness—is not my type.
I like the guys who let me off easy. The ones who do what they say and call when they should and don’t take too much effort. I don’t want a wallflower, but this guy has high-maintenance player written all over him, and I don’t have the time or stamina to get dragged into the deep end of that pool of hot mess.
With those dimples and charm and seriously ruggedly perfect jaw? Cheeky responses should be far, far away, enjoying a vacation somewhere on a trek through the rain forest at this point.
I take the files out of the folder he’s given me and put them into the feeder of the copy machine. I type in his twelve-digit code and use a Herculean effort to avoid seeing the name tied to his account. I do not want to know this guy’s name. I just want to make his copies and get him the hell out of here.
Thanks to Sergio and Catarina’s moans of delight, our awkward introduction needs to vanish straight from the present and be locked away in the very distant past.
A memory I prefer to eventually forget entirely.
I type in the commands and then stand patiently as the bulky machine starts to whir. There are quite a few pages, and watching a copier is about the same as watching paint dry or water boil, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to go back out there and give myself more opportunity to be a train wreck.
Of course, someone thought ahead—assuming you might end up in the copy room while patrons approached the desk—and hung a mirror on the wall with a perfect view.
I watch surreptitiously as insanely-hot-bad-news-bears-stranger-man takes out his phone and scrolls through something, types out a message, and puts it back into his pocket before running a hand through his perfectly coiffed hair.
I’m just about to lull myself into a vividly dangerous daydream where he is Sergio and I am Catarina when the machine stops churning and spits out the final paper of his copies.
Good God, snap out of it, Ruby!
I grab the stack along with the papers from the original file and walk back to the desk where he’s waiting.
He smiles as I set the stack on the counter in front of him and push it over with a shove.
“Go ahead,” I direct. “Count them. I’ll get the original file organized again.”
Apparently, I’m a glutton for punishment because I watch raptly as he takes the tip of one long finger and licks it before using it to count the corners of the stack.
I peel my eyes away from a guy who has way too much sexual charisma for his own good—or certainly, at least, mine—and slide the papers from the case folder back inside. I loop the metal brads through the holes to secure the pages again, check the tag for the case number and enter it into the computer under my username before tossing the file onto the stack to be put back in place on the shelves.
He watches me—I can feel the weight of his eyes—but waits to speak until I’m done with all of my busywork and once again turn my eyes back to him.
“Seventy pages,” he says. “I guess that means I owe you $10.50.”
I jerk my head back and then narrow my eyes as his smirk grows. I grab a calculator from the shelf at the side of the computer and do the math he obviously did in his head.
$10.50.
Well, well. The charming, model-looking man also has a brain. Evidently, a big one.
“Yes. $10.50.”
“What?” he remarks good-naturedly. “You didn’t trust my math?”
“Just double-checking,” I say, and he laughs.
“I wouldn’t short you, honey. Wouldn’t want to put your job in jeopardy.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him that this isn’t really my job—that I’m just filling in for a friend. But then I remember that this man is a stranger—a really good-looking one, sure, but a stranger, nonetheless. He has no business knowing the details of my personal life, and I shouldn’t feel obligated to give them to him.
“Thanks,” I say instead before glancing at my watch. “Looks like it’s about closing time.”
Unsurprisingly, he takes my hint. If the guy’s brain is big enough to do multiplication like that in his head, he should be able to tell when an exchange is over.
