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Travis got to his feet and had the nerve to actually put his hand on my shoulder. All I could do was stand there, shocked and mortified.
“It’s my uncle,” he said. “He lost his job five years ago and never really recovered. He became an alcoholic and I’ve been his only ray of light. He didn’t know I was listening the other day, but he’s been sober for five months now. He said if he finds out I didn’t get this job, he was going straight back to the bottle. And I guess that just really touched Elizabeth. You’ve got good people here, Mrs. Glass.”
It was too much. I was ready for her to grab him by the arm and drag him out of my office. But something in her expression changed. She put her fingertips to her mouth, nodding. “My uncle was an alcoholic too. It’s what motivated me to be the woman I am today. I saw how his life fell apart and promised to be different. He says it was one of the most important parts of getting himself sober.” She laughed in disbelief, then folded her arms and gave me an approving look. “And here I was just talking about how you might not make it because you lack the human element, Elizabeth. Consider me pleasantly surprised.” With that, she actually winked at us, smiled, and left.
I couldn’t help it. My arm shot out and I gave Travis a hard shove on the shoulder. “Would you stop doing that?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“What? I told you, I have a talent for people.”
“No,” I said. “That was too weird. What did you do?”
He put his hand to his mouth, smiling and looking down. “Okay. I cheated a little. I always do as much digging as I can before I apply somewhere. Learning about Mrs. Glass was ‘Plan Z’, but it pays to come prepared.”
“Who are you really?” I asked. “You’re not a salesman. You’re a secret agent, or something, aren’t you?”
He laughed. “I like the sound of that. Sure. Let’s go with secret agent. So can I trust you to call me Barry while we’re here at work? It’ll be our little secret.”
“Tell me one good reason I shouldn’t go straight to Mrs. Glass and tell her everything right now.”
“Didn’t you catch what she said? She’s been thinking you’re too hard. You want to keep moving up, right? It sounds like playing your cards right with this new Barry Boulders guy would be exactly the kind of thing to impress your boss.”
“I think I hate you.”
His easy confidence faltered for a split second. But he recovered with a quick smile. “This is just a rough patch for us. I’ll win you back.”
“Let me make something absolutely clear,” I said, getting closer to him. That was a mistake. It made me have to tilt my head to look up at the tall bastard, and it made that scent of his all the more distracting. I cleared my throat. “Nothing is more important to me than this job. I don’t care if that kiss was the best thing to ever happen to me. I don’t care if—”
“You felt it too?” he asked. For once, he looked sincere. There wasn’t the usual careless air about him. He was just meeting my eyes with an intensity that was hard to look away from.
I swallowed. “That was a hypothetical example.”
“An oddly specific one,” he said, his usual demeanor returning.
“The point is I don’t care what you think is between us. This is my job, and it’s everything. So if you screw it up for me, I will get rid of you.”
“Is the reverse true as well?”
“What?”
“If I make it work for you, will you keep me?”
“Get out of my office.”
He took two steps back, grinning like I’d just planted a kiss on his cheek. It was infuriating, like he really did live in an alternate reality where it didn’t matter what words left my mouth—like he could pull open the window to my deepest, darkest corners and simply read my mind instead of using his ears. Just in case he really could, I focused on an image of my foot as I imaginarily kicked his balls.
He put his hand on the doorknob and smiled at me. “So I’ll just show up on Monday, I guess? Anything I should know? Dress code? Keycards?”
“Ask someone to show you to HR. They’ll get you set up.”
He nodded. “I can’t wait to bump into you around the office.”
I blinked. “Don’t say things like that.”
“It’s a totally innocent phrase, unless your mind is in a dirty place.”
“Out.”
12
TRAVIS
I was a man of my word. That meant I endured three full days without a single Elizabeth sighting. All this time without so much as a glimpse of my girlfriend and I didn’t so much as knock on her apartment door. I showed up to the office, let the HR people show me the ropes, and played nice. After all, I promised I wouldn’t show up at her door to bother her if she gave me that last date.
