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“It is your donut, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but…”
Butt was the word I actually meant to say.
“Come on. I can’t see back there. Get it off as cleanly as you can. I’m on my way to the biggest interview of my life. I can’t go in there with chocolate smeared on my… you know what. It would look like I—”
I raised my hands to silence him. “I get the picture.” I inched closer to him, beyond grateful that he was facing away from me. I don’t think I could have handled such a delicate job with his eyes on me.
I took a deep breath. I could do this. People vying for regional management positions didn’t shy away from messy jobs.
The paper crinkled as I peeled it off bit by bit to assess the damage beneath. My cheeks burned at the snickers coming from the people around us. I don’t know why though. It wasn’t like my hind end was the center of attention.
Messy didn’t begin to describe the sugary carnage I witnessed on the dark side of that moon. My heart broke a little to see that innocent donut centered vertically on his exceptionally symmetrical rump.
“It’s stuck on there pretty good,” I said.
“I know. How do I get it off without making it worse?”
“The cream filling from the inside is now on the outside, and I’m pretty sure the chocolatey top is what’s holding it in place.”
He reached his hand back and patted his rear until his fingers found the mangled donut.
“Here, just…” I took his wrist and guided his hand to the bottom of the éclair. It was just like one of those horrible trust games they always make you play at corporate retreats, only way, way more awkward. “Grab here and peel it up.”
He followed my directions and pulled the offending pastry off his derrière. It came off clean as a whistle—the donut, that is. Every bit of chocolate topping peeled off the top of the sweet bread and clung to his light-gray dress pants.
He turned around and examined the donut in his hand. “This is an idiotic question, but I’ve got to ask it. Where is the chocolate?”
All I could do was offer an apologetic smile. I rummaged in my purse and pulled out a wet wipe. I dangled it between us like the lame excuse for a peace offering that it was.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
I bit my bottom lip, so not wanting to utter my one-word answer, but unable to find a suitable replacement. “Wipe?”
He snatched it out of my hand and I averted my eyes as if watching him “wipe” was somehow an invasion of his privacy.
“Well?” He turned his rear end toward me.
I took a peek—I didn’t dare look any longer. “Looks good.” And just like that the spark returned to his eyes.
“How good? Are we talking Arnold Schwarzenegger good, or Silvester Stallone good?”
“Eww, both of those guys are grandpas.”
“But they’re both almost as ripped as I am.” He bounced his pecs beneath his ocean-blue dress shirt. I hadn’t noticed until then just how snugly his sleeves hugged his biceps. My lids fluttered, and I decided not to be impressed. No doubt he always purchased his clothing two sizes too small to enhance the equipment the Good Lord had given him.
But feeling a small sense of responsibility for his predicament, I held back my eye roll out of basic civility. “I didn’t mean your… you-know-what looked good.” I pointed toward his rear. “I was talking about the pants.”
There were only two problems with what I’d just said. First, he was right to be worried before. Those pants had skid marks in the worst possible place. They definitely did not look good.
And second…
A tiny part of me had been talking about his you-know-what, and it wasn’t eighties-action-hero fine. It was all the Chris-es fine—Hemsworth, Pine, and Pratt all rolled into one.
I was so not getting over this inconvenient crush any time soon.
