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Maybe I really do need to lighten up.
I give Vanessa a nod. “Okay, I’ll be there. Could you send a memo round to everyone?”
Vanessa nods, blinking her long eyelashes at me. “Absolutely.”
Luke gives me a sneaky, knowing smile. “Thanks, Ness. That’ll be all for now.”
Vanessa gives me a sideways glance that’s full of… something. And even though I stare hard back at her, she doesn’t seem the least bit ruffled. Just skips out of the room like she hadn’t spent the entire meeting making her half-lidded bedroom eyes at me.
Hm. Talk about HR issues. It’s bad enough that Annie came over for dinner on Friday night…
Crap. Stop thinking about her, you creep. Because that’s what an employer who thinks about his employees too much is. Right?
The second the door to the boardroom closes, I round on Luke. “Okay, as I was sayin—”
Luke belches loudly.
“Excuse you.”
“Excuse yourself.” Luke twirls a pen in his hand. “And just ask her out already.”
Apparently, my words have fallen on deaf ears and Luke’s started his own conversation.
“Who?” I sputter. “Vanessa?”
“No, Britney Spears.”
Luke’s sarcastic tone is not appreciated. “I don’t want to ask Vanessa out. Or Britney Spears, for that matter.”
“Well, obviously… because you are totally into someone else. You think I didn’t see your whacked-out starry eyes just now?” Luke gloats. “Not to mention you were practically giggling on Friday night.”
“Giggling?” I demand.
“You sounded like one of Legs’s little school friends.”
“And you sound like you’ve had a frontal lobotomy.”
“Admit it!” Luke points his little gun finger at me again. “You got it bad for Annie, bro.”
“Annie,” I repeat dumbly.
“Yeah, you know. Annie.” Luke grins and levels his hand in the air. “About yay high, red hair... ate dinner with us on Friday night thanks to my stroke of brilliance?”
“Hilarious. Never quit your day job.”
“I’d be a phenomenal comedian. But seriously.” Luke’s expression turns almost business-like. “I’m happy that you’re into someone. Pining looks good on you.”
“You’re wrong,” I insist. “And even if you were right—which you aren’t—it’s not something we endorse here at SITL. I’ve read the employee handbook.”
“You wrote the employee handbook, idiot.”
And we’re back to juvenile name calling.
I snap my laptop shut and give Luke a hard look. “Rules are rules for a reason.”
“Not when you wrote them for the wrong reasons.”
“The rules are perfectly in keeping with usual business practices in the United States.”
