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I’m not feeling any more in control of myself than I accused those teenage boys she mentioned of being right now. I find that I like the chaos swarming in my gut. It makes me feel alive and a little reckless.
“What’s first on your agenda this morning, Ms. Malloy?”
She grins, looking up at me, but Oracle clears his throat again. I lift my gaze, a warning making my eyes squint. I’ll hurt him for being such a damn cockblock.
She lifts the laptop she has under her arm.
“I have to do all of those files,” she says, and I’ve been waiting for this moment.
“I have them right here,” I tell her, pulling a slim jump drive from my pocket.
I feel like a hero when her eyes widen. “Really?”
“Max said it took about ten minutes. He has some kind of sorting program that was able to populate the entire list.”
She blinks down at the jump drive, her chin starting to quiver.
“Hey,” I say, stepping in closer to her. “What’s all that about?”
She shakes her head. “I’ve just been stressing over getting it done.”
“Well, you have people here to help, so use us how you need us.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” Oracle says, like he pulled the words right out of my head.
He chuckles when I glare at him again. I don’t get the vibe he’s actually going to try and hook up with Devyn, but I know he’s going to fuck with me the entire time.
“This saves me at least a day or two of work,” she says as she sets her computer on the table and takes the drive from my hand. “I’ll have to do something special to thank him.”
“I’ve been cutting apart these footballs,” Oracle reminds her. “Are you taking requests?”
She chuckles, paying him no real attention either as she plugs the drive into her machine.
“He did them in batches of two.” She looks back at me with an even wider smile on her face. “I can run two at the same time. That literally cuts my processing time in half.”
“Max said he’ll show you how to do it for the baseball order.”
“Don’t jinx me. I haven’t gotten that order yet. It hasn’t even been discussed.”
“You’ll get it,” I guarantee.
Her eyes search mine for something, and it makes me wonder how many times she’s been disappointed in her life that she’s wary of every good thing that happens to her. It’s a sad sort of existence honestly, to always question someone’s intention and if they’re being genuine.
We get to work. Even when the first couple of footballs aren’t up to her standard, she stays focused, explaining that she planned for a few mistakes and ordered extra footballs.
By the time we’re on the third team of balls, we have a system down. Oracle is cutting balls apart, placing all the threads he cuts away in the trash after she mentioned the mess he was making. I’m trimming the threads that the machine places between each letter. It isn’t the easiest job considering how tiny the scissors are and how big my damn fingers are, but I’d never complain. I’m in her orbit, and for some reason, it’s my happy place right now. She’s loading the machine, making sure that it’s positioned perfectly and pulling the printed balls off when it’s done.
“I hope you guys are good with a needle because it’s going to take a year to sew these things up,” she mutters under her breath, looking at the table loaded down with the printed balls.
“So long as we’re done by next week,” Oracle quickly agrees. “I don’t want to miss the trip to Denver.”
I swear I’ll strangle the guy for bringing that shit up in front of her.
Her eyes widen, excitement making them sparkle. “Denver?”
I swallow, keeping my eyes on my work.
“You want to go?”
I snap my eyes up at him.
“There’s a fabric store there I wanted to visit. Think I could tag along?”
“No,” I snap just as Oracle declares, “That would be great.”
Her head swivels twice, looking from me to him and then back to me.
“You’re supposed to take me places,” she says cautiously, and the hint of irritation in her voice does things to my body that I like a little too much.
“Any place she wants to go,” Oracle adds. “I’m sure she’d like to go to Hale-ish.”
“I swear,” I growl in warning but the guy only laughs.
“What’s Hale-ish? The fabric store I want to go to is called Sew Delicious. They have a café there as well, which at first seems like a bad idea, you know? To mix fabric and food, but it really works for them, and I think—”
“It’s a sex club.” Oracle interrupts.
Her head snaps so quickly in his direction I worry about her neck hurting.
“A wh-what?”
“Sex club,” Oracle says, his eyes on the seam ripper he’s using to cut apart the footballs. “You know, dark rooms, public sex, and orgasms.”
