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CHAPTER FOUR
DOMINIC
The days were flying by as I worked like a dog at Espo 2. An entire week had passed since Melanie Cruz walked in here and stumbled on a loose nail. I’d had to stop over at Espo 1 a few times, and she always cornered me to ask when her office space was going to be ready.
“No idea,” I told her yesterday, and even though her face didn’t bend into a scowl, she crossed her arms and seemed annoyed.
“Do you have an estimate?” she asked as she tapped her foot, which I noticed only because I couldn’t seem to keep my eyes off her legs.
“Frankly, it’s not my number one priority,” I said shortly and then left her standing there before she realized I’d been checking her out.
One thing was for sure. I really needed to stifle my impulses before Melanie was right here in front of me every day. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d felt such a formidable attraction to a woman I’d just met, and I almost cursed out loud the day she shook my hand and explained that she was my new employee.
But today I was trying not to picture what Melanie looked like without her clothes on.
Instead I was reaching into the depths of a century-old wall when I heard Christmas music. Not just any Christmas music, but a little-known, irreverent tune that someone in particular had been teasing me with for years.
“For god’s sake, get another opener, Jay,” I groaned as I withdrew my hand, shaking the chalky residue off. I looked up to see my best friend casually parked just inside the door, his iPhone blasting “Dominic the Donkey.”
Jason’s grin switched to mock seriousness, and he held up one finger. “Hold on, Dom,” he warned. “Don’t interrupt the chorus.”
I finished brushing a hundred years’ worth of Phoenix’s dust off my skin while Jason obnoxiously hummed along to the old song about an Italian Christmas donkey named Dominic.
“You don’t even have the season right,” I observed when he finally grew tired of his own joke and shut the music off. “Christmas is months away.”
“‘Dominic the Donkey’ transcends the holidays,” he told me. “Kind of like you.”
“That doesn’t make a damn bit of sense.”
Jason pointed at me. “You’re working too hard, buddy. Losing your sense of humor.” He came closer and peered at the wall I was just plundering. “What the hell are you doing anyway?”
I pointed to a box on the floor. “Trying to install these lighting fixtures without ruining the historic integrity of the building and bringing the crushing wrath of the Phoenix Landmark Society down on my head.”
Jason squinted at the hole in the wall. “Yeah, I ran into those ladies when I worked on the bank project up by the art museum. You’ve just got to know how to handle them. Start with sweet talk and then move up the ladder.”
“I’m not sure I want to know what ladder you’ve been climbing, my friend.”
He chuckled and then hopped up to sit on my very expensive quartz counter. “All I’m saying is that a few mimosas and an erotic foot rub work wonders with Bitsy Carlyle.”
Bitsy Carlyle was the uptight Scottsdale socialite who currently presided over the Phoenix Landmark Society. She seemed like she’d be about as eager to collect an erotic foot rub as a tiger would be to receive a perfumed bubble bath. Jason was something of a marathon womanizer, but he was also a bullshit artist.
“Jay, she’s like seventy years old.”
He shrugged and scrolled through his phone. “She’s got a nice ass.”
I snorted. “Dude, you did not fuck around with Bitsy Carlyle.”
“You don’t listen, Dom. I didn’t say I fucked her. I said I delivered her favorite alcoholic beverage and then indulged her fetish of choice.” Suddenly he held his phone out. “Photographic evidence. Take a look.”
I recoiled. “Hell, no.”
“Ah, never mind. Now that I examine it more closely, I see this is actually a photo I took beside the ostrich pen the last time I went to the zoo.”
Chuckling, I grabbed a broom to sweep up the mess I’d made. “What are you doing out here anyhow?”
He scowled. “You never have time for me anymore. You don’t answer half my texts, and you haven’t been out with me in months.” Suddenly he slapped his palm hard on the counter and jumped off. “Jesus, listen to me, I sound like a neglected woman.”
“Watch my counter there, pal. Yeah, I know I owe you about twenty rounds of drinks and a half dozen lunches. I swear I’ll catch up when we’re closer to opening.”
