“Poor Ian,” she said, shaking her head. “A victim of desire. You’re a Lifetime movie. Can we get Chris Hemsworth to play you? You two have the same hair. And the same shoulders. I remember because I’ve bitten them.”
“You’ve bitten Chris Hemsworth’s shoulders?”
“A lady never bites and tells. Too bad I’m not a lady.”
“Flash.” He started to cross his arms over his chest but then seemingly thought better of it. Instead he stuffed his hands into his pockets, as if they’d be safer there.
“Ian.”
“You aren’t supposed to call me Ian. When you call me Ian people start to think we are more to each other than boss and employee.”
“Once upon a time I hopped into your shower to wash your semen off my back after you put it there after some very intense doggy-style fucking. Now...tell me again how we’re just boss and employee.”
“You,” he said.
“Me.”
“Why do I put up with this?” he asked. “Some kind of latent masochism, right?”
“It’s the hair, isn’t it?” She ran her fingers up her short scarlet red hair, spiking it even higher. It was a classic punk look according to Suzette, the multi-pierced stylist who had talked Flash into trading in her long traditional locks for a short, wild razor cut two years ago. Long hair and construction sites didn’t go well together, anyway. Plus she liked scaring the old-timers at work, who still thought any woman with hair shorter than her shoulders was a lesbian or a communist. Not that she minded be mistaken for a lesbian. They were half-right, anyway. But a communist? Oh, please. Socialist, maybe, but a communist? Ridiculous.
“What do you want?” he asked. “Please tell me and leave my office so I can, you know, do what I do.”
“Masturbate while thinking about me?”
“Flash, please.” He looked so wildly uncomfortable right now she almost laughed out loud. Not often a man as strong and as handsome and as together as Ian Asher looked self-conscious. It was kind of adorable. Which made it so much fun to torture him like this.
“You know that’s not my real name. My name is Veronica. You can say it. You called me Veronica that night. I mean, ‘That Night,’” she said, putting the words into finger quotes.
“Everyone calls you Flash.”
“You called me Veronica when you were inside me.”
“Flash, dammit...”
“Dammit isn’t my name, either. Say my name and I’ll tell you why I’m here.”
“Flash, I’m not—”
“Say my name and I’ll tell you why I’m here. Then I will leave you in peace. Or in pieces depending on how much I’m annoying you today.”
“Pieces is more accurate,” he said. “I need to be steel-reinforced around you. You are an earthquake.”
“That’s the sexiest thing any man has ever said about me.”
Ian removed his hands from his pockets, stood up to his full height and stepped forward, close enough to her that he could bend and kiss her if he wanted to. He must not have wanted to, unfortunately.
“Veronica...” he said softly, so softly it was almost a whisper, and almost a whisper was exactly how he’d said her name that one stupid night. Her plan to torture him was backfiring. Now she remembered it all...everything she wanted to pretend meant nothing to her. No pretending when he said her name, no pretending when he looked at her like that.
They’d gone out for drinks one night after work, about six of them, her and Ian and four other guys. The others were all family men, had to get home early. She and Ian had lingered at the bar, talking. But not about work, about art. His father had hired her, not him, and he hadn’t known that she’d learned to weld because she was a metal sculptor in her free time, an artist. He’d assumed she’d picked up the trade from her father the same way he’d gotten into the construction business. She’d shown him a picture on her phone of the six-foot-high climbing rosebush she’d welded out of copper and aluminum, and he’d called it a masterpiece. And then he’d called her a masterpiece. And before either of them knew it, they were kissing. They’d kissed all the way back to his place and all night and here she was, six months later, still thinking about it.
“I quit,” she said.
Ian’s eyes went so wide she almost laughed.
“What?”
“I quit. This is my two weeks’ notice.”
Ian stepped back in obvious shock.
“You’re quitting.”
“I think that’s just what I said. Let me rewind the tape.” She feigned listening to a handheld tape recorder and nodded. “Yes, that’s what I said. I quit.”
“Why? Is it because—”
“Because you and I fucked? No. Don’t flatter yourself.”
“I didn’t...” He sighed. “I’m not flattering myself. I know you weren’t thrilled with how I handled the situation.”
“You dumped me after one night and said you couldn’t date an inferior.”
“I didn’t say that. I said I was your superior and therefore could not date you. You remember that part about me being your boss?”
“Only for two more weeks.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I got a new job. A better job.”
“Better? Better than here?”
She almost rolled her eyes.
“Yes, Ian, believe it or not, some people, like, oh...women, for example, might not consider working with nothing but men the ideal workplace scenario. I like the guys. We get along okay. But I like women. I would like to have some in my life. I would also like to have a job where I don’t weld all day and then go home and weld some more for my other life. You can’t blame me for that.”
“I don’t, no. You’ve stuck it out here longer than anyone thought you would.”
“I had to fight tooth and nail to earn the respect of the crew. I’m a little tired of fighting to be treated like a human being. You can’t blame me for that, either.”
“No.” Ian nodded. “So...where are you going?”
“You know Clover Greene? Runs the nursery down the highway?”
“Yeah, Clover’s great. I bought my Weedwhacker from her.”
“I’m her new assistant manager. The pay is the same as what I make here but the hours will be better, the work not as backbreaking. I don’t like going home too tired to sculpt. I’ve been putting my art career on the back burner too long. I don’t want to do that anymore. Something had to give,” she said.
“Your art’s important to you,” he said. “I appreciate that. I hate to lose you. We’re not going to find another welder as good as you.”
“You will. But you won’t find one as fun as me.”
“You put truck nuts on my bumper to punish me for telling you we couldn’t keep sleeping together.”
“So? It was just a prank.”
“You didn’t hang them on my bumper. You welded them on my bumper. Giant. Metal.