I shut the cupboard door and toss the empty box into the recycling. “Come with me to the coffee shop?”
Val nods enthusiastically, which experience has shown is her default factory setting. She’s enthusiastic about everything. When we step outside, my head starts swiveling. I tell myself I’m just soaking in the sunshine. It’s a balmy seventy-two degrees and the morning fog has already burned off. Normally, I’d take a few centering breaths and appreciate being outside, but instead I scour my surroundings. For him.
Fortunately, Val doesn’t notice. Instead, she enthusiastically launches into conversation. “Do you have weekend plans?”
Right. It’s Friday, the day of the week normal people get excited about because they actually intend to leave the house. On purpose. I personally prefer hiding inside where there are fewer people. After I finish my monster to-do list, I have a hot date with a new book and takeout. And Nellie. Nellie and I are practically an old married couple. I tie her leash to the bench outside the coffee shop and plunge through the doors. There are thirty-two people here and the sound wave deafens me.
“No plans,” I roar, stepping up to the counter and placing my order. Don’t feel sorry for the introvert, folks. That’s how she likes it.
“No hot date?” Val examines the muffins on offer. Smart. It’s unlikely we have time for lunch and I’ve eaten my way through the box of tasteless granola bars stashed in my desk. I pull out my phone and make order snacks the two hundred and forty-seventh item on my to-do list. “When’s the last time you went out?”
I tap my calendar. Dates are violet as pink feels clichéd—and violet is as rare on my calendar as unicorns are in my life. Which is A-okay with me. My crowded schedule has no room for hearts and true love.
Val snorts. “If you have to check your calendar, it’s been too long.”
“Three hundred sixty-one days.” Precision is important.
Val digests my disturbingly long period of celibacy as the baristas bellow out names, the space-age coffee maker whoosh-whirs, and a dozen customers chat each other up and make business calls at the top of their lungs.
“You need to get out more,” she says finally. “There are apps for that.”
“Hello? Married to the firm?” I grab my chai latte off the counter and head outside. Nellie barks enthusiastically. She loves coffee dates, even if she anxious-pees if I take her inside. Popping the lid off my cup, I pour her a taste. Uh-oh. Whatever’s in this cup isn’t chai latte. Once again, I’ve stolen someone else’s drink.
I debate slinking back inside and buying—I rotate the cup until I spot the owner’s name underneath my pinkie—Ross a new drink. It’s too much work, though. Plus, if he really likes steamed coconut milk, we’ll never work out. I opt for fleeing back toward Calla, Nellie trotting alongside me, licking her chops.
Val is right behind me. “Sex is like flossing. You should do it once a day, twice a day is better, and if you haven’t done it, you lie and say you did anyhow.”
I roll my eyes. “Who has time to do it twice a day?”
My brain helpfully supplies an image of Dev. He likely has both the time and the stamina to do it twice a day. Probably twice an hour. Bad brain. Not only is he much, much younger than me, but he’s my intern. I meant what I said to Val about respecting our team members. It shouldn’t matter if Devlin is tall, short, fat or supremely built. His outside package has no bearing on his ability to do the job, and I won’t treat him any differently than I’d want to be treated. My social skills might be lacking, but even I know having your boss come on to you is at best horribly awkward and at worst criminal.
Plus, I’ve already had naked fantasies about him, and he’s brought me to orgasm twice since Friday night even if he didn’t know it.
Shit.
Hiring him is a bad idea. If anyone finds out I’m crushing on him, I’ll look ridiculous. And then there will be the usual stupid, giddy delight at going to work, knowing that I’ll see him for a few minutes. Or our shoulders will brush, our knees bump under the table when we work together. He’ll lean in so I can point out something on my laptop screen, and his breath will rush over my arm, and then the kibbles of those brief contacts will turn me into a brainless babbler. It’s happened before.
But how can I fire him now? Not only do I need his big brain to sort out the bugs in my software, but I have no legal ground to fire him for hotness. The grumpy asshole part gives me material to work with, but I need him. And not just in a naked-and-thrusting way. Stop thinking about him.
The ache between my thighs as I walk back into the office is totally wrong. And Devlin King has given me zero reason to believe he sees me as anything other than his new boss, so this is one-sided chemistry.
I’ll just shut it down.
That’s what I’ll do.
Dev
JACK LEVELS A look at me, an impressive feat since we’re bobbing up and down on our boards a quarter mile off the Santa Cruz shore.
“I’m not sure if I should congratulate you on your new internship or knock you off your board,” he says.
Jack is a big guy with the size to follow through on his threat, although we both know he won’t. This is partly due to us having been best friends since our freshman year of college, where we shared an apartment and a major in computer science at the University of California at Santa Cruz. We spent most of our time hacking or surfing. Before I met Jack, however, I was the youngest brother in a family of four boys. I’m competitive about everything and Jack knows it.
Long-term friendship has pluses and minuses. On the plus side, Jack makes an amazing wingman and he really gets me. On the con side, he often knows what I’m thinking and acts as a self-appointed conscience and guardian angel whenever he decides I’m headed for the moral deep end without a life jacket.
His superpower is that, despite being the size of a professional hockey player (which is why I at least pretend to listen to him) and having the killer instincts of a shark, people like him. Unlike me, he’s the amiable, happily married prince among men that ladies love to borrow as a loaner husband and confidant. Today, the shaggy hair that usually falls around his face is pulled back in a ponytail and his wet suit outlines his muscles. I squint. He looks sort of like the Hulk, but less green and way more smiley.
“You shouldn’t have let that girl think you were her intern.” But I have been, for a couple of weeks now. Jack eyeballs the ocean.
Today is the kind of day that comes to mind when you think of California. Bright blue sky, supernova-heated sand on the beach thanks to the sun, and ocean everywhere. Plus, the waves are perfect.
“She assumed. I capitalized on it.” Jack plays by a very black-and-white set of rules, so in the Jack Rulebook, I’ve been a very, very bad boy. And while I know my new internship is questionable, I still feel I have a winning proposition.
“Why?”
“Because I need to find out who stole my software, Jack Ass.”
Jack ignores his college nickname, stroking his fingers over the surface of his board as he tests the wax job. I’ve pointed out that the whole stroking thing makes it look as if he’s jerking off an enormous dick. “You always build in a Trojan because you’re paranoid.”
True.
“So it’s not like she can go live with it,” he continues. “Plus, you have an awesome legal team, a big bank account