Page 2 of Kiss Kiss Bang
“Oh God.” She covered her face. “Sorry. It’s not funny.”
“Seventy-four!”
She groaned as he snatched the numbered slip of paper from her hand, inspecting it. “I guess you’ll be here until sometime tomorrow.” He smiled and damn, the smile was something. Perfect white teeth, one small dimple, dark brown eyes that looked like they smiled along with his lips.
“Uh . . . yeah, looks that way,” she said, trying to tear herself away from those dimples.
He eyed her with an amused look on his face. “But you’re having so much fun, I don’t think you mind waiting.”
“No. No. I mind.” She inhaled and pushed down the hysterical laughter. “I just—I don’t know. I lost it for a minute, I guess.” She sniffled a little and wiped under her eyes one last time. “I think I’m okay now.”
Again, the sound of a camera clicking. This was starting to really bother her. She’d had a terrible day. It hadn’t started off too bad, but then around noon, she’d gotten a call about Sophie’s behavior from her teacher, Ms. Flynn. Immediately that had clouded her day. And then the laptop dying on her was the icing on the cake. She groaned and turned her face away from the man. “Okay, okay,” she inhaled. “You got your photo. Now please, if you wouldn’t mind . . .”
But the man took another photo.
“Not going to ask you again, bud. Put the camera away,” the handsome man holding her laptop said, blocking the camera’s view of her with his large body.
Olivia was used to having her face splattered across the news or magazines, but she wasn’t in the mood to deal with this today. Today she needed to be a regular person having a regular shitty day. “Thank you for your help, Mr . . .”
“Joey—Josef Clad. But everyone calls me Joey.” He stuck out his hand and it swallowed hers.
“Well, thank you Joey. I’m not usually such a klutz, but . . .” She shook her head. “Anyway, thank you. You work here?” She reached for her laptop but he didn’t let go.
“No. They’re my clients. I’m here as a contractor, checking some things in the office with the CCTV.”
“Oh . . . uh . . . okay.” Again she tried to take her computer back.
“Your name?”
She wiped her eyes one more time. “Oh sorry, I’m Livie Russo.”
“As in . . .”
“Yep, as in Olivia Russo.”
She saw recognition set in. “That explains the guy with the camera.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a card. “They’re not gonna fix this, you know? They’ll probably say you need to find a new one. I can talk to Joanne, the store manager, but even as a favor to me, I don’t think they’d be able to fix it.”
“I’ll get a new one, but I need the files inside. My entire life is inside that computer.”
“How fast do you need it?”
She fussed with the zipper of her purse, opening and closing it. “Um . . . I have a speech tomorrow evening, which I was working on when it crashed.” She poked her finger against her stupid computer.
Joey looked back at the counter and then to Olivia as if he was thinking about something. “I’m good with computers. If you leave this here you won’t have anything back by tomorrow. It’ll probably take them a few weeks because they’ll have to send it out.”
Okay? Well, that’s just perfect. More great news!
“Don’t tell me that.” She’d almost cried when it had crashed. She had definitely yelled, but she’d been able to hold back the frustrated tears. But now she was going to cry. She needed her speech.
“I can do it in an hour.”
She stopped fidgeting with her zipper. “That’s . . . uh . . . what?”
He nudged the business card into her line of vision and she finally stopped staring at him and looked down at his card as if that would explain everything. “I own Iron-Clad Security. I can fix your computer. Unless you want to risk the kid in braces accidently wiping your PC, if he can even figure out how to turn it on.”
No, she didn’t want that. Not at all. But she also didn’t know this man. “I see you’re a smart woman, worried about trusting your personal files to a total stranger. Smart.” He pulled out his phone and typed something then slid it back into his jeans. Her eyes were wide the entire time as he did his thing and barely let her get a word in edgewise. “Seventy-five!”
She looked to the kid at the counter, warily.
