Page 7 of Irresistible

Chapter 5

The rest of the day was relatively uneventful. Richard observed the branch’s employees engaged in their usual day’s work. He stopped and chatted with them about some of their tasks periodically, but mostly kept to himself in the back office. Between firing off responses to emails received from frantic executives and lower-level managers and taking care of some parts of long-term tasks, Richard put in quite a full day. Of course, he would only take a break for a couple of hours before logging back on at the hotel to work some more. He was nothing if not a workaholic.

Scarlet, on the other hand, left work at 5:00pm as usual. She did not have to take her work home with her. But on this day, she was taking a part of her work home with her. No matter how hard she tried, she just could not shake her thoughts about Richard. His smile, his smell, his presence, everything about him made her smile from ear to ear. She hadn’t felt this way in quite some time, certainly not since her last boyfriend broke her heart.

As she pulled in to her driveway, Scarlet glanced down at her phone. The bright screen showed an email from her student loan servicer, the bleak reminder that she had to go to work and be an adult every day just to survive. As it did every month, the email told her that her student loan payment would be taken out of her account at the end of the month. She quickly swiped the email away, and retrieved her keys from her pocket to go inside.

The realities of adulthood quickly started to push away her flights of fantasy. Scarlet had bills to pay just like everyone else did. She wasn’t quite living paycheck to paycheck, but she wasn’t swimming in an excess of savings, either. There was no way she could afford to lose her job and, therefore, there was no way she could afford to try to date her boss. After all, it was difficult to imagine a world where someone could pull that off successfully.

“Damn, I really can’t do this, can I?” Scarlet whispered to herself.

The lock clicked and the door swung open. Her two Scottish Terriers ran to greet her. They were her only two compatriots in life at the time. The boyfriends came and went, but the Scotties were always there for her. Their names were Ringo and Penny and they were both four years old. Both were delightful, mopish piles of fur with trademark beards at the front of their faces.

“Alright. Down, you two,” Scarlet said with a smile on her face as the two dogs jumped up and down near her legs.

The obedient dogs quickly scampered to the couch, where they expected Scarlet to plunk down and watch television, as she often did after a long day. But she didn’t do that right away. Instead of clearing her head and mentally preparing herself for what awaited her at work the next day, she decided to call Jim. Jim was always her voice of reason.

The phone rang.

“Hey, Scarlet. What’s up?”

“Did I call at a bad time?” Scarlet asked cautiously.

“No. Of course not. We’re getting ready to go out in a little bit, but I’m good for right now. What’s going on?”

“Aren’t you hitting the club a little bit early? It’s like six o’clock. I mean, I certainly don’t judge those who get a head start, but this is early even for you guys,” Scarlet said, trying to hide her curious mix of admonition and admiration.

“No, silly. We’re getting ready to go out to dinner. We have a reservation at Café Soupçon.”

“But you’re going to go clubbing afterwards, right?” Scarlet asked jokingly.

“I never pretend to know where the night will take us. It seems arrogant. Men plan, God laughs, and so forth. You get the deal.”

The two gossiped for a little longer after that. They talked about the weird lunch with Richard Grant, their co-worker with a suspected drinking problem, and their fellow teller who’d had at least three boyfriends in the last four months. Scarlet and Jim were always incredibly chatty with each other. Even though Jim was her boss, it never felt like it. Scarlet felt like she could tell him anything. He was the brother she never had. Finally, the two turned to the topic that was at the front of both of their minds: Richard Grant himself.

“So, what did you think of Richard? We talked about the weird lunch, but what do you think of him?” Scarlet asked, abruptly cutting off their last topic.

“I knew you were stuck on him.”

“Shut up! I’m not ‘stuck on him’,” Scarlet shot back playfully. “I just think he’s interesting.”

“Right. ‘Interesting’. Of course. Carry on.”

“Well, that’s it. I just think he’s interesting and I wanted to see what you thought of him. That’s all,” Scarlet stammered.

“And if I just said he was ‘interesting’ and left the conversation there, would you leave this talk feeling satisfied?”

Scarlet was silent on the other end of the phone. She didn’t know how to answer that question.

“That’s what I thought,” Jim said, answering his own rhetorical question. “After all, that’s why you called, isn’t it? You wanted to talk about this.”

Scarlet should have known better. Part of being someone’s best friend is being able to read that person like a book. Jim always had Scarlet figured out even before she had herself figured out. It was no wonder that he could pick up on this from a mile away.

“Is it that obvious?” Scarlet asked meekly.

“It was obvious the minute that handsome gentleman walked into the branch this morning,” Jim scoffed.

“I don’t know, Jim. I just have these visceral feelings for the guy. Maybe that’s just my hormones talking. After all, it’s been a while since I’ve, you know, been with anyone.”