Page 17 of Come in with the Rain
He sends me a smile that’s almost not a smile at all, just the very ends of his mouth tilting upward. He turns and starts explaining where he wants to start to Ford, and I go to my room to slip on my shoes. Before I’ve even gotten them all the way on, Abby bursts into my room, her cheeks rosy, and shuts the door behind her.
“Are you aware that you have half the staff of a Chippendale’s in your kitchen?” she stage-whispers, fanning herself.
“Try not to subtly suggest a threesome to either of them while I’m gone, okay?”
Her eyes light up, like I’ve given her an idea. “I absolutely will make no such effort. If you’re not going to take advantage of all that yummy testosterone, I will gladly step up to the plate.”
When I think about her being here all day, flirting with Adam, giving him that seductive look that I’ve seen her give men in bars, I get a sharp pang in my stomach. I have to focus down on my feet while I try to recover. I just got out of a three-year relationship, and Adam is here to work. His romantic life is not my business. If Abby wants to hit on him, she has every right.
“Feeling confident?” Abby asks.
I stop trying to get my foot into my right shoe and let my arms drop. “I’ve never felt less confident in my life.”
Abby steps forward and bends to take my face in her hands. Her nails are the same hot red as her lipstick. “Stella, you are such a fucking badass, so get your ass in gear and go get a job because I’m really looking forward to you being my Sugar Mama.”
CHAPTER19
STELLA
Nowhere on the job application did it mention the absolute dungeon I would be working in. I stand in the records room with the hiring manager and try to suppress the chill that goes down my spine. A literal dungeon.
“May I ask,” I say, turning to the hiring manager who walked me through my interview upstairs before insisting we do the rest of the interview in the clerk’s office so I could see the work space. “In the digital age, why do you need so many paper records?”
The hiring manager, Mr. Hoffman, checks his phone, clicks out a text, and then says, “A lot of people still feel more comfortable signing paper contracts and policies. Makes them feel more secure, even though paper is about as permanent as a soap bubble.”
He checks his watch and then tilts his head toward a row of shelves, one of what seems like an infinite number, until I follow him. I’m more confused than anything else, stepping between two shelves of banker’s boxes that tower over our heads. My eyes are scanning the boxes, the labels written in Sharpie along the sides, when I hear the clang of a belt buckle.
My stomach crawls all the way up my throat when I turn to Mr. Hoffman and see that he’s undoing his pants. “What the hell are you doing?”
He stops, his eyebrows puckering. “I thought you wanted this job.”
God, I didn’t even really want the job before, and I certainly don’t want it now, if he’s insinuating that I… “And that means, what exactly? That you get to whip it out?”
“It means,” he growls, “you’re going to give me a blowjob.”
I step back so fast I knock into one of the boxes on the shelf behind me, the corner of it leaving a little spot of pain in my back. “Are you fucking kidding?” I can see now the ridge of him, already hard behind his boxers, and bile rises in my throat.
He has the audacity to say, “Areyoufucking kidding? You’re the seventh interview I’ve had this week. Everybody wants a job. You going to be a team player?”
I resist the outrageous urge to ask him how many of his seven interviews readily dropped to their knees, but for the love of God, I don’t want to know. I turn and leave him, his dress pants down around his knees, and try not to vomit on my way back to my car.
Inside, I grip my steering wheel, trying to calm down. But then all the disgust and revulsion in me rises up into something different: anger, burning hot.
“Goddammit!” I scream, slapping my hand down on the steering wheel so hard that it stings. I press my forehead to it and breathe. I’m never going to get a good fucking job in fucking Baltimore.
CHAPTER20
ADAM
Abby is leaning over the counter between the kitchen and the living room in a way that I’m pretty sure is intended to press her breasts together and as far out of the collar of her top as they can go without spilling out completely, flirting. I’m pounding on my crowbar on the other side of the kitchen, mostly ignoring her as she doesn’t seem to care which of us flirts back, and Ford is doing the job for both of us.
“So, you two met in the military? But you have an English accent. Don’t you have to be American to join the American military?”
Ford stops hammering at the countertop to smile over at Abby. I can’t tell if he’s actually interested in her or not, but he’s clearly enjoying the attention either way. “I was born in America. I’m a citizen. But my parents moved with me to England when I was just a baby. I spent most of my life there.”
Abby leans her chin into her hand and smiles up at Ford. He’s already a foot taller than her, but in this position, he towers over her so far that it’s almost comical. “That’s so romantic. I’ve always wanted to visit England, but I can never manage to get the time off work.”
“Well, maybe someday—” Ford starts, but he doesn’t finish because the front door has slammed open and Stella has rushed into the condo with these two big red spots on her cheeks, like her face is on fire from the inside. When she sees the three of us, she gingerly closes the door behind her, and it takes all my willpower to keep my feet planted, to keep from going to her and asking her what’s wrong. That’s not my job.
