She laughed. “There won’t be a next time because you’re not going back.”
His playful expression clouded over. “Well, I’m not going to freeload over at Colby’s forever, no matter how much he says he doesn’t mind me staying with him.”
“No freeloading necessary,” she said, taking a step back into her house and pushing the door open wider. “Because soon you’ll be able to pay Colby rent. I’m going to offer you a job, and you’re going to take it.”
His eyebrows arched. “I am?”
“Yes.”
“O-kay,” he said, doubt lingering in his voice. “You need remodeling done or something?”
“I need a lot of things but not remodeling.”
“A lot of things, huh?” His attention traveled down her body and up again, not bothering to hide his perusal, and then he grinned. “What kind of job is this exactly?”
She pressed her lips together, attempting a stern look, but failed when her mouth twitched up at the corners. “Stop flirting, new hire.”
He chuckled and walked past her into the house. “With you? Not possible. And I haven’t said yes yet.”
Georgia breathed through the shimmer of anxiety that arose from Keats entering her home. Goddamn her brain and its crossed signals. But after a few seconds of focusing on her responses, she was able to recapture the calm. Each time he came over it would get easier. That was what she had to keep reminding herself. “You will.”
“Confident woman. I like it.” He strolled into her living room and sank onto her couch, totally at ease. No visitor had ever sat in her living room here. But somehow his nonchalance helped her to not panic about his presence. “So what is it you need?”
She shut the door behind her, headed into the living room, and sat in the armchair facing the couch. “Office work, mostly. Easy tasks but things that can be time sucks for me. And I need help with errands. I’m not—” She was tempted to make some lame excuse about how she didn’t have time to run errands, but he’d seen her panic attack yesterday. She’d be fooling no one. “I’m not good with leaving the house. It’s a pain in the ass, but I can’t seem to fix it. So it’d be a huge help if I had someone who could take stuff to the post office or pick up things at the store.”
He shifted on the couch, his fingers rubbing along his side like it hurt, but said nothing.
“It would only be part time, but it could get you started and would give you a chance to look for something full time in the off hours. Plus, I could help you put together a résumé. I’m good at those.”
“Are you making up a position for me?” he asked, his tone grim.
She shook her head. “Not at all. I was looking for a virtual assistant already for the office stuff. But I figured this could be even better because you’re here and could help with physical things as well.”
He smirked at physical things.
And she had to wonder if it had been a Freudian slip on her part. Maybe this wasn’t a wise idea. She should not be having any inappropriate thoughts about her too-young, too-good-looking future employee. Especially when she’d slept with the guy’s housemate last night. “You’re shameless.”
But she was really directing that accusation at herself.
“Agreed,” he said without remorse. “But this sounds like kind of a cop-out for you.”
She blinked. “What?”
He stretched an arm out over the back of the couch, taking up the space like he owned it and looking older than his years. “For your panic attacks. Instead of facing it, you’ll just send me instead. Sounds like cheating.”
Her spine straightened. “It’s not that simple.”
He frowned. “Or that complicated.”
That ticked her off. “You don’t know anything about what I’m going through, Keats.”
“Maybe not. But I probably understand more than you think. I know what panic attacks are. When I was in junior high, my father made me join a summer football camp he was coaching. I hated it. Hated. All the worst of the kids who tormented me in school were part of the camp and now instead of just teasing me, they could crush me on the field in the spirit of the game. And when they did and I couldn’t get up quick enough, not only would they laugh, but my dad would call me a pussy in front of everyone, take off my jersey and replace it with a pink T-shirt that said Princess, then make me run laps for lack of effort.”
Her stomach turned.
“I’d make myself sick and have panic attacks over showing up. I researched every trick there was to making myself look like I was sick so my dad wouldn’t drag me out there. Of course, with him, none of it worked. I couldn’t sleep or eat, thinking about what I’d face the next day. The dread was killing me. It was ruining my whole summer—the only time I usually enjoyed. So the third week, I decided that I’d stop worrying over what could happen and make the worst happen—take the control back. I showed up to practice early in that stupid shirt and told those douchebags to make good on their threats or fuck off.”
“Did they back down?”