I splashed a healthy amount into a short glass. Then I tossed it back in one gulp.
It didn’t make me feel better but some of the cobwebs cleared away. Just in time for my desk phone to ring, the light for April’s dedicated line flashing.
I reached up to loosen my tie. Just a little. Not a full-on destruction of my perfectly composed knot, just enough to allow increased airflow.
So I didn’t have to sit down and put my head between my knees.
Calmly, professionally, I took my seat and pressed the button beside the flashing light on the phone. Was it my imagination or had the light become intense since Friday?
“Yes.” My tone held no inflection.
“Yes? Hello, I’m new here, remember? You gave me nothing to do.”
Even her voice sounded like sorcery. Not that I’d forgotten it after listening to her podcast—three episodes in total, but I wasn’t counting—but it seemed even worse on the other end of the line.
I’d have to end this call swiftly.
“There is a list.”
I heard the obvious sounds of her making a mess on April’s desk. “Where? I don’t see any—” She huffed out a breath. “Unless you mean this bill from Coffee Emporium with big block letters that says ‘call them.’”
“Yes. My delivery is late.” And I needed it. Desperately.
“Um, not sure if you’re aware, but I’m a legal assistant, not a nursemaid.”
“Nursemaids do not check on delayed coffee deliveries. They provide milk.”
Right. Because that was just the image I needed in my head only moments after I’d debated whether or not she was wearing a bra.
I didn’t do these things. To the point that I was almost smug when it came to other men who seemed less in control of their baser instincts than I was. I liked sex, but it didn’t rule me. Women and their wily charms definitely did not.
I couldn’t say I’d never been led around my dick—I was human, after all, much to my dismay—but it had been a damn long time and not since college when Lissa Luwellan had convinced me we should have sex in the fountain in the town square in the middle of the night.
Then the cops had shown up.
I’d ridden in the back of the police car, soaked wet and frustrated. Lissa had broken up with me the next day, and my father had lectured me on upholding the law, not flagrantly breaking it.
Since then, I’d put sex in the box it belonged in. Often, I handled things myself. Such as Friday night when Ryan G. Moon’s auditory porn podcast had turned out to be merely a preview of upcoming attractions.
Ryan’s heavy sigh brought me back to my current predicament. “I took this position to do actual work tasks. Besides, calling a coffee place will take me, what, three minutes?”
“So you’ll do it?” I couldn’t disguise the hope in my question.
Mondays always went better with coffee. This Monday definitely required it.
“Since I was so egregiously late, I suppose I can help you out this once, because whoa, grumpy pants without your java, huh?”
I didn’t appreciate her emphasis on my words. Nor did I like her calling me grumpy pants. But I did enjoy getting my way through whatever means possible.
“Excellent.” I clicked off.
I had barely replaced the receiver when the line rang again. How was a person supposed to get any work done around here?
“Yes?”
“Do you say goodbye? Hello?”
“You don’t need to say hello, I heard you just fine.”