What the fuck was wrong with him?
“Hey, boss,” Claude Meintjies, his manager, greeted him when Spencer stepped back into the store, and Spencer lifted a hand in greeting. The salesmen and women all looked up with smiles and waves, too. They were a friendly lot, hardworking, efficient, and he valued every single one of them. He kept them incentivized and well paid, and he made sure there was room for growth within the company. SCSS was so much more than just this store. He intended to expand and branch out. And he made sure his staff knew that they would be right there along with him.
“I’ll be up in my office, Claude,” he informed, striding past the smaller man as Claude gave him a thumbs-up. Spencer made his way to the back of the store, through the storeroom, and up a short, winding staircase to the small glass office upstairs. The second floor of the building was a huge empty space, housing only the staff break room, Claude’s cubicle, and Spencer’s office. But Spencer had big plans for this space.
He shut himself into the office, closing the door and the blinds. His staff would know not to disturb him. He lowered himself into his desk chair and threw his head back on the rest. He examined the stained ceiling board above his desk, the remnant of a damp problem that had long since been taken care of. He should have replaced the board, but he liked the familiarity of the elephant-shaped stain.
His phone beeped and he dragged it out of his pocket and raised it to his line of sight, blocking out the elephant in the room. A text message . . . from Daff.
Seriously. Thanks for lunch.
He sighed and chewed the inside of his cheek for a second before sending a thumbs-up emoji.
He waited for a moment, but no response was forthcoming . . . she wasn’t even typing. He was about to lower the phone when it pinged and her response—a grinning emoji accompanied by a thumbs-up—popped onto the screen.
He stared at the two cheery little pics for a moment before screwing his eyes shut and then opening them to type two words. Words he knew he’d live to regret.
Dinner? Tonight?
“For fuck’s sake,” he gritted, furious with himself. He was a sucker for punishment. Clearly he was a masochist. Who knew?
She was typing . . . and typing . . . and typing. Jesus, how many words did she need to spell out a rejection? In the end, after endless amounts of typing, he found himself staring at just one word: Okay.
No shit?
He nearly dropped the phone in his haste to respond. He fumbled and caught it before it fell and sent his response before he could change his mind.
Pick you up at 6:30
Another thumbs-up in response, and that was it.
Someone knocked on her door at six that evening. Daff was in the middle of getting dressed for her dinner—date?—with Spencer, and she cursed the timing of this unexpected visitor. A quick peek through the peephole had her groaning and she unlocked the door with palpable reluctance. Daisy stood on her doorstep, a huge canvas bag tucked beneath her arm and clutched protectively to her side. Her entire demeanor was furtive, and Daff’s curiosity was immediately piqued.
The younger woman pushed her way into the small house and Daff stepped aside, allowing the intrusion. It was Daisy’s place, after all, even though her youngest sister would never really intrude unless she absolutely had to.
Daff closed the door, shutting out the cold, and followed her sister into the living room.
“Thank God you’re home,” Daisy was saying, gingerly placing her bag on the coffee table. “You have to hide these.”
“Hide what?” Daff asked blankly and then watched as Daisy carefully unloaded the contents of her ugly canvas bag.
“Ugh! No, I don’t want to hide your creepy caterpillars,” Daff protested as Daisy gently placed her entire caterpillar collection onto the coffee table. A little revolted, Daff gawked at one complacently smiling little caterpillar, a ceramic thing wearing a jaunty sailor uniform.
“Come on, please, Daff,” Daisy begged. “You even have the perfect display case for them, right there.” She pointed at the empty cabinet that had previously housed the unsettling caterpillars that Daisy had always found so inexplicably fascinating.
“Why?”
“Mason keeps swapping them out for these weird butterfly trinkets.”
The information startled a laugh out of Daff, which she quickly stifled when Daisy scowled at her.
“Why would he do that?” she asked, trying very hard to keep a straight face.
“Some nonsense about me letting go of my negative self-esteem issues and embracing my inner butterfly.”
Aw, hell! That Mason was constantly surprising Daff. She honestly couldn’t have asked for a better man for her baby sister.
“I’m not keeping them.”
“But I like them,” Daisy insisted.
“You do not. You collected only a quarter of these before everybody else started showering you with the hideous things and you found yourself drowning in them.”