Jules

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

When Kaylee got to work the next day, Freddie was waiting for her in the lobby with a big smile on his face. “Come into my office,” he said. “I want to discuss your report.”

“I’ll be there in just a moment,” she said. “Let me just hang up my purse and sweater.”

He nodded.

She was all ready to leave Jules a note telling him to fetch her coffee, but his jacket was already hanging in the office when she breezed in. Her mood soured slightly. So much for oversleeping the alarm, she thought. She went back to Freddie’s office.

He closed the door behind her and waved to the second chair. “Sit. I just sent this off to your teacher, and I wanted to show it to you as well, just so you know where you stand.”

“That’s great, thanks.”

He put the papers on the desk and then leaned over her, pointing to one of the criteria. “Now, here you did really great. From the work samples Jules showed me, I’d say this is your strongest suit. Some of these you got lower marks on because I haven’t seen good examples of them yet, but I did note that on the report.”

She started to look up but realized just how close he was and looked down at the paper again. “Okay, everything looks good here. Jules and I are starting a new project today, so I need to get back to his office. I don’t want to keep him waiting—it makes me look bad.”

“Nothing could make you look bad,” he said.

She realized that leaning over her gave him a view down the front of her shirt and she shifted away from him. “We’ll talk later, okay?”

“Sure thing.”

She could feel his eyes on her as she walked out of the office. As soon as the door was closed she hurried away, fearful he’d call her back for some other pointless ‘one more thing’ just so he could offer a creepy compliment or sneak a peek down her shirt again.

When she reached the office, Jules was waiting for her with two mugs of coffee. “You beat me here,” she said.

“Only because I couldn’t sleep and had this sudden brainstorm and decided to come in early. But I got you a coffee because I sort of cheated.”

“Having a car is cheating,” she muttered, but she took the offered mug and took a tentative sip. “Pretty good. How did you know what I like in it?”

“I think you mentioned it once when you started working here. I have a good memory for things like that.” It was turning out that he had a good memory, aided by his sharpened senses, of a good many things—like the fact that she alternated between two different body sprays, a fruity one and a flowery one, and that her shampoo smelled of cherry blossoms. He knew the exact shade of brown in her eyes and had looked up the number for that color on three different graphic design programs.

She was smiling at him. “Thanks for this. What are we working on today?”