Melt For You

20

My cheeks heat. I chew the inside of my lip for a while, composing various scathing retorts, but none of them have any teeth because I know he’s trying to be supportive. Plus, he’s right.

Grr.

“Understood?” he prompts.

“Yes. Fine. Okay.”

“Good. Now get back to work. And Joellen?”

He still sounds mad, so I’m hesitant when I answer, “What?”

There’s a pause. He exhales, then says softly, “You’re not weird. You’re unique. There’s a difference.”

He hangs up before I can reply, leaving me staring at the phone in disbelief. What the hell just happened?

I can’t dwell on it, though, because Denny has arrived at my cubicle with a large cardboard box on a dolly. “Hey, kiddo! Special delivery!”

Shasta pops back up over the cubicle wall like a groundhog, eyes bugging out. “Another delivery? What is it?”

Why is this girl suddenly so interested in my business? “I wish I could tell you, but unfortunately my X-ray vision isn’t working today.”

She’s too busy ogling the box to be put off by my sarcasm.

Denny parks the dolly upright and removes a folding work knife from a pocket of his trousers. He slices open the tape on the top of the box. “It’s a new chair for you, kiddo. Mr. Maddox put in a requisition over the weekend.”

The breath leaves my lungs in a wheeze. Shasta and I gape at each other.

Denny makes a great show of unpacking the box, cutting at the cardboard so the chair is revealed all at once when the sides fall away.

“That’s the new ergonomic model,” whispers Shasta, agog.

I don’t know about ergonomic, but it makes my current chair look derelict.

“Oh, fantastic, you brought it up!” says a male voice to my left, and my heart stops.

It’s Michael, watching approvingly as Denny dusts off the chair with a rag taken from his back pocket, even though there’s not a speck of dust on the thing.

“Yes, sir! You said first thing Monday, so I made sure to do it before my regular rounds.”

Shasta and I share a stunned glance, and I know we’re both suffering the same brain meltdown. Michael ordered Denny to bring me a new chair “first thing.” Like it was a priority. And then he showed up to make sure it was done!

Don’t get ahead of yourself—he’s probably just about to tell you you’re not getting the raise you requested!

He looks perfect today, so perfect he’s almost blindingly beautiful. Smooth hair, gorgeous navy-blue suit, freshly shaven jaw. He obviously didn’t spend another night on his office sofa. He turns his gaze to me and dazzles me with a killer smile.

“Good morning, Joellen.”

I love you and want to have all your babies. “Uh . . . morning.”

He sends a friendly nod to Shasta, who giggles. “Hi, Mr. Maddox!”

“Good morning, Shasta. What a lovely sweater you’re wearing. That color suits you.”

I can tell Shasta wants to run over to him, throw her arms around his neck, and lay a big wet one on him, but she manages to control herself.

“Thank you. Blue’s my favorite color.”

“Mine, too,” says Michael, causing Shasta to furiously blush.

I’m not surprised. Making females swoon is his superpower.

Then Michael notices the bouquet of roses on my desk. He does a comical double take, blinking in surprise. “That’s quite the enormous bouquet. Is it your birthday, Joellen?”

It stings a little that he’d assume the only reason I’d ever get flowers is for a birthday, but who am I kidding? I don’t even get them then. “Oh, no, those are just from—”

I bite my tongue just in time. Then, frantically trying to think of how Mrs. Dinwiddle would handle this situation and remembering Cam’s suggestion that I should act “coy as s**t,” I gaze fondly at the roses as if remembering a night of passion.

On a dreamy sigh, I say, “A friend.” Then I bat my lashes and look demurely at my feet.

When Michael is silent in the wake of my theatrical performance, I’m convinced I’ve made a colossal fool of myself. But when I glance up at him, he’s staring at the roses with a new expression.

An expression, if I’m not mistaken, like he wants to pick up the bouquet and smash it against the wall.

Michael looks at the roses. I look at Shasta. Shasta retreats into the safety of her cubicle, sinking slowly into her chair, eyeballing me like What the actual f**k? until her head disappears beneath the wall.

“I guess it didn’t turn out to be such a bad weekend for you after all.”

In response to Michael’s terse statement, I simply smile. Mona Lisa. Mona Lisa. Mona-effing-Lisa!

“Let me get rid of this for you, kiddo.” Denny breaks the weird tension as he grabs my old chair and rolls it out of my cubicle. He rolls the new one in with a triumphant, “Ta-da!”

“Thank you. That’s great. It looks very . . . ergonomic.”

You don’t have the brains God gave a flea, Joellen.

Then, right after my own voice in my head, Cam’s voice intrudes, full of disappointment under the brogue. Dinnae tell ye te stop that, lass?

I smother the thought before it can go any further, because the last thing in the world I need is the Mountain ganging up on me, too.

While Michael and I stand in awkward silence, Denny packs up the old chair in the box, tapes it shut, and loads it back onto the dolly. When he’s finished, he turns to me with a grin.