FOUR
“What did the maxi pad say to the fart? You’re the wind beneath my wings!”
“Denny, it’s eight o’clock on Sunday morning, and I haven’t had my coffee yet. I’m not mentally prepared for fart jokes.”
I enter the elevator at work with the enthusiasm of someone ascending the steps of the gallows and slump against the wall, bleary eyed. I had approximately two hours of sleep last night, thanks to the rap concert going on in Kellen’s apartment.
Twice I picked up the phone to call the police to make a noise complaint, and twice I hung up before going through with it. Despite my threats to Cameron, I really don’t like being cast in the role of the grouchy, fun-hating spinster who’s out to ruin everyone’s good time. Even if they are selfish idiots. So instead I slept with a pillow over my head, promising myself I’d invest in a pair of good earplugs in the morning.
I had more fitful dreams of Scottish warriors in battle, only this time they all wore tiny white bath towels around their hips.
I don’t allow myself to consider why all those bath towels had conspicuous bulges in front. I suspect that’s a topic for a trained therapist.
“What do you get when you eat refried beans and onions?”
I heave a sigh and close my eyes. “Denny. For the love of God.”
“Tear gas!”
Denny cackles like a crone at his own joke, while I stand with my eyes closed, pondering the life choices that have led me to this moment.
“Why don’t little girls fart? Because they don’t have assholes until they’re married!”
“Okay, that one’s a little funny,” I admit grudgingly, but only because I’m in a special man-hating mood.
“Yeah, that’s one of my wife’s favorites, too.”
Poor Phyllis. The woman is a saint.
The elevator spits me out on the thirty-third floor right in the middle of another fart joke, this one involving the pope. I say good-bye to Denny and trudge to my desk, expecting to be the only moron at work at the crack of dawn on a Sunday, but to my great shock, I’m not alone.
Michael Maddox stands at the wall of windows across from the cubicle field, gazing out into the gray December morning with his hands shoved into his trouser pockets and his proud shoulders rounded with an invisible weight.
I stop dead in my tracks. My heart leaps into my throat. All my nerve endings sit up and holler rr-ow!, like Mr. Bingley when he wants his dinner.
Michael looks like he might’ve slept in his clothes. His hair is rumpled, his shirt is wrinkled, his normally crisply pressed trousers are distinctly uncrisp. A shadow of stubble darkens his square jaw, and holy hell the man is beautiful.
I must make a little gurgle of lust, because Michael turns and sees me standing there, staring at him in a hazy, hormone-fueled stupor.
“Oh,” he says, startled.
Oh, indeed. How much drool must be coating my chin?
Flustered, I stammer, “I . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean t-to disturb you. I just . . . just . . .”
My lips aren’t working right. My brain is refusing to coordinate with my tongue, which sits inside my mouth like roadkill, trampled to death and gathering flies.
“You’re working again today?”
The universe, taking pity on how utterly pathetic I am, finally allows me the power of speech. “Yes.”
Michael draws a breath, squares his shoulders, then smiles. It’s forced but gorgeous nonetheless. “We can’t be paying you enough for this kind of dedication.”
Take off all your clothes and I’ll consider us even.
I laugh. It sounds unhinged, like I’ve recently freebased cocaine.
He blinks at me as a wave of heat rises from my neck to my hairline. I send him a pinched smile, wrench my gaze from his, and scurry over to my desk like some nocturnal rodent in search of food. I collapse into my chair. It wheezes in protest and deflates six inches on its pneumatic cylinder, leaving me boob-high to the desk with my bulky handbag shoved up under my chin.
Which is how Michael finds me.
“Oh dear. Are you all right?”
He peers down at me from his godlike height, genuinely concerned by the ridiculous predicament of the silly mortal girl in the puffy down jacket the color of rancid pea soup that her mother gave her when she moved to New York a lifetime ago and she was too cheap to replace.
Ah, hindsight. You are one giant, ruthless bitch.
“Fine,” I manage, cheeks blazing. With as much dignity as I can muster—which isn’t much—I push the chair back, stand, set my handbag on the desk, and readjust the chair, all the while acutely aware of Michael’s presence.
He must think I’m an absolute train wreck of a human being. He must think I’m a stuttering, clumsy fool who doesn’t have the coordination God gave a one-legged goat. He must think—
“I think we need to replace that chair.” He frowns at the object in question as if it has offended him by refusing to more stoically bear my weight.
I take that as evidence of his chivalry and nearly swoon. I catch myself before my knees give out and try to casually steady myself against the desk, but I’m too far away, so my casual lean turns into a highly awkward sideways stagger until my thigh collides with the edge of the desk with a thunk that topples the jar of pens next to the computer and sets the calendar of Grumpy Cat swinging from side to side.
I would literally kill a small child right now for the power of invisibility.
“You seem as out of sorts as I am,” says Michael with a melancholy smile. “I hope your Saturday was better than mine.”
I freeze. Ohmigod. Was that an invitation to talk about his personal life? Is he asking me about my personal life? What do I do? What should I say?
After a few moments, when it becomes clear I’m unable to act like a functioning adult, Michael’s smile falters. “Well, I’ll let you get to it.”
When he turns to leave, I blurt, “Yes!”
Startled again, Michael looks back at me with wide eyes. “Sorry?”
I make myself a promise that if I can just get through the next sixty seconds without acting like an insane asylum escapee, I’ll treat myself to dinner at the Italian place down the street from my apartment, a bottle of wine and all.
“I meant, yes, I’m out of sorts.” I say this robotically, concentrating on making my lips form the right sounds while my hormones are doing five-hundred-mile-per-hour laps around my nervous system in Formula One racing mode. “I haven’t been sleeping well the last few nights. I have a new neighbor who’s apparently trying to turn the rest of us in the building deaf with his music. I didn’t realize stereos could be used as torture devices.”
The tiny lines around Michael’s blue eyes crinkle charmingly. My heart palpitations are so extreme, I stand there and try not to die.
“I had a neighbor like that once.”
I can’t picture anyone inhuman enough to disturb this beautiful creature in his home, which is probably a golden castle in the clouds staffed by cherubs and unicorns. “What did you do?”
A dimple flashes in his cheek, and all my hormones abandon their mad dash around my veins and collapse into a sighing pile at Michael’s feet.
“I went over to his house, explained that he was disturbing me, and asked him to stop.”
“And that worked?”
“No, that actually made it worse. So then I beat him up.” He laughs at my shocked expression. “I’m kidding. I made a noise complaint to the police, and they took care of it.”
Because all my concentration has switched from forming words to battling the urge to lean in and sniff Michael’s neck, when I try to smile I end up weirdly baring my teeth instead.
“That’s probably what you should do,” says Michael, eyeing me warily. I’m sure he’s wondering if he’s going to need something sharp to defend himself with.
Dear Jesus, just take me. Please just kill me now.
“You’re right. I know you’re right.” Overcome with the urge to slam my face over and over onto my desk, I nod like a bobblehead. “But he lives right across the hall from me, and I wouldn’t want to have to see him after that. He’d know it was me who snitched on him because I’ve already confronted him about it.”
A small, adorable crease forms between Michael’s eyebrows. “Are you worried he’ll retaliate? Is this guy some kind of thug?”
I know it’s only my imagination that makes Michael’s expression and tone of voice seem concerned, but my heart doesn’t care. It begins to beat wildly against my rib cage like it’s attempting to break out of prison.
My rabid badger smile makes a reappearance. “Well, he is a rugby player! Who knows what the guy is capable of!”
Joellen, you’re as useless as snake mittens.
But Michael seems to find truth in my ridiculous statement, because his eyes widen in alarm. “Good God, you live next to a rugby man? That’s like living next to a silverback gorilla! Definitely don’t confront him again, Joellen. Let the authorities handle it.”
“Really?”
He nods vigorously. “Believe me, I had my share of run-ins with the daft buggers when I was at Oxford. They’re animals. Animals who’re in love with themselves. Rugby players take the term egomaniac to a whole new level.”
I find myself nodding my head, too. “Yeah, that basically describes Cameron McGregor in a nutshell.”
Michael’s brows shoot up. “Your neighbor is Cameron McGregor?”
Why does he look so horrified? “Um, yes?”
“The captain of the Scotland national union team, the Red Devils? That Cameron McGregor?”
“Honestly, I have no idea what team he plays for—”
“Six foot six, messy brown hair, built like a skyscraper, covered in tattoos?”
“That sounds like him, yes.”
Michael pulls a face. “Christ. You might want to move.”
My heart sinks. “Oh God. That sounds bad.”
“I don’t know how closely you follow sports, but your neighbor is all over the papers, and usually not for his performance on the pitch. Bar fights, sex scandals, being drunk and disorderly in public . . . McGregor’s temper is almost as notorious as his women. The UK gossip rags call him Prince Pantydropper because of the sheer number of his conquests.”
Michael wrinkles his nose as he says the nickname, proving beyond a doubt that he’s a gentleman of the first order. Only a truly fine man of exceptional character would look down on the ability to cause a horde of women to drop their drawers.
“He’s well on his way to earning that title on this side of the pond, too,” I grumble, thinking of stand-up sex and strip poker parties. I’m afraid of what I’ll go home to tonight. The kiddie pool Jell-O wrestling match suddenly doesn’t seem so far-fetched. I sigh, shaking my head. “I hope I don’t run into him in the hallway again.”
“Steer clear of him, Joellen.”
Michael says that with thrilling firmness, with dominance, like it’s an order he expects to be obeyed. Why that should make my ovaries sit up and beg—tongues out, tails wagging—I don’t know, but Lord I wish he’d use that tone again.
Preferably while I’m bent over his knee with my knickers around my ankles.
Inspecting my face, Michael cocks his head. “Your cheeks just turned bright red. Are you feeling all right?”
“Yep. Peachy keen,” I say, my voice strangled.
Jesus? Satan? Aliens from outer space? Anybody who feels like claiming the life of a sad-sack copyeditor can step right up. Bonus points if you hurry.
“Did I say something wrong? I hope I haven’t offended you.”
Now he looks at me with alarm evident in his baby blues. It’s probably only because he’s my boss and he doesn’t want to get sued for sexual harassment, but for a moment I allow myself to simply bask in the pleasure of being the object of worry from a beautiful, elegant man.
Looking at my feet, I mutter, “Nothing you say could ever be offensive to me. I’m just . . .”
“Out of sorts.”
I glance up to find Michael smiling at me. He must’ve guessed the effect he has on me, because his smile is the gracious, benevolent one a king would send a beggar as he drove by in his gilded carriage, tossing coins out the window.
Can this man do anything wrong?
“Yes. Exactly.” I nod, starry eyed. “Out of sorts.”
“We both are.” His smile falters. He glances away. His eyes darken, and a thundercloud seems to pass over his face. In a different voice, he says, “I wish my only problem were a noisy neighbor.”
That’s it. Since he’s standing here talking to me, treating me like a real human being, and dangling a juicy tidbit about his personal life out there—again—I’m going for it.
“Is everything . . . okay?”
He glances back at me. His jaw works for a moment, then he makes a pronouncement so unexpected it nearly knocks me off my feet.
“I’m getting divorced.”
“Oh!” I cover my mouth with my hand. “Michael, I’m so sorry!”
I am not sorry, not one tiny bit, and have probably just damned myself to hell for that flat-out lie and how jubilant I feel hearing this poor man’s awful news. His marriage is falling apart, and meanwhile I could light up ten city blocks with my joyous glow. I’m incandescent with bliss and have to restrain myself from doing a happy dance around my cubicle.
I’m a terrible, terrible person.
“Thank you,” he says solemnly. “Though it wasn’t exactly unexpected. We’ve been having problems for years . . .”
He trails off, lost in thought, while I begin to mentally design my wedding dress and plan our honeymoon. Then he shakes himself out of his fugue and smiles. It looks almost bashful.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I told you that. Nobody else knows. We haven’t even told our families yet.”
His eyes plead with me to be discreet with his secret, so of course I rush to set his mind at ease. “You have my word I won’t say a thing to anyone.” That sounds much more convincing than my next sentence, which is another whopping lie. “I’m just so sorry this is happening to you.”
Michael looks at me for a beat longer than is comfortable, then murmurs, “Thank you, Joellen. You’re always so nice.”
Nice? I’m nice? Is that nice like a comfortable pair of shoes, or nice like a lap dance?
Michael smoothly changes the subject so I don’t have to give myself a brain aneurysm trying to decode the meaning of an innocuous four-letter word. “So, are you coming to the office holiday party?”
The office holiday party is an annual exercise in humiliation for me, akin to having all my skin peeled off and being thrown into a vat of hot salt water. I’m not exactly an extrovert to begin with, but standing around in a group of my peers nursing a glass of bad red wine while dressed in an outfit that looked fine at the store but somehow morphs into a clown costume when out in public is right up there on the Holidays Suck list.
Inevitably, I will spill food down the front of my blouse, blurt something borderline offensive or outright pathetic, and be ignored or pitied by pretty much everyone. Then Portia will come stand next to me with her withering smile, reeking of disdain, and I’ll retreat to a dark corner of whatever overpriced ballroom we’re in so I can indulge in self-loathing and cram my face with fatty finger foods to my heart’s content.
But every year Michael goes, so every year I go. And this year, he’s getting divorced.
“Yes.” I surprise myself at how enthusiastic I sound. “I’ll definitely be there.”
“Good. Will you save me a dance?”
His smile is warm, and so are my nether regions.
Holy moly. Michael Maddox wants to dance with me at the holiday party, in front of other people. Hell has officially frozen over.
“Sure,” I say casually, as if my digestive tract hasn’t just turned into a quaking bowl of jelly.
He smiles at me for a moment longer, then inclines his head in farewell and turns to leave. I watch him stride down the hall, his gait easy and confident, his posture much lighter than before. Then I’m struck by a thunderbolt of terror.
The office holiday party is in less than a month.
I throw myself into my chair, fire up my computer, and google How to lose forty pounds fast.