Chapter Four
Over the next week things seemed to go back to normal. No more kidnappings and no more guys from the past showing up to kiss me. Well, Riker may not have shown up in person but twice this week I found notes taped to the door of our office. Each with the same phone number. Too bad they ended up in the same place the first one did, the trash.
Missy has set up six interviews for today, so we are cleaning up the office some. It doesn’t need much done since we spent all day Saturday moving everything around, cleaning, and adding two new work desks. None of the girls wanted to share a desk, and I don’t blame them, so we had to redo the layout of the office to add in two new desks. We also added another small desk in the back office. That way I can keep my desk where I work on my laptop in there and the person taking over most of the computer work will have a place to work too.
To fit in the new desks, we had to cut into our relaxation area. It was just a small part of the office that we chilled in while eating or when we need to have a meeting. We had two sofas, and three plush chairs that sat around a small coffee table. We had to remove one of the sofas but was were able to add another chair to the area.
The first interview is set to start in the next few minutes. Missy got some folding chairs and set them up in the hallway incase some of the people came early. We want only one interviewer at a time in the studio. They all made me promise not to just hire the first one I liked. It’s no secret I’m not good at interviewing people. The only time I ever did this was when we were going to hire a cleaning company. The first lady was nice, and I thought cool we’ll just hire her. I cancelled all the people after her and hired her on the spot. I learned fast that just because someone was nice didn’t mean they could get the job done. Poor girl only lasted two days. After that we started having Saturday clean up days at least twice a month.
Three hours later I was in a cranky mood and was ready to kill the idea of hiring anyone. We have two more interviews today but if they are like the first four I’m going to end up hitting someone.
The first person, a woman in her early twenties, named Candi, was more interested in what our employee discount was then what her job would be. I needed people who cared more about making the jewelry, not buying it. The second one was just as bad, and even asked if she would be allowed to wear the jewelry and bring it back before it sold. Missy cut her interview short after that.
Now, the third one, a woman named Jackie, wasn’t too bad. She was the longest interview so far. I even had her try out our most basic design to see how she worked with the tools, and to see if she would need much training. There was no doubt in my mind she could do the job my only problem with her was she was extremely hyper and liked to talk over people. She didn’t do it to me as much as she did to the other girls. I’m guessing it because I was introduced as the owner. If one of the other girls was asking her something she would cut them off or ignore them all together only to ask me what someone else was just explaining to her. I can’t really see someone like that fitting in here with us at the office.
Sadly, the fourth person was a no show. They didn’t even have the courtesy to call and tell us they weren’t coming. This at least gave us all a little break in between interviews.
“This is harder than I thought it would be.” Kristy moans as she flops down in the chair beside me.
“I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but this is ridiculous.” Heather says from across the room. She was making a new pot of coffee for us. “The first one just wanted a discount, the next one I totally got a thief vibe from, and that last one was too busy kissing Darcy’s butt to care if any of us were here.”
“Yeah Darcy, why don’t you turn around, so we can check your booty for lipstick marks.” Missy says causing us all to laugh.
“When is the next one supposed to be here?” Tonya asked after we all caught our breaths from laughing so hard.
“Well, if you’d lovely ladies turn around I’m right here.” We all jumped at the voice coming from the doorway. A male voice. What the hell? Missy didn’t tell me there was a guy interviewing for one of the jobs. Not that I care if we have a male working with us it just would have been nice to know.
“I’m sorry but who are you?” Missy asks him.
The guy giggles, yes giggles, as he walks over to us. We all stand and glance around at each other.
“My name is Morgan Wallace. I’m here to interview for the full-time position.” He reaches his hand out and waits for one of us to take it. We are still all in shock, but I quickly recover and shake his hand.
“I’m so sorry, we didn’t know we had a male interviewing today. I guess when Missy,” I point to my sister. “Saw the name Morgan she thought you’d be a girl.”
“Don’t sweat it honey, it happens all the time.” He smiles sweetly at me.
There’s no denying that Morgan is handsome. He’s got those rugged outdoorsman’s look. In fact, he looks kind of like a lumber jack. His long brown hair is pulled back in a neat man bun, that not many guys can pull off, but Morgan makes it look sexy. His steel grey eyes roam over each one of us as we do the same to him. I would say he had to be close to six foot six if not taller.
“Well, are going to just stare at him or are we going to interview him?” Heather tries to break the awkward silence with a really bad joke.
We all sit down and start asking Morgan the same questions we asked the others. With each answer I can see Morgan easily fitting in here with us. After a few minutes I ask him to walk back to the office with me. I have him sit at the new desk and have him load the new laptop in front of him. He explains that he did the books for his brother’s restaurant for over ten years and knew how to do all the payroll too. The only thing he was worried about was the website work, but I promised him that I would work with him and teach him what needed to be done. As far as I was concerned Morgan was hired but I needed to run it by the girls first.
After we finished in the office we walk back out to the main room and sat back down.
“So, aren’t you ladies going to ask if I’m gay or not?” Morgan asks and looks at each one of us slowly.
“I don’t see why that would matter.” I tell him, and it really doesn’t matter. “Gay, straight, bi, or trans, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you can do the job and that you fit in here with us. My vote is yes, I can see you getting along with us easily and I have no doubt you’d do that job just fine.”
My answer must have surprised him because he lowered his head before saying. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that. It’s not easy being a straight guy who looks, sounds, and sometimes even acts like he’s gay. I get all the hate from people who hate gays when I’m not even gay.”
“I don’t care what you are, my vote is yes too.” Missy says.
The others all say yes at the same time.
“Welcome to Designs by Darcy, Morgan. I think you’re going to like it here.” I say as we all stand to welcome our new co-worker.
Morgan hangs around to chitchat until the last interview shows up. I can tell right away she won’t work. We are very casual here at the office. Jeans, t-shirt, and even some days we wear pjs. This lady walks in wearing a cocktail dress. How her goods weren’t showing I do not know. Her five inches heel had her towering over all of us. When she starts walking around the room, feeling comfortable enough to touch things on two of the girls desks I knew I had to put a stop to this. I told her, as nicely as I could, that I didn’t see it working out for her. She huffed at me and stormed out. Oh well, at least we got one new employee from this crazy day.
It was after four in the afternoon when all the interviews were finally over. I told the girls they could head on home. Yeah, they could have gotten some work done but I think everyone was a little worn out from all the craziness.
I needed to send out some invoices, organize the order sheets, and check the website before I could leave. I lock the door behind everyone, turn some music on and head to the back office. I hadn’t been back there long when the intercom buzzed. It confused me at first because we never use the intercom. It’s connected to the door of our office. If someone who doesn’t have our code wants in they have to buzz the intercom and wait for someone to let them in. Only thing is we all have the code and we don’t let many people in the office and never unannounced.
Luckily the landlord of this building is a tech lover. Along with having pin codes to get in the main door downstairs we have one panel in our office that has a small screen that shows us the outside of our doorway, letting us know who is there without opening the door. When we moved in I asked the landlord to move that panel into the back office instead of by the door. I thought it would be safer for when I was here alone. Turns out I was right.
As quietly as possible, I walk over to the panel and touch the screen making the picture pop up. I silently groan when I see Riker standing there. I don’t even have to ask how he got in the building. All anyone has to do is hit the button for the yoga studio and get buzzed in. They don’t even ask who is there, they just hit the open button and let anyone and everyone in the building.
I watch as Riker hit the intercom button three more times. I’m praying he goes away but it doesn’t look like he’s going too. Guess I’m gonna have to make him go away. I slowly and calmly walk to the door, flip the lock, and open it.
Riker doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t smile, doesn’t move, doesn’t do anything. He just stares at me. After a few couple of this I was done. I shrugged my shoulders and moved to close the door on him. That got him moving, just in the wrong direction. His hand slaps the door and pushes it open. Before I can even get one word out he has his hand on the back of my neck and jerks me up against him. His lips are on mine but this time I fight back instead of melting into him.
I press my lips together as tight as I can as I ball my fists up and beat on his chest. It takes him a second to realize I’m not going to kiss him back. He finally pulls back but doesn’t let go of me.
“I’m sorry, ok? I’m sorry.” He says roughly. “I shouldn’t have waited so long to come talk to you.”
“You think I’m mad because you waited to come talk to me?” I hiss at him. “Riker, I’m mad because you think if you just kiss me I’ll give into it. It pisses me off. Yes, the first few times I did give in and kissed you back but that won’t be happening again. Now you need to leave. I have work to do.” I try to remove his hand from my neck, but he tightens his hold.
He leans down and rests his forehead on mine. I can feel his warm breath on my skin. “Please stop asking me to leave.” He sighs. “I can’t help but kiss you because I remember our first kiss at Cali’s. I remember how with just one touch of your lips my whole body felt like it had been electrocuted from the inside out. That night you woke up something in me and ever since you have haunted me. Not only my dreams but every minute of every day.”
I try to take in what he’s telling me, but it can’t be true. This has to be a pick-up line or something like that. Or this could be one big joke. He could be doing all this because I shot him down and now he is trying to get me to give in only to say gotcha and laugh at me.
Using the anger that has built up thinking this could be a joke I push hard on his chest knocking him back into the wall. This makes him let go of my neck and I make sure to put several feet of distance between us.
“I’m not in the mood for pick up lines or bad jokes Riker. Take all the bullshit you just spewed and leave. Also, stop taping notes to my door. I’m not going to call you. I don’t know what you’re up too but I’m no longer that weak, scared little girl you used to know. So, just leave and don’t come back.”
The look on his face shows that my words shocked him, but he recovered quickly. “Pick up lines? Bad jokes? Are you serious Darcy?” He runs his hand through his hair as he lets out a frustrated grunt. “I know what we did to you in school was wrong, but like you just said you aren’t some scared weak little girl anymore, I’m not that jerk you used to know. What? Do you think only you can change? That others can’t change their ways too? This isn’t some bad joke, and I don’t use pick up lines. For crying out loud Darcy please tell me I’m not the only one who felt the connect between us that night.”
I close my eyes as I inwardly cuss myself. He’s right. Now I feel like a jerk. I keep saying I’m not the girl I used to be, but I keep holding on to the fact that he was still the jerk from school. If I changed, then he could have too. And I did feel a connection that night, I’m just not ready to tell him that.
“Darcy?” Riker says softly. I didn’t even hear him move but he’s right in front of me now. “Please say something baby.”
“I don’t like being called baby.” I mutter. It’s true I’m not a fan of that nickname but I have no clue why I just told him that.
He chuckles. “What do you like being called?”
“Darcy is fine.” I tell him.
His face turns serious. “Why did you think me coming here was a bad joke?”
I try to look away, but he cups my cheek, lifting my face until our eyes meet again.
“I thought maybe since I ran you off that night, and since I didn’t call the number you kept leaving me, that maybe this was you trying to get me to give in and then you’d say gotcha and laugh at me.” I keep my eyes locked on his and watch the emotions change in his eyes. The look of anger I expected but the look of hurt and sadness I didn’t.
“I wouldn’t do that Darcy. I don’t know how I’m going to do it but I’m going to prove to you that I’ve changed.” He rests his forehead on mine again and sighs.
“Well, you could start by not taping notes to my door.” I softly giggle. “If you think about it that is kind of a high school thing to do.” I smile up at him. but he looks confused.
“That’s the third time you’ve mentioned these taped notes. I haven’t left any notes on your door.”
I lean back a little, now looking as confused as he did.
“That doesn’t make sense. I found the first note the morning after…” I blush, he knows I what I was about to say. That damn kiss, well kisses, aren’t something anyone could easily forget. “It was taped to my desk that time. Then the next two were taped to the door,” I point to the front door. “On two different days last week.”
“What did the notes say?” He asks.
“Just a phone number nothing else. I trashed them because I hadn’t planned on calling you.” I bite my lip and look away, feeling embarrassed at how I had acted.
“We can talk about that later.” He mumbles. “Do you remember the number?”
“I think it was 901-555-7465.” I tell him and watch as he pulls out his phone and starts dialing. He puts in on speaker when it starts ringing. No one answers but when the voicemail message started everything in me turned to ice.
“Well one of my lovely angels got my note and decided to call the big bad wolf. Surprise my loves, I’m back.”