CHAPTER 7
JOE
The contractor Lana had called was delayed. He couldn’t meet us for another two hours, meaning we had time to kill while we waited. For now, we were out eating lunch at a local restaurant. Lana had invited the driver to join the three of us, but he had—thankfully—declined.
I’d been suspicious of the man all damn day.
I mean, did she always have this same driver when she used a service? Did he secretly work for Doug Maddox, too? He hadn’t said a word all day, but I had caught his eyes glancing at me in the rearview mirror on several different occasions, creeping me the hell out.
Speaking of Doug—fuck him.
Because on top of my paranoia about the driver and being antsy as hell, I couldn’t stop analyzing every single word that came out of my mouth. If I said anything too nice to Lana, would he misinterpret that? If I said anything too challenging, same thing? In the car I’d kept picking up my duffle bag and setting it on my lap anytime I had anything honest I wanted to say to Lana, hoping I might muffle the microphone taped to my chest.
I was three seconds away from heading into the bathroom and ripping the damn thing off. Not to mention that I’d felt my phone buzz in my pocket at least ten times. I hadn’t even checked to see who might be trying to call me because I knew it was Doug.
Our food arrived. I was too hot to eat properly. So I took off my suit jacket, turning in my seat to throw it over the back of my chair. I also loosened my tie, removed that, and then rolled up my sleeves, not caring that I was exposing my tattoos on my arms. I couldn’t handle the dress code a moment longer. Our table sat next to large floor-to-ceiling windows and the sun beat on us.
Kitty, sighing in relief, followed my lead. Well . . . she took it one step too far.
She unbuttoned her blouse, removing it completely, rolled it, and used it to tie her hair up as if her shirt were a bandana. All she had underneath was a bra/tank top thing that barely covered the top of her ribs. With her stomach exposed, more of the vast artwork that covered Kitty’s body was exposed.
Like brother, like sister, I guess.
Again, I didn’t even care.
We both glanced at Lana to see if she’d follow suit. She didn’t, of course, and instead, delicately picked up her hamburger and took a bite.
“What?” she said through a mouthful of food as both Kitty and I watched her.
“Come on,” Kitty joked. “Join us over on the dark side, Lana. Take something off.”
Lana chewed and swallowed her bite. “I’m fine.”
She’d barely broken a sweat today. I was positive Lana Bitterman was used to wearing suits all summer long. She did have an advantage, as a woman, because she wore a skirt and a jacket that was short sleeve—both pieces white. The woman always wore white. And as a man, my suit options were limited.
“I can tell you have curly hair and that you straighten it. I can tell because I used to straighten mine every day for years.” Kitty smiled as she spoke, but I feared she was about to take things too far too fast. “You’re part of the Curly Club, just like me and Joe.”
Lana set her hamburger down and touched her perfectly straight blond hair. “I do straighten my hair. Is it frizzing in this heat?”
“Your hair looks fine, Lana,” I commented. I wouldn’t have guessed in a million years that it wasn’t naturally straight. Not that it mattered either way to me.
“It does look fine,” Kitty added.
“Kitty,” I warned.
“Nah, I gotta say this. You know what I love about living here in Portland?” Technically we were in Washington at the moment, but that fact hardly occurred to Kitty. “You can let your Portland freak flag fly and nobody cares. You can say ‘Fuck you, Mom and Dad,’ and nobody cares. You can date a woman, you can date a man, you can date a goat, and nobody cares. Well, people might care if you dated a goat, but my point is, it doesn’t matter. And pay no attention to Joe. He’s normally not this boring.”
“And I can straighten my hair if that’s my prerogative,” Lana added, unfazed, taking another bite of her burger.
“I’m trying to tell you that when you’re with me and Joe, you can let loose.”
“Stop it, Kitty,” I interrupted, giving her a look, I knew she’d understand. Silent messages across dinner tables made up the bulk of our childhood years.
Kitty grunted, frustrated with me, and grabbed her plate. “I’m going to go sit at the bar with my meal. You can’t eat a fucking hamburger and not have a beer with it.”
“Kitty,” I hissed. “Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously.”
She took her plate and she left. Fuck, I wanted to scream. Today was hard enough for me, dealing with this new job, dealing with my own shit, and I didn’t need Kitty’s drama on top of it.
“I’m sorry about that. She’s projecting her issues and insecurities onto you,” I told Lana. “Don’t pay any attention to her.” I really didn’t have a clue what Kitty’s problem was, but I felt I had to offer Lana some sort of an explanation.
I watched Kitty across the room at the bar, smiling at the bartender as he poured her a beer. I watched her take a long sip of the golden, rather refreshing looking, liquid. “Christ.” I ran my hands through my hair, focusing my eyes down at my food, away from the beer, away from the temptation that now tugged at me, too. I wasn’t hungry anymore. I wasn’t in the mood to play Doug’s bitch-spy.
I pushed my plate away, glancing up at Lana across the table.
Lana surprised me.
She stared back at me, not with anger, not with judgment, but with concern. But then she quickly rolled her eyes, shook her head, and leaned forward to remove her jacket. She neatly folded the piece of clothing and draped it over the back of her chair just like I had.
I let out a small chuckle. “Welcome to the dark side.”
“It’s hot. Let’s be honest, I was just being stubborn.”
I laughed out loud. “Were you now?”
“Yes. But there’s no chance in hell I’m joining your Curly Club. I’m not about to go to the bathroom and dump water on my head. I happen to love my hair straight, just like it is. But your sister does make a good point, sometimes I’m too uptight.”
My eyes were locked with her eyes. And for the life of me, I could not break that eye contact. Some part inside of me was yelling, Back down, eat your food, shut up. But another part was so intensely focused on Lana, so suspended in the moment, so curious about getting to know the version of Lana that lurked below the surface.
I narrowed my eyes at her, playfully, just to see how she might react. Her reaction was this cute, sexy smile that crept over her pink lips, as if she couldn’t even help but smile , and it kind of made my heart race.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
It did more than that. It made my cock start to grow thick. I swallowed hard at my body’s unexpected, yet not necessarily unwelcomed, response. “Tell me something about you, Lana, something no one else knows.” It wasn’t exactly an inappropriate thing to say but definitely not appropriate to say to a boss. But let’s be real, this wasn’t a real job for me. She wasn’t a real boss to me. More like a means to an end. Who said I couldn’t have a little fun with her until the day came that I’d need to destroy her?
She took my challenge, still unwavering in the way she watched me, and said, “I like Weird and Wired’s coffee more than my own. Tell another soul that and I’ll kill you.”
I cracked up, laughing so loud that I noticed Kitty glance at me over her shoulder.
“Your turn,” Lana threw back at me, drawing my focus back to her. “Same question.”
I thought for about three seconds before blurting out the most inappropriate thing, “I haven’t been laid in two years and roughly a month.”
“Bullshit,” Lana deadpanned.
“Total truth. Scout’s honor.” I crossed an X over the left side of my chest. “My turn now.” This was actually kind of fun. “Biggest fear?”
She breathed out, leaning forward, resting her elbows on the table. “Damn. Um . . . Kitty was right. A hamburger does need a beer. Biggest fear, huh? I don’t know—burned alive. Eaten by sharks. My business failing. Never finding love. My hair straightener breaking. I think I could go on forever here. My turn to ask.”
I nodded, wishing I had picked a narrower question. But I did notice how she’d mentioned never finding love. It was a fear we shared, probably for different reasons, though.
“Why’d you drop out of law school?” Lana asked next.
The smile on my face faded. We’d been having so much fun and now I knew it was ruined. “Drugs, mostly—prescription drugs, my ADHD medication,” I answered honestly, but I didn’t stop there. I wanted to find out just how much honesty Lana could handle. “And then there was the alcohol. I’d been abusing both for years—which worked well for me, to a point. It was the only way I found I could balance everything, keep up with my school, and cut the edge off my ADHD. But it became these constant highs and constant lows, and it all reached a pinnacle where I couldn’t take it anymore. I was so fucked up all the time. Like, twenty-four-seven, messed up on one or the other, for years. I got myself into some terrible situations, made some mistakes I’ll never be able to take back, and after one particularly bad night, I woke up and decided I was done with all that shit. I was tired of trying to be something and someone I wasn’t. So, I gave up everything and become a barista. I’m two years and roughly a month sober.”
I’d killed the playful tone. Smashed it dead. Thrown a glass of cold water on it. I don’t think I’d ever been that honest with anyone before. Maybe I’d said it all for shock value—to see if I could shock someone as thick-skinned as Lana. Maybe I’d said it all to test her—to see if she’d look at me with the same smile on her lips after, which she wasn’t. Maybe I said it because I wanted her to know.
No matter the reason, Lana was quiet now.
I’d somehow regained my appetite. I ate my lunch, Lana saying nothing, in the silence that lingered after my confession.
* * *
The meeting with the contractor came after lunch. Turned out he—Abe—was a personal, family friend of Lana’s—her father’s friend. I felt a little like a third wheel as they joked about the heat, and about a summer her family and his family had spent in Mexico. I excused myself, saying I needed a cigarette, and stepped outside.
Kitty ended up having more than one beer at the bar and was sleeping it off now in the car. What a disaster lunch had turned into. I took this opportunity to call Doug—not to actually smoke. I mean, Lana didn’t need to know the cigarette she’d seen me with before had been a one-time thing. In fact, I envied smokers. Everyone should get fifteen minute smoke breaks, whether they smoked or not, to regroup and relax during the long work day.
Only I wasn’t relaxing on my break. I was calling Doug.
I’d missed eleven calls from him, had four unchecked voicemails, and he answered on the very first ring. “What is your problem!?” I snapped at him, walking briskly away from the building, just to insure nobody heard me yelling on the phone.
“My fucking problem?” Doug returned. “Where the hell is my audio today?”
“What?” I breathed out, slowing down. “What?”
“You did not turn your microphone on today, you little shit, and I’ve been in the dark this entire day, twiddling my thumbs, waiting on you to answer one of my phone calls.”
He hadn’t heard anything? My flirting with Lana? How lunch was practically a date. Where I’d confessed about my alcoholism and the not being laid in two years? He didn’t even know Kitty was here with us?
Wow, this was a relief.
And a wakeup call.
“I’m sorry, Doug. I didn’t realize. It’s been a busy day. I haven’t had a chance to return your calls. I’m turning the microphone on now.” I untucked my shirt and maneuvered the battery box that I had shoved down my pants, clicking it on. “There. Can you hear me now?”
“Yes. The moment you leave Lana today, I want you to type up a report for me. I want, word for word, everything that has been said today.”
“She hasn’t said anything we can use against her.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. You’re basically a walking microphone holder. Anyway, where is Lana now?”
“She’s inside with the contractor named Abe. I told her I was taking a smoke break.”
“Well, get your ass back in there! And don’t ever let this happen again.”
He ended the phone call before I had a chance to. I spent the next minute adjusting the battery box in my pants. I knew I’d been out of line today. I shouldn’t have been so casual with Lana. I shouldn’t have brought Kitty along. I shouldn’t have ever brought up the drive-thru thing. From here on out, I’d be what Doug wanted me to be . . ..
The Walking Microphone Holder.
Starting now.