7. Chapter Seven
Day Two of working in Gatsby’s, I almost put on a button-down shirt. Instead, I reach for another hoodie.
I only wear a button-down if we’re meeting with investors or I have to do something more executive than code all day. The fact that I wanted to wear a shirt I look good in to see Madison is a bad sign.
It’s not give-up-this-quiet-space bad, but I shouldn’t care about impressing her. I’m not her type anyway.
I shove my arms through the hoodie, grab my laptop bag, and head out, relieved when I’m the only car parked behind Gatsby’s. I let myself in and climb up to my new desk. An hour later, the rear exit opens, followed by the light footsteps of someone walking onto the main floor. Madison, I’m sure. I force myself to stay in my booth and keep working through a section of code.
She doesn’t come up to check on me or say hello. Good. This is the footing we should be on. Separate. In our own worlds, doing our own things.
It stays that way for almost forty-five minutes until I realize I’ve left my power cord in my car, and I go down to get it. I reach the first level and stop, not at all prepared for what I find.
Madison is dancing. She’s wearing earbuds, so I’m not sure what she’s dancing to, but I’d bet our whole next round of funding that it’s Latin music. And she’s good. She’s in sneakers and yoga pants, but she’s up on the balls of her toes like she’s in heels, doing the forward and back step with the weight switching from foot to foot, her hips swinging, elbows moving in a dead giveaway that she’s doing a salsa. She could teach it, she’s so good, fluid and fast, like this is in her bones, her low ponytail swishing against her back, damp with sweat. She does a hip circle that points her booty my way, and I swallow hard.
I should say something, let her know she has an audience, but I’m too transfixed when she thrusts a leg out and does this bouncy hip shake thing that makes my mouth go dry. It turns into a fast three-sixty with a head fling, and it’s too late. She’s spotted me, and I should apologize, but instead of freezing, she does another half turn so she’s facing me, grins, and finishes out a few more steps with another pop of her right hip in my direction.
I am now sweating. I am sweating so much. Much sweating. Madison dancing solo to music I can’t hear is a fantasy I didn’t know I had. I’m glad I’m in a dark hoodie that won’t show any pit stains.
She takes out an earbud. “Hey, Oliver. Am I too loud?”
I shake my head. Even the soft squeak of her sneaker soles hadn’t reached me upstairs.
“Okay. Is there something else?” Her expression is quizzical now.
“I, uh . . .” Why did I come down here? I glance around, and the door to the stockroom catches my eye. “I was going to my car to get my power cord.” I stand there, not sure what to do next. Apologize? Compliment her? I don’t know how to not be creepy right this second.
“Sounds good. Do you need anything?”
I shake my head. “No!” I fight not to cringe at my awkwardness. “That is, I’m good. Thanks, though.”
She aims a smile somewhere in my general direction, already putting her earbud in again. “Sure. Let me know if I’m being distracting.” Then she’s right back into her salsa, like I don’t exist.
I hurry out to my car. She’s a thousand percent distracting—her hips are a deadly threat to my concentration—but that’s on me. I trespassed on her area of the club.
I open the car, but before I grab the power cord, I do that body shake swimmers do when they’re getting loose. I stretch my neck from side to side like I used to do before climbing the starting blocks for my races, kick my feet out, and swing my arms back and forth. I even bounce a couple of times.
“What are you doing right now, Locke?” I mutter. “Get it together.” I’m not Mr. Smooth, but I can talk to a girl I like. “You don’t like her.” Need to say that so I remember. Repeat it, even. “You. Do. Not. Like. Her.” I lean in and grab my cord, slamming my car door shut. “You are a coding machine who codes machines. Go code.”
I nod, convinced. Right. Coding machine.
When I walk back in, the office door is open with the light on, and I glance in long enough to confirm that Madison is now at the desk. That’s good. Now I don’t have to figure out how to not be a complete tool like I would if she was still out there dancing. Instead, I nod in her direction and keep going, not even stopping to see if she noticed me.
I work for the rest of the day without an issue, and when I leave, she’s gone except for a Post-it on the back door asking me to make sure the lights and air are off.
The next morning, I’m there first again, and by midmorning I haven’t heard Madison come in. Did she notice me staring at her? Maybe I’ll get a text from her today telling me our deal is canceled and she doesn’t refund money to perverts. Fair.
A text does come in after I eat a ham sandwich I brought for lunch.
I come in around 3 on Fridays bc we’re open tonight. Forgot to remind you. Rest of staff will be early too.
Should I leave before that? Don’t want to get you in trouble.
Lol. No. Just warning you it’ll get noisy.
I remember her mentioning this when she showed me around, but it doesn’t bother me to have less quiet time today. I got twice as much done yesterday as I do anywhere else I try to work—even with the salsa dancing.
Around 2:45, I pack up my laptop and leave for the Azora office—the one I lease but can’t focus in—when I run into Madison. She’s climbing out of her car when I close the club door behind me.
“Hey, Oliver.”
“Hey.” I don’t even get to her name.
“Madison,” she prompts me. Like I forgot it.
I did. But to be fair, I can’t remember my own name right now as I watch her walk toward me.
Lots of tan skin. A hint of cleavage. Legs for miles.
Her outfit is white and dripping with flapper dress fringe, which makes sense for Gatsby’s. But this isn’t a dress. A narrow strip of her abdomen shows it’s two pieces: a top with thin straps and a tight miniskirt that comes to her midthigh. It’s a heck of a uniform. She’s dressed like she could be a VIP guest at any club in the city. She’s fully made up, and it’s a different kind of hot.
So hot that once again, I am standing here robbed of the power of speech. After an embarrassing pause, I say, “Hey, Madison.”
“How was work?” she asks. It’s a polite, friendly voice, one I bet she uses on all her customers.
“Good, thanks.”
“Glad to hear it. See you around next week.”
She strides toward the club, the fringe doing a gentle swing that draws my eyes any place it swishes . . . which is everywhere. I drop them, once again struggling not to be a creeper, but that means I’m watching her feet, which are in some kind of sandals that wrap around her ankles a bunch of times, the heels so high they make her legs look even longer.
I appreciate nice legs, but until this second, I wouldn’t have classified myself as a leg man. I am now definitely a leg man.
I force myself to walk to my car before she notices I’m staring, closing my door as she disappears into Gatsby’s.
We fall into a pattern for the next couple of weeks. I avoid the first floor until I’m sure she’s done working out because I have zero faith in myself not to behave like a clown. Otherwise, I nod when she’s running stairs, something I assured her wasn’t a distraction.
That’s a lie. But I don’t want to get in her way when everything else about this situation is working so well.
A couple of days, we arrive at the same time if I stop by my real office first. When we do, I form complete sentences and don’t let my eyes wander. I should get a medal. Or hazard pay.
I find myself thinking about her after I leave Gatsby’s each day, and before I get there each morning. And kind of any time, which isn’t great. Except that Madison always seems mildly surprised every time she sees me, like she forgets I exist until she runs into me again. There’s this half-second pause every time we cross paths where I see her registering and labeling me, like This is the Oliver person who lurks upstairs and uses the Wi-Fi.
Two full weeks after she gave me the first tour, I have to leave after lunch for a meeting at the main office. I head downstairs as Madison closes the office door behind her, her purse over her shoulder.
“Wow, knocking off early,” she says. “You sick or something?”
I smile. “No. I have a meeting.”
“You said that with the enthusiasm of someone about to go sewer diving.”
“Not a sewer.” I consider it for a second as we pause at the back door for her to enter the alarm code. “You know how if you forget a dryer sheet, your socks stick to everything else in the basket?”
She steps by to let me out. “Are you the dryer sheet or the socks in this analogy?”
“When I show up at the office, I’m the thing all the socks stick to.”
She tests the handle to make sure the door is locked, and we fall into step as we walk to our cars. “Sounds like you’re important.”
Yes and no. “Not as important as they act like I am. It’s stuff they could figure out if I wasn’t there.” This is pretty true, but there’s some kind of employee instinct that sends them my direction because I’m a founder. It’s part of why I prefer being out of the office.
“Have fun with that,” she says, stopping at her car.
Mine’s parked two spaces away, and I want to kick myself for talking to her about laundry. Laundry. I should say something marginally interesting. I turn, hoping something will occur to me in the next half second, but instead, I see her grimacing as she stares into her car.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“I have leather seats, and I swear to you, I wouldn’t complain about that out loud in a thousand years except that now I have to stand out here and wait for them to cool down because I wore shorts today.”
She did. Whoever made them needs to put Madison in their ads, because once again: dayuuuuuum.
“No judgment. I thought Oklahoma was hot—and it is—but Austin heat is extra . . .” I can’t find the word to describe it.
“It’s just extra,” she says, grimacing again.
“Agreed. You going to be okay?”
She waves me off. “Fine. Don’t be late for your meeting.”
I nod and get into my car. Mine isn’t bad because I have a sunshade in my window. I drive to the office, where I deal with the essential work and then about ten nonessential tasks, but the whole time the picture of Madison standing there, staring into her car, nags at me. I should have done something, but there wasn’t anything to do.
After 5:00, the office quiets, so I work for a few more hours to make up for the distractions when I came in. When I leave close to 8:30, I’m still not caught up to the production schedule I set for myself, but I did at least catch up for the lost time today. It’s something.
On the way out of the office, I stop by the supply closet and grab a windshield shade for Madison. At least her too-hot car is a solvable problem.
If only there was a way to solve being distracted by too-hot Madison herself. A solution besides finding a different place to work. Gatsby’s is otherwise perfect.
I have to swing by the office on the way to the club to sign some documents, so Madison’s car is already parked by the time I get there. I grab the sunshade and walk in, hoping I won’t be interrupting her workout. At least, that’s what the non-caveman part of my brain hopes. Luckily, she’s in the office.
“Hey,” she says when I pause in the open door.
“Hey.” I hold out the sunshade. It’s rolled up kind of like a yoga mat. “I thought you could use this.”
She takes it and unrolls it. It has our company name and logo printed all over one side. “You brought this for me?”
Her face is saying something, but I’m not sure what. It’s an odd expression. Maybe confusion? “It’s for your windshield. To block the sun?”
“Right.” Her expression doesn’t change.
It hits me that I’ve made one of two mistakes here or possibly even both. “I’m not trying to turn you into an ad for the company. They’re left over from an event we did earlier this summer, and I thought it might be helpful.” But she didn’t ask for my help, and maybe this feels like man-solving. I don’t even know if that’s a thing we’re not supposed to do, but I do know my younger sister gets on me for trying to solve a problem before I finish listening. “Sorry. I should have asked if you even needed it. I can take it back.”
“No, I want it. Thank you.” She pulls it toward herself before I can grab it, which leaves me grasping at air.
I slide my hand into my hoodie pocket so it’s not out there, clawing like a demented crab. “Sure, no problem.”
We both fall quiet, her still with that puzzled look. Not knowing what else to do, and sure that only more stupid things will come out of my mouth, I jerk my thumb over my shoulder to indicate I’m heading to work, then I hurry out to the club floor and beeline to the stairs.
My head better get in gear by the time I boot up my laptop. I can’t afford all the brain cells I lose every time I talk to her.