Chapter 2 The ution
The Execution
“So, Jordan, you wanna party with a real man?” Tyler cringed at his own words. “No, that’s stupid!”
He stared at himself in the mirror and was not at all impressed.
Being off the dating scene for three years had caused him to become a little rusty, but he still knew that a line like that, especially with a woman like Jordan, just wouldn’t fly.
He adjusted his tie, cleared his throat, and tried again.
“Hey, Jordan.” He puffed out his chest a bit.
“Wassup!” He did a little head nod, which was supposed to come across as bad-ass, but instead it looked completely ridiculous with him wearing a suit and tie.
“You wanna hang with me tonight, then go back to my…crib?”
Oh, jeez! That’s even worse. Not bad-ass at all.
If he were a woman, he would never fall for that.
Pick up line number seven hundred and thirty five had crashed and burned.
He’d been practicing to ask her out for two days now with no results.
This fake date needed to happen tonight.
Trisha went to Giovanni’s every Thursday and he could not procrastinate any longer.
So many times he’d walked up to her with every intention of asking her out, but then common sense got the better of him and he just carried on walking. This wasn’t as easy as he remembered.
The flushing toilet behind him reminded him that he was not alone in the men’s restroom.
He groaned and sprinted out the door before the anonymous flusher made his way out of the stall.
Preparation time was over. He was going to march straight up to Jordan and ask her out. How hard could it possibly be?
Hey, Jordan. You wanna grab a bite to eat after work today? I know this great place.
He nodded to himself. That was the perfect thing to say. Simple but to the point. Somewhat flirtatious but not misleading. He walked down the corridor.
Hey, Jordan. You wanna grab a bite to eat after work today? I know this great place.
Up the flight of stairs. Yes, it was perfect! It wasn’t too intimate. A simple question with no strings attached.
You wanna grab a bite to eat? I know this great place.
Through the glass doors. Past Stewart’s office.
Bite to eat… Great place…
He entered the open-plan finance department and exhaled a heavy breath as he neared Jordan’s desk. You can do this, he told himself. It’s a piece of cake.
“Hey, Jordan. You wanna bite my feet…I know this…grace…plate…”
Tyler felt like the floor crumbled from beneath him as soon as the words left his mouth, but he thanked the heavens above when he noticed that Jordan was still rapidly punching digits on her calculator. It appeared as if she hadn’t heard him.
“Sorry, Tyler,” she said, writing down the figure she calculated. She looked up at him and smiled. “You wanna try that again in English?”
Relief flowed through him for a split second before his stomach twisted into a nervous ball.
Now he had to do it all over again. “Yeah, I was just wondering…if…uh…if you…” This was incredibly awkward and the fact that he didn’t want to do it made it more difficult to articulate his thoughts.
He pulled out the chair in front of her desk and sat down.
“I was wondering…if perhaps…” Oh, this isn’t working.
“I was wondering if you managed to hand the financial statements to the auditors on time.”
“Yes. I made your changes and gave it to them yesterday morning.” When he didn’t stand up after she answered, she looked at him curiously. “Is there anything else you wanted to know?”
His eyes roamed over her face. Her dark brown hair was neatly pinned in a bun atop her head, as it always was, but a single lock had escaped its trappings and brushed lightly against the smooth skin of her neck.
His eyes followed the path of her hair, over the collar of her white shirt, and down to her breasts.
The same breasts he had sworn to himself he hadn’t noticed…
but he was definitely noticing them now.
They certainly are a perky pair.
“Yoo hoo! Tyler? You were saying?”
“Oh, yeah. I was checking to…see that…” Wow! Those are an amazing pair of breasts. “…that everything is running…smoothly.”
“Ah, I see. Well, you’ll be pleased to know that everything is on schedule and—Tyler…Tyler…my eyes are up here.”
“I know that!” He quickly lifted his eyes and there staring at him from behind a pair of black thin-framed glasses were a gorgeous pair of eyes. It was an odd shade of blue, almost bordering on gray, the color of the sky right after a storm had passed. They were absolutely captivating.
He found himself wondering how he had never noticed these little details about a woman he had seen almost every day for the past two years.
How could he not have noticed those eyes or those…
breasts? If he had to be completely honest, he had noticed the breasts.
They just hadn’t grabbed his attention this way before.
He took a deep breath and tried to focus on the plan he needed to execute.
“Jordan, I’ve been thinking…” His eyes travelled down her neck to her breasts again on their own accord.
Focus, he told himself. “You’ve been working hard these past couple weeks and…
” Is she wearing a lace bra? “…and I thought that maybe I could take you out for dinner tonight to…to say thank you.”
She stared at him with complete lack of comprehension and he felt like her gaze was slowly melting the skin off his face.
“What do you mean?” she asked hesitantly. “Dinner…as in…a date?”
“No! Not a date.” He laughed nervously. “Dates are for people…who…like each other…Not saying I don’t like you…
it’s just not that kind of…It’s just a dinner to say thank you.
” He noticed a change in her pretty eyes that could be interpreted as skepticism.
His eyes, however, moved back to her breasts while she turned the idea over in her head. It was a good way to pass the time.
“So it wouldn’t be a date?” she asked.
B-cup or C-cup? “Of course not. I…uh…I’m not even interested in you…in that way.” C-cup. Definitely a C-cup.
“Really?” Her one eyebrow lifted in amusement and she smiled. “I want to believe you, Tyler, but it’s a little hard when you keep glancing at my breasts every three seconds.”
Did she really say that? She couldn’t have.
He glanced around to make sure no one else had eavesdropped on that little snippet of conversation. “Pardon me,” he said in his most gentlemanly voice.
“You heard me.” She winked at him and he couldn’t decide if he was furious or intrigued by the gesture.
Tyler shook his head with maybe a bit too much vigor. “I was not…glancing at your breasts.”
“Oh, sorry. I meant ogling. You were ogling my breasts. You wanna wipe here,” she said, pointing to the corner of his mouth. “You got a bit of drool right there.”
It just keeps getting worse. Add to the agenda for today: Find an expert who can fix her brain-to-mouth filter.
He knew that she had always been straight forward, but he had not expected her to be that way in all respects. He admitted to himself that his eyes had drifted to her breasts once or twice…but ogling? He did not ogle her breasts. She had some nerve accusing him of such things.
“That’s it! I’m leaving!” He stood up and avoided looking at any part of her.
“I came here to show you that I’m grateful for all the hard work you’ve been doing and you go and turn it into one of those office sexual harassment cases.
You know it’s people like you who make people like me not want to do anything nice for other people. ”
Jordan simply nodded. “You wanna blame me for world hunger while you’re at it?”
He sneered his irritation and marched back to his office.
* * * * *
Tyler heard a knock on his office door before Matthew stepped in.
Looking at the excitement on his face, Tyler already knew he had good news about Hampton Homes, the business venture they had been chasing for the past eight months.
It would be a lucrative acquisition which had the potential to rake in millions for Diamond Properties.
It was an establishment of up-market buildings and townhouses, where rentals from the tenants more than covered the costs of keeping it running.
After months of hard work, it looked like they were finally going to reap the benefits.
“Timothy Coldwell finally caved,” he announced with a broad smile. “We just have to bring him down to the right price.”
“They’re gonna sell?” Although Tyler was interested, his tone lacked a certain degree of eagerness.
“Yeah,” Matthew replied. “I already got the ball rolling and set up a meeting for the first week in July.”
“Good job, Matt. I knew you’d nail it,” he said, still sounding a little despondent and Matthew noticed immediately.
“What’s the matter, Ty? You don’t seem happy about it.”
“I am,” he chipped in quickly. “I’m happy. Ecstatic. Overjoyed.”
“Well, you don’t seem like it. I mean, we’ve been after Hampton for months. I at least expected a smile and here you are looking like it’s one of those boring, mundane—”
“I’m gonna fire Jordan!”
His outburst kept Matthew frozen in place for several seconds. “Sorry, Ty. I think I misheard you. You’re gonna do what?”
“I just think this business is growing,” he explained. “And if we do buy Hampton Homes, things are going to get pretty hectic around here. Jordan can’t handle that. I just feel she’s…incompetent.”
“Incompetent? Tyler, have you lost your mind?” He placed his hands on his hips and readied himself for a fight.
“Jordan knows this business inside out. Replacing her would be a nightmare. Not to mention the fact that we have no reason to fire her. She’s great at what she does.
She can handle anything and you know it. ”
Tyler shook his head. “No, I’m not sure that I…know that. I think you give her more credit than she deserves.”
“You will never find a better accountant.”