Chapter 5 #2
“Afternoon would be better.” Not because I had a real conflict but because I wasn’t a fan of early mornings.
Especially lately, with the longer workdays and late nights chatting with CastGamer55.
Not for the first time, I wondered what he did for a living.
I could just ask, but something held me back.
Honestly, I was afraid that the more we got to know each other, the less he’d like me.
It’s not like that hadn’t happened with many other people in my life.
“Roxanne?” Jeff said, interrupting my thoughts. “Did you hear me?”
“Ah, what? No, sorry,” I mumbled.
“I said let’s do 2 p.m. tomorrow. It’s the only time Jonson has open this week.”
“Wait, how do you know that? Are you guys, like, buddies or something?”
He flashed me an irritated look. “No, we’re not, like, buddies. I just emailed him, and his assistant responded right away.”
“Fine. Tomorrow at two works, I guess.” I narrowed my eyes. “What about Sanders? Don’t think I forgot—”
“Calm down. I was just going to email her next.”
I sulked for a moment and examined my nails while he typed out a quick email.
His phone rang, and I nearly jumped out of my chair. He didn’t seem to notice as he frowned down at his phone and sighed. “A moment, please.”
I watched him walk to the other side of the room and speak quietly. His posture was stiff, and at one point, I saw his hand clench at his side. Finally, he swiped to end the call and palmed his forehead for a moment before returning to the table where I still sat.
“What was that all about?”
“I need to pick up my daughter from school tomorrow afternoon to go to the dentist.” His voice was tinged with frustration, and his jaw was tense.
My eyes widened. “You— you have a daughter?” I shook my head as I stared at this man I thought I sort of knew. “How can that be?”
His brow furrowed as his eyes met mine. “Well, Roxanne, you see, when two people— ”
“Stop. That’s not—I mean, you …” I bit my lip and flinched at the pain. “You really have a child?”
His eyes swept the room from left to right and back. “Yes. Is this hard to believe?”
“Yes—I mean no. Well, I-I just didn’t know,” I stammered. “You never mentioned her before. No one did.”
He shrugged. “I try not to mix personal and professional.” He exhaled heavily. “Unfortunately, this time couldn’t be helped.”
I breathed in and out a few times, trying to take in this new information. “OK. What’s her name? And why did you seem upset after talking to her?”
“That was her mother.”
“Oh, your … wife? Girlfriend? Or—”
“Ex-wife,” he said with a frown as he distractedly looked at his phone.
I frantically searched my memory, trying to remember if I’d heard he was divorced. A comment once or twice from Mari came to mind, but it hadn’t really registered at the time. Wow, Jeff had been married ?
“What?” he asked, confusion etched onto his face.
“I just …” My mouth clamped shut. Even though I didn’t like him, I couldn’t be as rude as to say that—
“Did you not know I was divorced?” His head was still tilted in confusion before a frown resurfaced. “Or are you just shocked that I was ever married?”
I averted my eyes to prevent him from seeing the guilt I’m sure was evident in my features. I pretended to look down at one of the documents in the top file. “No, of course not.”
After a long moment, he said, “Roxanne, you’re not a good liar.”
I gasped and then studied his expression. He didn’t look furious, nor did his frown look severe. He looked almost relaxed … no, he couldn’t possibly be. The man didn’t know how to relax. Especially not around me. It was always business first, middle, and last. Nothing but business .
Not that I should complain. Small talk and other kinds of discussions that weren’t directly work related tended to make me anxious and self-conscious. So Jeff’s all-business style kind of worked for me.
Of course, that didn’t mean I liked him.
When I finally started to reply, my voice sounded hoarse, so I coughed for a moment and drank from the water bottle I’d stuffed in my bag this morning.
Breathing out steadily through the awkwardness consuming me, I resumed eye contact and tried to change the subject.
“Anyway, so, the meetings with the contractors. Do you have to reschedule?”
Jeff looked at me thoughtfully and then shook his head.
“Oh, I thought you had to bring your daughter to the doctor or something.”
His mouth twisted to the side in a shape that was only a little less foreboding than his frown. “The dentist. Yes, I will need to miss the meeting. You can handle it without me, right?”
My eyebrows rose at the challenge in his eyes. “Since when do you trust me with anything in this project?”
“Consider it a trial run,” he said without a trace of humor in his tone.
I scoffed. “Seriously?”
“Yes, Roxanne. Seriously.” He crossed his arms. “You can handle this, right?”
I wanted to scream no because even though my event planning work required a lot of communication with other professionals, I was a lot less confident about this project.
But I could never admit that to him. Obviously. “Of course.”
He eyed me warily. “All right, I’ll forward you the email with the address.”
“The email address? Do you mean to send the meeting invite?”
“No, I’m talking about his business address. It’s not that far, and you have a car, right?”
I felt my pulse jump as panic set in. “Uh … oh. He wants to me et in person?”
“Yeah, that’s pretty typical for a meeting like this.”
I didn’t even know if he said it condescendingly or not, as I couldn’t pay attention with my mind racing frantically. Why, oh why, hadn’t I asked for details before agreeing to this?
You need to find a way out of this.
Think, Roxy. Think!
After forcing myself to take a slow breath in and out, I managed to speak. “Oh, darn, I just remembered. I have a conflict tomorrow. It’s … uh, it’s for my neighbor … Janice. She’s having an engagement party, and I totally forgot.”
Jeff’s eyebrows rose. “Your neighbor is having an engagement party on a Thursday afternoon?”
I tried to keep my voice steady … even polite. “I’m helping her with the setup.”
He stared at me for a few more seconds before shaking his head slightly and looking back at his phone. “If we don’t take this meeting time, his next open meeting slot is June 10, over a month away. We can’t afford to lose that much time.”
“If he’s that busy, he won’t have time for our project anyway,” I snapped.
“He is probably booked out on appointments with new clients, but when I mentioned Mariana’s name, they offered the earlier time. She’s an important figure in the region now, you know.”
“I know that,” I said, feeling irritated. “But maybe this is a good reason to meet with Jill Sanders first.”
“We’ll meet with her next week,” Jeff said firmly, as though I had no say in it. “Are you serious about the neighbor’s engagement stuff though? I don’t want to reschedule this meeting unless we absolutely have to. I kind of think Hazel would agree with me on this one.”
I scowled at him. He was probably right.
And he knew it.
“Fine.”
“Fine? ”
“You want me to reschedule with Jenna so I can meet with your pick? Fine.”
Jeff frowned for the hundredth time that day. “Jenna?”
“My neighbor.” I smirked. “Keep up.”
“Thought you said you were planning an engagement thing for Janice .”
“I … what?”
“Maybe you should keep up.” He paused and then spoke slowly, “Is Janice marrying Jenna then? Odd how similar their names sound.” I could almost swear he was trying not to smile.
“Oh, uh, yeah. They are married. I mean, engaged.”
He stared at me a moment. “Your face gives you away, you know. Your cheeks are pink when you lie.”
My jaw dropped. “They do not.”
“Oh?” He crossed his arms and continued to stare with an unreadable expression. “Why are your cheeks pink then?”
“They’re not,” I retorted. When he raised an eyebrow, my hands flew up to my cheeks against my will. “OK, maybe they are. Well, it’s hot in here. The heat’s turned up too high.”
This time, both his eyebrows rose.
If it were possible, my cheeks would have heated even more. As things stood though, I was already starting to sweat. I wanted to avert my eyes, but something in his held my attention. “Um. I mean—”
What did I mean? It was late springtime in Minnesota, so it was far from sweltering. Today’s weather was actually a pleasant seventy degrees, so I doubted the heat was on in the building. And I couldn’t admit to him the real reason I’d turned red …
Obviously.
“Believe what you want,” I managed to say as casually as I could—which meant not casually at all.
He looked like he was considering a response, but his phone buzzed. His keen eyes shifted to the phone, and a severe frown overtook his entire face as his eyes scanned whatever message was on his phone.
“Is something wrong?” I asked, trying to sound polite when I was actually just nosy.
His jaw tensed, but he didn’t look up.
“Jeff?”
Finally, he set the phone down slowly as he turned to me. “Nothing is wrong. Just an email from Hazel about an accounting issue I thought was already resolved.”
My eyes moved from his still tense jaw to his forearm, where his other hand was smoothing the light blue fabric.
“But you seem—” I halted when he dropped his hand abruptly.
It was none of my business if something was bothering him.
I didn’t care. And surely he didn’t care to tell me anything anyway. “Never mind.”
His sigh was long and pained. “I’m fine. But I need to go call Hazel.” Then, like an afterthought, he muttered, “I should never have let Hazel’s boyfriend assist with the books.”
My brow was furrowed as I studied his face. “Wait, you’re working with Peter?”
“Yes.”
“Since when?”
Yet another thing I didn’t know about my boss’s life. I tried to ignore the hurt creeping over me like an enveloping fog. “I thought Peter was great with financial stuff. He used to run a big company, you know.”
“I’m aware,” Jeff said dryly. “But this business is different. He doesn’t—” He stopped, running his hands through his short dark hair.
I’d never seen him do that before. It actually made him seem …
human. A little bit. After a slow inhale and exhale, he said quietly, “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it, Roxanne.”
I opened my mouth to object and then closed it.
Why would I worry about him or the finances?
I didn’t need to care about that. Despite not caring though, I said, “Hazel’s been leaning on you a lot more, hasn’t she?
You are busier than I thought.” I briefly considered asking if I could do more to help.
If it were anyone else, I would in a heartbeat.
“I told you it’s fine,” he barked .
Well then. He didn’t deserve my offer of help. Not that he’d even take it anyway.
“Anyway, I’ll just reschedule with the contractors. I have to go now,” he said, with both his voice and his face seeming more neutral now.
I nodded curtly and dug my phone out of my pocket. “OK, bye.”
He stood for a moment, a few seconds probably, before I heard a soft exhalation and footsteps as he gathered his things and then closed the door behind him.
How was I going to survive the coming months?