CHAPTER 23
Emma
This is getting ridiculous.
Every day with Krusk was making it harder and harder to stay apart from him. It didn’t help that he’d been single-handedly giving her more than a month’s income as a tip every single night he came to see her at the restaurant.
And it was very obvious he was there to see her and for no other reason. While he ate the food, he never knew what he wanted and always left it up to her. He stayed past closing every night, tipping her outrageously and then driving her home afterward.
He attended every single yoga class, attempting to bend himself in ways that didn’t seem natural to him and sometimes ended up with her having to rescue him from himself. And now, now she couldn’t believe he was standing in the mail room of the Magickal Bureau.
Every single other male in the room was wearing a polo shirt tucked into slacks, but this gorgeous bastard was sporting a full suit with glimmering ruby cufflinks that probably cost more than the entire sorting machine.
All I could do was blink as my boss lifted his hand toward Krusk, as unsure as everyone else standing here.
“So… we have a new hire,” he sounded out in a slow, quizzical tone. “And his name is Krusk Everlock. He worked as a VP of outreach at Everlock Securities previously.” He clearly had no idea why he would go from a job like that to the mailroom.
I looked away, not interested in knowing the answer. After all, we’d talked about where he’d come from. Hellplane is what they called it and when he’d explained the differences between our planes I’d been shocked that he’d come from somewhere so unlike ours.
He’d adapted so well to this world, it was amazing. I couldn’t imagine that I could have done the same. Different languages were one thing, but going somewhere much more technologically advanced had to be disconcerting.
And they weren’t just here, existing on this plane. They were thriving. He and his brothers had joined a clan and had even brought over their treasures, converting them into currency.
I wasn’t sure how much he had, but based on his lifestyle and spending habits, I assumed that he had amassed massive amounts of wealth. Shaking my head, guilt bubbled inside of me. He’d given me so much of it, though.
And for no reason at all. I hadn’t gone above and beyond in being an excellent waitress to him. In fact, I was usually slower, sitting and chatting with him and stealing bites of his food instead of focusing on ensuring he was taken care of.
Now he was here, and I didn’t know what to do. Staring at him, I tried to silently transmit to him that this was a terrible idea. His grin was feral as he rocked back on his heels, looking exceptionally proud of himself.
“He’ll need to shadow someone,” my boss said, and I was so busy trying to warn Krusk with my eyes that when everyone around me took a step back, I didn’t notice. “Oh, good! Emma, you’ll be his new trainer.” He released a gust of breath, relieved that the task was assigned without in-fighting.
I blinked at him before looking around and scowling at my co-workers. They didn’t look at me, avoiding my gaze. Some of them were even trying to whistle their innocence. With a groan of defeat, I moved toward Krusk while my boss hustled off and my co-workers scattered.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded, my voice a low hiss of irritation.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see him. That would be a blatant lie. But this was unexpected and ridiculous. We saw each other every day and we had plans to see each other again tomorrow to visit my grandma. There was no way I was going to be allowed to visit her without Krusk in tow.
“I wanted to see you,” he murmured, examining every inch of my face as if he hadn’t just seen me the day before. “And I know you mentioned that you worked here, so I thought…” he trailed off, giving a shrug that conveyed exactly what I thought it did. He’d wanted to see me, so he’d made it happen.
I shouldn’t be flattered. I should not be impressed and tingly at the thought of this male wanting to see me so much that he’d taken a minimum wage job just to do it. And yet, the warmth in my stomach and face didn’t lie. I was ecstatic that he cared enough to do it.
Clearing my throat and wondering if I had enough time to splash some freezing water on my face, I reached out to tug him by the wrist in the direction of the sorting area. He shifted our hands until his engulfed mine, but I shook it off.
“Sorry,” I said, not able to meet his eyes. “But we can’t hold hands at work.”
“We hold hands at the restaurant,” Krusk argued and I sent him a small smile.
“Yes, but it’s much more formal here. Relationships between employees is frowned upon,” I explained.
“That’s stupid,” he sniffed, but he released my hand and walked behind me instead.
“So this is where we start,” I told him, pointing at the carts already sorted and assigned to a floor number.
“Each delivery person the first cart for their assigned floors and makes their rounds; then comes back down and until the deliveries are done. At that point, you can come back down and help sort for the next batch of deliveries.”
We made our way to the cart furthest away from where we were standing and I pointed into the bin.
There were packages of different colors with notes from their point of origin.
“This is a Magickal Bureau so there’s a lot of potions and ingredients that need to be delivered.
We have to be careful handling those. On the side of the cart, you’ll see what the colors mean. ”
I pointed toward the left side of the cart that did a quick run-down with a color-coded chart.
“It’ll be easier with sorting if you learn this off by heart,” I added, knowing how annoying it could be to sort without having any understanding of what the hell anything was.
That was how I’d started and after two magickal explosions from mail that had almost ended in me losing my job, I’d had to learn really quickly.
“This is the hard part, but we’ll do it later. For now, let’s just take these up the floors,” I told him, and before I my fingers could touch the cart’s push-bar, he’d rushed ahead to grab it, giving me a big smile and gesturing for me to go ahead of him.
I shook my head before doing just that. “Thank you,” I said over my shoulder and caught him staring with avid fascination at my ass, his fangs digging into his lower lip.
“No problem,” he mumbled, his eyes never leaving where they were staring.
I smothered a laugh, turning back to head toward the elevators and adding a little swish to my hips. I bit my own lips to hide my giggle as he groaned behind me.