Chapter Thirteen #2
I figured it was safe to assume Reagan worked at the local one, so I set my GPS, and made my way there.
The Devil Tears Whiskey building actually looked like it may have, at one time, been a barn.
A very large two-story barn, but a barn nonetheless.
There was the nearly rounded roof that met the reclaimed wood shakes, giant windows that had to have been more modern with their black dividers.
There was a giant, barn door on a slider, leaving me to wonder how the hell they managed to lock the place down for the night.
The grounds, yeah, they weren't your typical grass. No. It seemed they were either intentionally made to seem as though they were carelessly allowed to go crazy, or purposely left as a pasture, the ground speckled with wildflowers, bright pops of color against the lower greenery.
The strangest part of the whole building, however, was the parking lot. Let's face it, businesses sprang for asphalt lots.
Not Devil Tears Whiskey, though.
Oh, no.
They had a giant patch of what looked like clover interrupted by small strips of concrete pavers just wide enough for wheels to rest on.
"Weird," I mumbled to myself as I pulled my car onto one of the sets of cobblestones. It wasn't hard to find a spot since the only car in the lot so far was a familiar black Tesla. It was parked in the only spot that also had a charging station.
And from the new angle in the lot, I could see a giant patch of the field toward the back overtaken by gleaming black solar panels.
"Alright then," I said, shaking my head, making my way toward the side entrance door. Finding it unlocked, I had to wonder why a woman who was clearly in the office alone would forget to lock the entrance.
It worked in my favor, though, as I let myself into the lower level.
Within, I found myself surrounded by a whole lot of nothing. Old advertising materials. Stacks of shipping crates. Five-gallon buckets.
It was more like a basement than anything, but there was a stone staircase leading upward, and I continued up.
The upper level was clearly the office space.
It was one of those open concept type areas, but some of the desk stations had dividers set up, and I decided right then and there that I could never work in a place where you would never find any privacy.
The wide-paneled floors were flat, the walls covered in wood very similar to the kind found on the outside of the building.
Some of the six desks were immaculate. Others were cluttered and full of personal items.
There were houseplants of all shapes and sizes scattered around near the windows, and the soft hum coming from a mostly-hidden air purifier in the corner. Beside it appeared to be an empty humidifier.
On the far wall was a long table that looked as though it had once been a regular wooden door, but was painted a bright blue color, and was home to the office coffee machine.
Not a pot and a burner, oh no, but the kind of industrial-looking machine you'd find at an actual coffeehouse.
Beside it was a water purification pitcher, mostly empty, and a wooden rack lined with different sugars, teas, and what seemed to be spices.
Weird.
Interesting, but weird.
Maybe they were the sort of people who put cinnamon and allspice in their coffee or some shit.
There was a large stainless steel bottom fridge beside the coffee station where they likely kept their milk and all their from-home lunches.
There wasn't a proper break room. And I guess that shouldn't have surprised me since we didn't technically have one either, always being the sort to eat at our desks or if we were feeling social, the seating area just inside the front door.
There were two rooms leading off the common area. Only one had a door. Which likely made it the bathroom.
The other was an open doorway into a room that didn't match the rest of the building, as it was painted a stark white.
Music hummed from somewhere inside, a song that I was vaguely familiar with that likely topped the charts in the nineties.
Moving closer, I got a better view of the room, with its long white table under the windows, compulsively neat with one large bowl full of fresh fruit, and one marble-colored cutting board with a black knife resting on it.
Moving closer still, I saw all the way in.
I saw the desk toward the far left—marble colored, but I had my bet on not actual marble, with a simple cream cushioned chair.
There was another long table behind the desk, home to a neatly stacked file holder, a printer, and a small radio where her iPod was hooked in.
The woman herself stood there as well, her back toward me, so I couldn't get a better look at her face.
Her body that I had rightly called long and lean, had a slight flare of hip and high ass clad in high-waist pants that were a golden brown color.
Her white tee was tucked in it. Her feet were bare, pink-nailed toes on full display.
One glance told me her heels were tucked under her desk. I could hardly blame her for that. They looked like archaic torture devices, all propped up on toothpick-thin, sky-scraping heels.
To the right of the door was a captain's chair the style of days-gone-by in a cream and green miniature leaf pattern.
A tablet in a shatter-proof case was sitting a bit barely on the arm, and a small blanket in a hunter green color was folded on the seat.
Directly in front of that, there was what looked like a treadmill on the ground.
Just the tread, though. No sides, no top with the display on it.
Just a tread.
I'd seen an advertisement for them once, and had clicked it. They set you back nearly a grand.
But, I had to admit, it looked a fuckuva lot better than a full treadmill jammed into an office.
Turning back, I raised my hand, knuckles rapping softly on the doorframe, drawing her attention away from whatever was in her hand.
When she put it down, I could see it was a picture. A large one framed in white, with her, the man from her Facebook picture, and a woman with dark skin and bright honey eyes, all of them beaming at the camera.
"Oh... you," she said when she finally saw it was me and not one of her employees standing there.
"Yeah, me," I agreed, giving her a nod, leaning back into the doorframe, so I didn't come off as intimidating. Well, any more intimidating than I already was, cornering a woman in her office when she was alone.
"I guess I should have expected you."
"Especially when you don't bother to lock the door," I agreed, trying not to notice the way her shirt neckline dipped low, showing the barest hint of cleavage, a bar-shaped golden pendant hanging between.
She seemed to be a woman of understatements. There were no rings on her fingers, no watch, no bracelets, not even any makeup. Aside from the necklace, the only other adornments on her were a pair of gold stud earrings in the shape of little Xs on her earlobes.
I found I liked that.
While I couldn't claim to have much of a preference when it came to women in eye or hair color, or even body shape, I did tend to be more drawn to women with minimal makeup and only a small amount of jewelry.
"My employees are on their way in."
I couldn't tell if she was stating a fact, or if she was issuing a warning: Don't try to hurt me because you are not going to get away with it.
"It's late."
"It's ten a.m.," she corrected. "You can hardly call that late."
"Why would you come in early, and let your employees come in after ten?"
"I read some studies that said people are more productive after ten a.m. I guess it gives them time to sleep in and wake up naturally. Or be able to take their time with their morning routines."
"But you?"
"Oh, I am up with the sun. Or before. Just how I am built. I get all my working out and such done before eight, so there is no reason for me not to come in and get started."
"You should keep the door locked when you're in here alone."
"Clearly," she agreed, giving me a small smirk. "Would you like to have a seat?" she asked, motioning toward the chair on the other side of her desk.
It looked hard and uncomfortable compared to hers and the one in the corner. But my hip was still throbbing and I figured sitting might help, so I pushed off the wall and made my way over.
"Oh," she said, her lower and upper lips thinning out, exposing her teeth, clearly contrite. "I did some actual damage, huh?" she asked, moving toward her seat, sinking down, hands spread wide to plant her palms on either side of the desk. "Are you going to sue me?"
"For a bruise? No."
"You're sure there's no real damage? You should have gotten checked out."
"You shouldn't have hit me," I countered.
"Obviously. It wasn't like I meant to do it. And you did startle and threaten me."
"I don't remember any threats."
"I distinctly remember feeling threatened."
"Then you are not remembering things clearly. I never threatened to hurt you."
"No," she agreed, nodding. "But you delivered an unfinished threat."
"An unfinished threat," I repeated. That was a new one for me.
"Yeah. You know. Like when you say something like 'I better never catch you around here again.
' That is an unfinished threat. Clearly, the person speaking isn't about to say that 'Or I will buy you a giant cup of coffee and a full stack of blueberry pancakes.
' Obviously, what is going to follow is going to be something, well, threatening.”
"Fair enough," I agreed, even if I wasn't too fond of the idea of any woman thinking I was threatening her.
"Are you here to finish the threat?"
"In a sense," I told her.
"Alright. Let's have it."
"Let's have it?" I parroted, brow furrowing.