Chapter Thirty-Two #2
"The office will fall apart without you, but take as much time as you need to get better.
And try not to be too offended if I Lysol you from head to toe when you come back.
Feel better!" she said, making her way toward the door.
"Oh, and I have it on good authority from the owner of a sex shop that the vibrator I brought you is aces.
I imagine orgasms have healing powers. Have fun with your guybrator!
" she called from the hallway as she left.
Alone, I made myself some tea as I looked through the basket again, taking the items to their rightful places. I even put the guybrator in the nightstand in case I decided to take her advice.
I drank my tea while flipping through possible documentaries on my TV, but mostly replaying our conversation in my head.
I should have been humiliated.
That she knew.
Not only was she my boss, but she was—in some convoluted way—related to Rush.
But I guess Fiona just had the ability to make you comfortable with touchy subjects because she was just so open and carefree about everything. I guess you had to be to sell your own used panties and build a whole phone sex operating business.
She was also one of the prettiest women I had ever seen. So she knew a thing or two about beauty. And on top of that, she was incredibly blunt. I'd once overheard her tell one of the girls at work that she sounded like a hamster stuck in a wheel when she pretended to orgasm with her callers.
So, like she said, she wasn't someone to blow smoke.
And she told me I was pretty.
Fiona thought I was pretty.
Rush had kissed me in bed.
Maybe I had spent my entire life seeing myself the way a handful of bullies had described me.
Those were things I needed to discuss with my therapist.
Once I got better.
I took Fee's bath bomb, filling my tub, soaking until my head felt less congested.
Later that night, I got a text telling me there was soup in front of my door, and I went out to find chicken and barley soup that was better than anything I'd ever tasted.
After that, I passed out for another eight hours, feeling reasonably better, able to breathe out of one nostril. But, hey, that was better than the mouth-breathing I had been doing the day before.
I was just taking the soup out of the fridge to reheat when there was a knock at my door.
"It's open, Ma," I called, taking the lid off the soup. "Fiona brought me soup. Do you want to try some?" I asked. “It is amazing. Like maybe even better than Gram’s soup. I know, that’s sacrilege to say, but it’s true…”
When I got no response, I turned, expecting my mom.
And seeing Rush instead.
"Jesus," I hissed, hand flying to my heart that had tripped into overdrive. "Rush, what are you... how are you here?"
"You're sick?" he asked, gaze moving over my robe, my bed-messy hair, my swollen sinuses.
"I, ah, yeah. That's why I haven't been at work. I caught something on the plane back. I mean, I think anyway. Those things are Petri dishes.”
"Probably because you slept in the cold that last night."
"You can't get sick from being cold," I told him, shaking my head. "It was probably from the plane. The woman next to me had twelve grandchildren. She probably gave me something one of them got from school. You thought I was faking it?"
"I don't... I thought..." he started, his hand reaching up to run through his hair.
"I'm supposed to be the one stammering," I told him, giving him a weak smile.
"I thought you were trying to avoid me," he admitted.
I wanted to say that was ridiculous, that I would never do something that pathetic. But, deep down, I knew I was capable of that. Just for a few days, while I sorted things out.
Still, it bothered me that he thought I was that torn up over a kiss that I would avoid work to avoid him, that he saw me as that weak and sad.
Even if I could be weak and sad.
"I have no reason to avoid you."
"You seemed to be avoiding me pretty well at the cabin. Talking to Beau to get out of talking to me."
Was that insecurity in his voice?
No, it couldn’t have been.
Men like Rush freaking Rivers didn’t deal with pesky things like insecurity. He was gorgeous, funny, interesting, sexy, and charming. He had the whole world at his feet. There was nothing to be insecure about.
"I was talking to Beau because he was talking to me,” I told him, chin raising slightly.
“All you did was stand there," I told him, stomach roiling. I avoided confrontation like the plague. Maybe it was the talk with Fee that had bolstered up my confidence. Because if he wanted to talk about that last day, I had some things to say. Namely, how cold and detached he had been, how he’d seemed annoyed and angry and had been a jerk to poor Beau who was just trying to make up for our situation.
"You're mad at me,” he concluded, sounding a mix of confused and surprised.
"I'm sick,” I insisted, deciding I didn’t want to get into it. I could feel the confidence Fee had instilled slipping with each passing second. “I will be back to work when I'm well. I'm not avoiding you. And I'm not mad at you."
Clear and concise communication. My therapist would be proud.
"Did you talk to Fee?"
"Yes. She brought me soup," I told him, waving toward the bowl on the counter.
"Don't eat that," he warned, eyes going wide. "Unless you want to get sicker."
"She assured me that she didn't make it herself."
"Oh, okay. Do you... need anything?"
"You know, I've been asked that more in the past two days than I think I ever have in my life."
"It's nice to have people around who want to take care of you. You should—“
"Honey, I brought you some—oh," my mom said, coming to a stop. "Hello," she said, giving Rush a warm smile as her eyes did an appreciative once-over of him. "I'm Lilly, Kate's mom."
"Rush," he said, offering her his hand. "We work together," he added.
My mom knew all about my work, got laughs out of the antics I often told her about, the way Martha would call men 'dirty little pig boys' while she knitted sweaters for her grandchildren.
She even knew that there was one male worker in the office. I had left out the fact that he was stupidly good looking and that I had been calling his line for a while now. That wasn’t exactly information you wanted your mother to know about you.
"Kate has mentioned there is one man there. I guess I always figured you were older like some of the ladies that work there. You'd think she would have mentioned that you were young and handsome..."
"Mom!" I hissed, feeling the heat rise up my neck.
"What? I'm old, not dead, sweetheart."
"You'd think she would mention something so important, wouldn't you?" Rush teased, smiling at my mother.
"I've always wondered about women who call into a phone sex line," she admitted, motioning toward the table, inviting him to stay in my apartment. "What are they like? Older? Younger? Married? Not?"
"It's hard to tell age unless they share that with me.
You know, I think, it is mostly different than it is for the men.
It isn't so much about the sex. It's about the connection.
Hell, the majority of my callers end up talking about their days or what they are stressed about. They want someone to listen."
"I get that," my mom agreed. "I've tried dating a handful of times since Kate's father, but I'd swear these men never heard a word I said."
Of course my mother had dated. I didn't imagine she'd been a monk. But she never really mentioned it around me. I always figured it would be awkward for her to talk to her daughter about it. But then there she was, talking to Rush.
Maybe the problem wasn't her, but me. Maybe I needed to specifically ask, tell her that we could talk about that kind of thing. Because I didn't date often, I guess it was just never something that was on my mind, so I never stopped to think it might be on hers.
"This is the part where I am supposed to truly humiliate my daughter by asking if you have an attractive, available father. See," she said, beaming at me when I felt myself blush.
"I'm afraid I don't anyway," Rush said, shrugging.
"Did you grow up in the area?"
"No, actually. My family and I traveled a lot.
But my sister Scotti met someone when we were staying around here, married, settled down.
My brothers and I decided to stay as well, put down some roots.
My brother King has a private security place in town.
Two of my brothers work there part-time.
Nixon has been working at a whiskey company lately. "
"No interest in private security?" my mother asked, and I could practically hear her thoughts: it seems a more likely job for someone than a phone sex operator.
"It took a while to get it going. In the interim, I needed work.
Fiona, our boss, who is an in-law to my sister, had the idea of me working for her.
So I fell into that. And by the time Kingston got things running, I was already settled.
I do pitch in here and there, though. I like the work.
I guess I am just comfortable where I am now. "
"It's always good to have a fallback. I work as a piano teacher in the summers when school is out. Kate takes online classes in her spare time," she added.
"Oh yeah?" Rush asked, his gaze slipping toward me.
"I, ah, yeah. I started a couple degrees. I would like to finish one of them." I left out the part about how I chose to do them online because the in-person atmosphere had been such an epic failure for me. Working at them at home on my own time was proving a better choice for me.
"What's the ultimate goal?"
"An editor," I admitted. I'd chosen other paths along the way, but my heart had always been in books.
"You'll have to send me recs of all the best MC and mafia books you come across when that day comes."
I couldn’t see myself leaving For A Good Time, Call... anytime in the foreseeable future. The idea of going on interviews gave me hives.