Chapter 9Jack
Chapter 9
Jack
My brother is trying not to laugh. “Wait—I thought you said she was a librarian type in her sixties?”
“It’s not funny, man,” I growl.
We’re seated under a white awning that flaps whenever the sea breeze comes in off the beach. The white sand beach and blue-green ocean stretch out before us. Morning sunlight twinkles off the terracotta tiles of the outdoor terrace.
I ordered some fresh-squeezed juice concoction called the 'Ula 'Ula in hopes it might provide the ‘mood boost’ the menu promised.
So far, my sips of beet, green apple, fennel, and ginger haven’t boosted my state at all.
I’m hoping my brother can.
“No—right—no, it’s not.” He presses his fist into his mouth and pretends to clear his throat. But I see the smile he’s hiding. “You made out with your competition without knowing it. Your work drama just took on a whole new flavor… but it’s not funny.”
“It sucks,” I grumble. “I mean, I have to fix this. Make it right somehow. I just can’t believe…”
I scrub my hand down my face, trying to figure out where I went wrong. Waves lap at the shore. The tide’s low, the surf not as rowdy as yesterday.
As I watch the water, my thoughts wander over the events of the day before. It all felt so fun. So pleasurable. How did I screw up so badly?
It’s pretty tough to think straight.
I barely slept last night. My body tossed and turned, and my mind did the same. Back and forth. Flipping, flopping.
One minute, I’d be stuck on how good it felt to kiss her. The next, I’d be getting worked up about some email she sent weeks ago, some underhanded jab she snuck in.
I think it was about four o’clock when I finally drifted into dreamland.
I definitely didn’t wake up feeling refreshed. Right now, my eyes feel sticky, and my head is stuffed with cotton.
My brother is much more perky than me. “It’s not that bad, bro. I mean, look at the upside. You said it was a great kiss, right?”
“That’s not an upside. That kiss is going to be major trouble. I have to work with this woman.” I groan, thinking about it.
Brett sips his coffee. “I don’t get how in all that time… hanging in the hot tub, dinner together… work never came up.”
“It did, dude. She said something about how she works from home, writing or something. She definitely didn’t say ‘sales.’ We talked about how we both have tough managers. Then we moved on to other stuff.”
“Hm.” He sips his coffee quietly.
“Come on, man. Give me some of that wisdom I always count on you for. I could really use some direction.”
“Gimme a minute.”
I finish off the juice and lean back. Though I let my eyes rove over the ruffly white edges of the surf in the distance, in my mind, I’m picturing her…
Hazel Thorpe.
Her wavy hair, her pink-tinted cheeks, and that Audrey-Hepburn-style bikini.
“This is so messed up,” I mutter. “I mean, we had actual chemistry. I’ve never felt it like that before. That strong. But… she’s Hazel Thorpe . The most uppity, pesky, pretentious Sales Lead on the team. She’s passive-aggressive, and condescending, and snobbish.”
“You can’t know all that about her. You only met her in person yesterday.”
“Sure, but I’ve worked with her for ten months, ever since I started with the company.”
“So, you know her only through writing. Messages.”
“Yeah, and her writing—her messages—piss me off. She’s annoying. I think I must have been out of my mind yesterday.”
I stretch my arms up and rest them behind my head. I study the water again, and this time, when a vision of her pouty lips threatens to take the palace of the rolling surf, I manage to push it away.
“It’s this place,” I mutter. “It’s too picturesque, you know? It’s easy to forget real life here. Get lost in all the otherworldliness of it.”
Brett crosses one leg over the other. He always reminds me of our dad when he sits like this. He cradles his cup and takes a long sip. “Here’s what I think. You ready?”
“Been ready for a while now, dude. You’re taking your sweet time, as usual.”
He chuckles. “You need to learn patience.”
I wag my foot. My legs bounce. A restless feeling surges.
If it wasn’t my brother I was talking to, I’d probably give up and walk away. But he is my brother.
And I want to know his take on what I’ve done. “Fine,” I say, “Yeah, patience.”
“Okay, so you’re so sure you can’t stand this woman because of how it is to work with her. Most of that is probably all in your head. It’s impossible to really get to know a person through work emails. It’s way too easy to conjure up narratives and create a story about a person that’s just not true. I think you should use this week to give her a chance.”
My foot wags faster.
The restless feeling develops into full-blown anxiety.
I’m pretty good at channeling anxiety on the rare occasions that it comes up. My go-to tool is my dirt bike.
I load it on my truck and take it to a trailhead. I pile on my gear, get on the thing, and rip around for a good few hours. When I’m in my helmet, looking at rusty red sandstone zipping past me at forty miles per hour, my world is all good. I’m too focused on the ride to let anything else get in.
But my bike is thousands of miles away. So are the red rocks of Moab.
I lower my foot and let my knee bounce.
“You always give good advice,” I say. “But… I don’t know… your inner counselor might be on vacation, too, man. That sounds like a really poor plan.”
“What, because you’re scared?” He sips his coffee again, letting that sink in.
He knows he’s pushing my buttons. He’s doing it anyway.
I grit my teeth.
He goes on. “Scared that kiss was too good? Scared the chemistry was too intense? Scared you might like her a little too much?”
That’s it.
I pop up out of my seat. “I gotta go for a run.”
He remains seated. “Look, I know the Jess thing was tough, and you got hurt. But, Jackie, that doesn’t mean…”
He might still be talking.
I don’t know because now I’m halfway across the restaurant.
I’ll pick up this conversation with him later. I don’t want to be rude or hurt his feelings, and I do appreciate his time and effort in giving me some good advice.
But that can’t be the right thing to do.
Get to know Hazel Thorpe…?
No way.
Sounds like a terrible idea.
She annoys me, I work with her, and—okay, yes , the intensity of our connection yesterday did scare me a little.
That mix of feelings doesn’t settle well. Since I can’t rip around on my dirt bike, I better go for a run. Maybe that’ll ease some of this inner conflict squirming in me. I promised to keep an eye on Ophelia and Jasmine from nine o’clock to ten, so if I’m going to get this jog in, I better hurry up and get after it.
As I pass the restaurant’s self-serve coffee station, I catch a glimpse of black and then a too-familiar sun-kissed shoulder.
Her slender arm, the graceful curve of her neck. She’s wearing her hair swept up today. Her back is to me.
I just want to get out of here.
I’ll face this mess later, after I get a run in. Once this inner storm passes.
My intention is to pass by the coffee station without being seen. However, there’s a squeeze point. I have to walk through the four-foot gap between an empty table and the counter where the coffee carafe and mugs are lined up.
Hazel’s standing in that gap.
I move at a brisk pace. So, when she spins around abruptly, she has to stop short, so we don’t collide.
Her eyes widen as coffee sloshes out of her mug, onto her wrist.
Once she gets over the shock, she seems to get annoyed. At least, her eyes narrow down to two slivers. She flicks the drips off her hand. “ Jack .”
No smile. No lingering look. No warmth.
Yep, she’s definitely upset with me. Not just about the spilled coffee, either.
“Hazel. Good morning.”
She backs up as if standing too close to me will contaminate her. “Good morning. Hm. I thought maybe I could grab a coffee before I—before we—” She chokes up.
“Well, it’s not like I turned up at your door. This is a restaurant.”
“It is, I know, I know. I should have guessed. Okay, let me just…” She slurps down a long sip of coffee.
Clearly, she’s not ready to discuss our after-dark activities.
She’s stalling.
I don’t want to talk about what happened, either.
Not yet.
Not while this battle is going on inside me, pulling me in two directions. A run on the beach might help me get a handle on how I feel. Action and activity would help me make some sense out of what’s happening.
“I wish you’d said something about being a salesman,” she quips.
“Yeah, well, you said you were a writer.”
“I said I write . And I do. Sales letters, pitching our services. You know how that goes.”
“No, I don’t. I’ve never written a letter about what we do. I call people.”
“Yuck. Really?” She screws up her features. “Cold calls?”
“They’re not cold after you talk to the same person a couple of times.”
“Oh. Well, I figured you were some sort of delivery guy. You know, cruising around in a big truck, sitting on the wrong side, brown shorts. Anyway… it’s a little late to worry about that. Have you checked your email?” Her jaw clenches as she busily pats coffee off her hand.
“Nope. Sorta had other things on my mind.”
She freezes for an instant. Her bare shoulders are stiff.
I see tendons along her neck tighten as she sucks in a breath. “Right. Hm. Well, I got an email from Devina this morning, and I saw she copied you on it as well. The Shopper Sharks marketing department is?—”
My blood’s now rushing, and my face feels uncomfortably hot. “Hang on a sec. Just—just hang on.”
She pats the cloth napkin along her bare forearm and refuses to look at me.
I can’t believe she’s trying to jump into work-talk. We haven’t even addressed the elephant in the room. “We’re gonna talk about Shopper Sharks like nothing happened?”
“Well, we have to. Devina wants?—”
“I don’t care what Devina wants,” I blurt. Maybe it came out too loud. A few tables away from us, a couple of college-age kids steal a look our way. One whispers to another.
I lower my voice a little. “Look, I know this is awkward and complicated and… confusing.”
She bites the inside of her lip. “Um, yeah. You can say that again.”
“Neither of us wants to be in this position. But we are. Maybe we should talk it through so we can figure out how to handle it.”
If I was on the beach running, my whole world would be centered around getting air into my burning lungs or pumping my arms. That sounds much more enjoyable than what I’m enduring here.
Where is the woman I met yesterday?
She’s gone .
Hazel now seems withdrawn, nervous, and definitely mad at me—like I’m the only one of us who did something wrong.
We both kissed last night. It wasn’t one-sided. I felt her hands slide up my back. I felt her open her mouth to me.
When we fell back against the door, it was because that kiss knocked us both off our feet. I wasn’t the only one who experienced the intensity of it.
But now, she’s acting like I’m a monster.
“I think we should talk about what happened,” I announce.
“Hm. Well, I think that we should talk about work because now we both have a task marked ‘urgent’ in our cues, and if we don’t?—”
“Hazel, I don’t care about my work cue.” I care about figuring out why I feel so torn.
I care about pulling these diverging parts of me back together so that my world makes sense again.
How can I hate this woman and want her at the exact same time?
Even now, I’m starting to feel it… that attraction. When she brushes her bangs out of her face and finally looks me in the eyes, a jolt passes through me, head to toe.
I remember how right it felt to lie beside her on that big beach towel. How, for those entire ten minutes, I wanted to pull her in closer.
Her eyes search mine. Her pupils are dark in their orbs of honey-gold. Golden rays filter across her face. Morning sunlight looks good on her.
“Jack… look.” Her tone sounds genuine for the first time since we started this discussion. “I know you’re a risk taker. I’ve worked with you for almost a year, remember? You’re the fast-lane type. Living big, taking chances. But that’s not me. I am a careful person… and I care about work. Devina assigned that task, and I can’t ignore that.”
“Okay.” I exhale. “Fine. Okay. I’ll look at my email. You said it’s about the Shopper Shark clients?”
She nods and draws in more of her coffee. “Yeah. I tried fixing an email sequence we delivered to them, but they’re still not happy with it.”
“Who’s not happy with it? I mean, who are you dealing with, specifically?”
She frowns. “Chad, I guess.”
“Well, there’s the answer. Chad won’t be happy with anything we deliver until he sells his house.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He’s up to his eyeballs in money problems. He went upside down on some two-story monster, and he’s trying to get out from under it. We talked about it for hours the other day. He’s really worked up… how he can’t sell the thing, how he’s been trying for months. I think at one point he might have cried a little.”
“He cried… to you?”
“I mean, we’re sort of buds.” I shrug it off. “He won’t be satisfied with anything in his life, work, or anything else until he gets his house thing figured out. The guy’s a mess. I bet we could send him hundreds of email sequences, and he’d find fault with every single one.”
“ Great ,” Hazel mutters.
“What he needs is a good real estate agent… You know any out in the Seattle area?”
“Jack, that’s not a solution that Buzzy Digital Marketing can offer. We don’t find real estate agents for our clients. I can’t believe I have to remind you of this, but we provide copywriting and advertising services, not?—”
I snap my fingers in the air. “Got it. Mark Whitley.”
“Excuse me?”
I already have my phone out. “Sweet. I still have his number. I’ll shoot him a text. He’s out that way, bet he knows someone. Dude’s great…”
I start typing up the brief message.
“How do you know this guy?” Hazel asks.
“I met him in the bread aisle.” I hit send on the message and slide my phone back into my pocket.
“You met a man in the bread aisle and got his phone number.”
I shrug again. I remember how the guy, Mark, was reaching for hamburger buns. He saw me in my KTM jersey, and we ended up chatting about motorcycles. “He has a vacation place out near where I live.”
“That doesn’t explain it.”
“You’ve never made a friend in the bread aisle?”
“No. And I don’t see how finding Chad a real estate agent would make him more satisfied with our copywriting services, anyway. This is ridiculous.” She shakes her head, takes a quick sip of her coffee, and then sets it aside.
When she pulls out her phone, it’s with an air of determination. “Look, I’ll just email Devina and tell her that we talked, and we’ll come up with a solution. We’ll nail down the nitty-gritty of it later.”
Her fingertips brush her phone screen. Her brow is knit, her lips pursed. But then, her expression brightens. “Oh!”
“What?”
“My mom…” She smiles at her phone.
There it is again—the stirring in my chest. Her smile lights up her face. “She really liked the photo I sent.”
“The one of us?” My voice drops because now I’m thinking of how it felt to stand cheek-to-cheek with her.
So good.
That photo I shared of us received a lot of love on Insta last night while I was sleeping. I woke up to hundreds of likes and a couple dozen comments.
“We’re photogenic,” I say.
She nods, still smiling. “My mom says that the snapshots of us made her day…”
Her smile fades. “I guess—I guess that’s the last of them, though. We can’t?—”
“Why not?” I cut in.
I want to see her smile again.
“Because… obviously . I mean, work.”
“It’s no big deal to pose for a photo now and then,” I say.
A text comes into my phone. I skim it swiftly. “Look, Mark will send me a contact in the real estate biz. I’ll call Chad to see if I can cheer him up. Give me time to get some stuff rolling. You and I can make a plan from there, depending on how my call goes.”
“Don’t promise him the moon,” she warns.
“Me? Why would I do that?”
“Because that’s what you do, Jack. Just… email me about how it goes, I guess. I’d like to give Devina an update by the end of today. I mean, this is marked ‘Urgent.’”
“How about we meet up at six? We can snap another of your fake photos, then hit the work stuff.”
She hesitates… for a really long time. It’s like she’s weighing a billion pros and cons in her head.
Finally, she nods. “Okay, meeting up at six is fine. But not in the hot tub.”
“A little too hot for ya?”
“Yeah. You could say that.” The pink in her cheeks surpasses a blush. She looks like she might faint again.
So, I do my best to save her. This time, it’s with words. “Great. Six o’clock, I’ll swing by your bungalow.”
“I guess you do know which one it is.”
“The pink one.” A memory of the textured stucco sneaks up on me. I looked at it, right after that crazy, amazing kiss. I can picture the flaky pink paint, the vines snaking up the side. Hazel, breathless and beautiful in the moonlight. “We’ll grab dinner.”
“Okay.”
I nod. “It’s a date.”
“It’s a work meeting .”
“Six,” I remind her, cracking a grin.
She rolls her eyes. “See you, Jack.”
“Catch you later, Hazel.”
She walks away… without looking back, even once.
Me? I can’t take my eyes off her.
Part of me can’t stand her—but part of me is already counting down the hours until I’ll see her again.