Chapter 3 #2
“Thank you for the opportunity,” I returned. “I’m excited to learn more about the Hope Center.”
Pride lit up Josie’s face. “We have a few minutes before Sophie can join us. I’ll show you around now.”
“That sounds good.”
Great, actually. It would give me some extra time to calm my nerves.
“Anita will be back any minute,” Sophie said. “I’ll catch up when she gets back.”
Sophie peeled away, her bright blue Chucks squeaking on the polished epoxy floor as she made her way back to the reception desk.
Josie waved her hand in the direction of a hallway to our left, while explaining, “Anita works the front desk, she had to step away to take a call. Sophie’s covering for her.
She also volunteers here from time to time.
We have a group of older high schoolers who are interested in building websites. Sophie works with them.”
“Did she design the Hope Center’s website?” I asked as we passed a few open doors to dark rooms.
“Yes. These are study rooms.” She paused in front of a door. “No outside electronics are allowed in these rooms. There are computers, but we’ve blocked social media, gaming, anything that will distract from actual learning and research.”
“Smart. My son is only ten, but I’m learning my procrastination gene is strong in that boy and he’ll use any number of distractions to assist in this endeavor.”
Josie shifted beside me, and with that, her hair slid to the side, revealing a longish scar along the side of her neck. Not old and faded, but not a fresh wound just starting to heal over. It was somewhere in that awkward stage between raised and red to fading.
She must have caught my startled reaction. “A few months ago, I was stabbed,” she told me.
“In the neck?” I gasped.
“No, thankfully it looks worse than it is. Some glue and that SecondSkin stuff people use to help tattoos heal did the trick.” Josie paused and glanced back down the hallway in the direction of the lobby.
“One of the boys I had to kick out of the program hid a backpack full of drugs under the sink in one of the bathrooms. When he and his dad came back to get it, the bag was gone. The dad thought I knew where the bag was, and he stabbed me when I didn’t magically hand over the bag.
” Another pause, this time to shake her head.
“My fiancé, Evan, came in before Saul could do any more damage to my abdomen.”
“Holy crap,” I breathed. “But you’re okay now? Healed? Physically, I mean.”
Gah, I sounded like a bumbling fool, but really, what do you say to someone who’s been stabbed? ‘Jeez, that sucks’? ‘Glad to see you’re on your feet’? ‘Sorry you were shanked’?
“Good as new.” She smiled.
I didn’t know Josie at all, so I couldn’t say for sure, but she sounded and looked sincere. And since I’d never know her as a friend—the kind who could pry the truth from her, maybe after a few cocktails which would lead to a bare-all-heart-to-heart—I decided to let the topic drop.
“I take it Saul has been arrested?”
Josie’s smile melted into a grim expression.
Seriously! I needed to shut my mouth and stop asking questions. I wanted this woman to hire me, not throw me out before I could even pitch her my marketing plan for the center.
“I should be the better person and preface this by saying, unfortunately. However, after what my family went through, I can’t find the humanity. Evan is a police officer; he shot and killed Saul.”
And…Yup. I stepped right into a steaming pile of dog shit.
“I think maybe I should stop talking now,” I blurted out.
Thankfully, Josie’s smile was back, but before she could hopefully let me off the hook, a young woman came bopping down the hall—and that was the only way to describe her exuberant stride.
“Hey!” she chirped.
“Lindy, this is Rainy Cross. Rainy, this is my girl Lindy Sanders,” Josie said, making the introduction.
“Good to meet you.” Lindy smiled.
“You, too.”
“Lindy’s an amazing artist. She runs our art program here,” Josie continued.
The art program I was there to pitch a marketing plan for.
“Josie sent me some pictures of your work,” I told Lindy. “You’re very talented.”
The pink that hit her cheeks was adorable. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me for telling the truth.”
Josie flashed Lindy a sweet smile. “I’m giving Rainy a tour while we wait for Sophie. Meet us in the computer room in five?”
Lindy held up her paint-covered hands. “Sure thing. I just need to wash up.”
Josie continued down the hall, turned left, and stopped in front of a wall of windows. Six men were playing basketball in the gym, three of whom were facing me, and holy wow they were hot.
“The gym isn’t open to the public,” Josie started. “But we allow the volunteers to use it at their leisure.”
I suddenly had the urge to volunteer at the Hope Center and learn how to play basketball.
The tallest of the group glanced in our direction and, jumping Jack Flash—with his chiseled jawline, if he wasn’t a model he’d missed his calling.
Unfortunately, Josie was once again on the move, ending my hot-sweaty-man perusal. It was a sad reality I lived in a perpetual state of look-but-do-not-touch.
It had been so long since I’d had a date with anyone beyond trusty-always-get-the-job-done Bob, I wouldn’t even know what to do with a real man.