2. Mistakes Were Made
CHAPTER 2
MISTAKES WERE MADE
COLIN
“ S hit, fuck, goddamn asshole. Mother clucking fiddle fucker.” Joanie digs her hand into her hair, scattering pens on the floor. This isn’t her usual ramblings about whatever she’s writing, and I’m almost out of my seat to see how I can fix whatever’s got her riled but hold myself back.
Carla leans over to peer at Joanie’s screen, shakes her head, mutters an uh-oh , and slides her headphones back on.
“What’s up, Joanie?” So much for holding myself back. I’ll try again tomorrow.
“My fuck-nugget website went down again. The little shit loves to piss me off.” She berates it like it’s an annoying little brother. I allow myself to get up from my seat and go around our table to stand behind her.
My first mistake is bending down over her shoulder and getting a hit of her shampoo. Something subtly floral, layered over coffee. Delicious . My body reacts instantly, and I dig my fingers into my thighs to keep from burying my nose in her hair.
Joanie’s oblivious, waving her hands at her screen and explaining what happened. Her screen goes dark from disuse, or maybe it’s scared of her. She’s all sorts of fired up.
Brushing her shoulder as I reach past her to wake her laptop screen is my next mistake. Because now I felt the warmth of her skin through her shirt. A split second of contact and I want to wrap her in my arms and bury myself in all her soft bits.
I manage to swallow past the dryness in my mouth. “Does this happen often?”
She throws her arms up and the last pen in her hair falls to the floor. “At least once a month. My web hosting company is so unreliable and their customer service sucks. They used to be good, but now they nickel and dime me for all these unnecessary services, and every time I cancel a service I didn’t sign up for, my website goes down until I talk to an actual person on the phone who then tries to sell me more things. Colin, how do I get off this roller coaster?” She howls the last part.
“I can help you migrate your website somewhere else. It’ll be easy for me to do, and then you won’t have to yell at your computer every month.”
“You’d do that?” She looks on the verge of tears, and I’m pretty sure I’d bury a body for her if it meant no tears. I shrug like it’s no big deal while inside I’m snarling at the faceless fuckers who are making her day miserable.
“Sure. Let me know when you want to work out the details, and we’ll get you moved over.”
Joanie grabs her phone and stands up suddenly. Her chest brushes mine before I can give her space to stand, and fire shoots down to my cock. Inconvenient moments to get an erection: A memoir . She squeezes my forearm as she looks up into my eyes with a soft smile.
“Thank you, Colin. You’re a lifesaver. I’m going to go call these assholes to get it up and running again, but hopefully this is the last time I’ll have to do it.” She walks away, headed for one of two small phone booths on the first floor. They’re tiny, windowless, soundproof rooms that allow people to make phone calls without disturbing other people.
She shuts the door, there’s a pause, and then I hear her raised voice coming from the small room. Well, I guess they’re mostly soundproof.
I grab my mug, feeling a little too restless to sit back down and write more code. In the kitchen, I pour a large cup of coffee and take some deep breaths. Helping Joanie doesn’t fit into my plan of keeping a healthy distance from her, but I’ve wondered if I’m the dimmest man on the planet for not letting myself get close to her. Seriously, what asshole wouldn’t take their shot with a woman like her if they had the chance?
My thoughts keep me distracted until Stuart’s standing in front of me with a giant grin on his face. The guy is everywhere, all the time. He practically forced me to be his friend with his chipper, outgoing, excessively friendly personality. Can’t stand the guy, but he’s one of my best friends.
“It’s nice of you to offer to help Joanie,” he says, his grin morphing into a smirk.
“What’s going on there?” I point to his smile. “Why do you look like you know something I don’t?”
“Maybe I do.” He doesn’t.
“Sure.” Best not to encourage him.
“Maybe I know that you and Joanie like to spend a lot of your days looking at each other thinking that nobody else notices that you’re looking at each other.” My stomach goes cold, but I manage to keep a straight face.
“Don’t you have a job to do? Why are you paying attention to who’s looking at who?”
“Aha! You don’t deny it.” It would be so easy to swat him like a tiny bug. But my non-drama, drama seems to make him happy. This is what happens when you’re friends with someone in a new relationship. They see sparkles and hearts even when there are none.
“You’re delusional, but I appreciate your hyper-focus on my love life. Truly.” I toast him with my coffee mug.
“You’ll see, Colin. Meredith and I have money on it, and I never lose a bet.” He loses all the time, and everybody knows it. He walks away, confident he’s gotten the last word. I love the little fucker like a brother, but he really knows how to get under my skin.
I take a sip of coffee, trying to calm the buzz in my chest. Does Joanie really look at me like I look at her?
Do I want her to?