Chapter 21
twenty-one
tall order
T he words came out without a conscious choice. Elissa had planned on asking him to take the boxes to her car. They looked heavy. His arm muscles had flexed with the strain of lifting them under the snug-fitting dress shirt he wore, driving every sane thought out of her mind.
The heat rose in her cheeks again. She’d never asked a man out before. Where the hell had this come from? What the fuck was she thinking? Swear jar .
Elissa kept her eyes on Not-Actually-a-Jerk Ryan.
The brilliant smile he’d worn while escorting her to the file room returned, sending her heart into palpitations.
Warmth settled places that hadn’t received attention from a man in some time.
This could be a wonderful thing. It could also blow up in her face.
“Done!” he said before she could take her words back.
Ryan lifted the second box, muscles flexing once again.
She caught her breath as though she’d been running.
He placed it gently on top of the other box, and when he rose, he was standing a few inches away, a knowing smirk on his lips.
She ached to close the distance between them and kiss his smirk into oblivion.
He smelled enticing, looked enticing. For a heartbeat, she considered dropping caution like a hot potato, but he stepped away.
“Let’s get these loaded, and then I’ll collect on that condition.” He turned toward the door.
She held the front door open for him as he wheeled her cart to her car.
Elissa popped the trunk. She couldn’t keep her eyes off him, how his body moved with ease as he lifted the heavy boxes, how his butt looked as he loaded them, and how his carefully styled hair fell over one eye.
She startled when he closed the trunk and turned to her, his smirk back. Dammit.
Another dollar to the swear jar. She might not be a permanent resident of her parents’ home anymore, but she was staying there right now. She’d count tonight and make suggestions for family fun night.
“Thank you,” she mumbled, frantically suppressing the instinct to fan her heated face.
“Are you free Thursday?” Ryan leaned against her car.
“Yes.” The word was out before she could stop it, even though she hadn’t checked her calendar, even though she hadn’t given a single thought about her darn calendar. She might regret it later, but this man made her giddy, disregarding all her usual precautions.
“Great! I know the perfect place. Give me your number, and I’ll text you the address. How does five work?”
“Five thirty,” she countered before giving him her phone number. It was tax season. The days of getting out early were gone until April.
“Five thirty,” he agreed. Her phone dinged. “There. You have my number now, and I swear this place has the best Sonoran dogs in Tucson.”
“That’s a tall order. What if I’m not impressed?”
“You will be. I guarantee it.”
“I’m gonna hold you to it.”
He took a few steps away from her car, hands stuck firmly in his pockets as though trying not to touch her. She got in the driver’s seat.
“Goodbye, Elissa.”
She liked the sound of her name from his lips. Too much. She shut the car door.
“I’ll see you Thursday, Ryan.”
Ryan’s gaze lingered on her for a moment as she started the engine before he returned to the office. Elissa watched him the entire way. Once the front door closed, she leaned her forehead onto her steering wheel.
“What am I doing?”
There was no answer either from herself or any divine presence that wanted to make itself known. To be fair, she never knew what she was doing in these situations. A mutual friend had introduced her to Victor in college. It had been years since she’d had to negotiate a date.
Yet she’d worn the sexiest office-appropriate outfit in her closet. With her only black bra. She’d known she’d be here today, known she’d see Ryan, and had dressed appropriately.
She drove straight to JMS Accounting, unloaded the boxes, and wheeled them to the secure storage room.
It was emptier than it had been her first year working here.
More and more of their clients were switching to digital only, but DeMarco Property Management still insisted on a paper trail.
She doubted it would last much longer. Alex DeMarco seemed ready to transition to the easier digital paperwork.
But if they’d already done it, she wouldn’t have found Ryan. Thank heaven for technophobes.
Elissa went to her office, checked her voicemail and email, and kept herself reasonably busy the rest of the afternoon.
In the back of her mind, though, a niggling thought kept trying to come to the forefront.
She was ethically obligated to avoid conflicts of interest. Would dating a new office manager who had nothing to do with the documents in her possession, other than pulling them for her, be a conflict?
She was the junior member of this team, mostly organizing the files, prepping documents, and arranging meetings.
He was not the company bookkeeper. It was a gray area, and Elissa was a rule follower. She hated gray areas.
But this gray area had Ryan in it. And she liked Ryan. A lot. Even given their less-than-stellar start.
See where the next date goes, then talk to Karina. That’s what mentors are for.
She couldn’t ignore her conscience when it made this much sense. The date could flop even worse than with Mr. Beige-Flag, and this point would be moot. No need to bring it up until she established how a date went when they were one hundred percent honest with each other.
A few minutes after five, she shut down her computer and drove to her parents’ house. Leo was in the kitchen, rummaging through the cupboards. He turned to her with a granola bar in one hand and a bag of chips in the other.
“Give me a few minutes and I’ll throw the casserole Mom left in the oven,” she said.
“Can I still have these?”
“Go for it. I’m not your mother.”
He laughed as he took his snacks to his room like the teen goblin boy he was.
She preheated the oven and texted Jules.
E: I have a date.
J: What????? With a boy?????
E: No, with an alien. Yes, with a boy.
J: Who??? Please tell me not the dweeb from last week
E: Not the dweeb from last week.
J: Thank fucking god so who?
E: The other Ryan.
J: Lissa!!!!!! OMG I never thought you’d do it!!!!! He’s yummy I’m so happy
E: Easy on the exclamation points, lady.
J: AYFKM????? You have a date!!!!!!! I will use all the !!!!!!! I want bitch
E: Love you.
J: LYT
Elissa threw in the casserole and changed into her pj’s. She glanced at the clock when she came out. A shiver of anticipation ran down her spine. Only seventy-one hours until her date.