Knitting in the City 01 Neanderthal Seeks Human (31 page)

When I got home early this morning I turned off my cell phone without looking at it. I tried not to obsess about how oblivious I’d been or about how obvious my obliviousness must have been to him. I didn’t want to think about it, so I didn’t.

Likewise, when I got to work this morning I set my phone to automatic voicemail. When Keira arrived at my door, indicating that Mr. Sullivan was on the phone
, calling from New York, and needed to speak with me, I told her I was just about to go into a meeting and promised to call him back. I’d done this three times.

It was true, I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t know how to talk to him. In my sleepless examinings last night I realized that he’d never exactly lied to me about being my boss. But, he was the Boss and everything was now different.

I ignored the implication that I’d been dodging Quinn’s calls and I thought about how to answer Olivia’s question truthfully without including real details, “I met Mr. Sullivan at my old job.”

“Did he recruit you away from there?”

“No.”

“Hmm.” Olivia seemed to contemplate me for a moment with a sideways glance before she said, “Carlos hired me. I’m the only person at the company who wasn’t recruited by Quinn.”

“Oh? I didn’t know that.” I was distracted by all the revelations of the past week, tempted to succumb to the pleasant void of apathetic numbness, and just couldn’t seem to muster enough energy to feign interest in what she was saying.

“I think-“ she leaned closer to me and lowered her voice to conspiratorial whisper, “I think I make him uncomfortable.”

My brow lifted on its own accord and I regarded her with open confusion, “Who? Carlos?”

Olivia laughed lightly and flipped rolling sheets of chocolate brown hair over her shoulder, “Quinn, of course!”

I tried not to grimace when she used ‘Quinn’ instead of ‘Mr. Sullivan’. “Why do you think that?”

“Well, other than Carlos, haven’t you noticed that everyone Quinn hires is so… so…” she looked upwards as though trying to search for the right word, “you know, so plain. So ordinary looking.”

I didn’t miss her meaning; in fact, her words hit the bull’s-eye in my stomach. I was discovering more and more recently that I was not so immune to the scorn of pretty people as I thought. I blinked at her but said nothing; I wanted to say, “
You are a nibling
.”

Nibling
being a new word I’d found on Urban Dictionary. I hadn’t yet said it out loud but I found myself liking the way it sounded in my head.

She continued, “Carlos
has insinuated that Quinn is really a terrible flirt.” Her pretty mouth curved into a knowing smile, “I think Quinn purposefully hires women who are plain so he’s not distracted at work. At this point he must be desperate. I bet he’s even flirted with you.”

I gave her my best imitation of a smile but was pretty sure it looked like a dog baring its teeth, “That’s an interesting theory.”

“Hm.” She said again, leaning back, “Has he flirted with you?”

I shook my head and looked at the portfolio on my lap, “Not unless you call kissing flirting.”

Olivia’s eyes opened very wide for a split second; then she laughed, “You’re funny!” she tapped my leg with manicured nails then flipped her long, shiny, straight hair over a slim shoulder. “Well,” Olivia audibly sighed, “it’s a good thing he’s not attracted to you otherwise he likely wouldn’t have hired you in the first place.”

I kind of wanted to stab her in the neck.

“Janie, are you two finished yet?” Steven’s form appeared at my door and I immediately jumped up from my seat, thankful for the murder-attempt-distraction and the chance to escape. I crossed to my expansive desk in order to improve the distance between Olivia and the pen in my hand.

“Yep. All done. I think Olivia has what she needs.”

“If I have any questions I’ll just stop by later and ask.” She stood from the table as well then gave Steven a friendly, toothy smile.

Steven shook his head; his lips were pursed; “Olivia, Janie doesn’t have any more time to work on this with you. She needs to get ready for next week and that report needs to be done by tonight. You better have all you need from her.”

Olivia’s eyes met mine and her smile widened, “Yeah. I think I got everything I need.”

~*~

I worked in the office over the weekend, enjoying the solitude. It allowed me the space I needed to avoid thinking about anything confusing and/or unpleasant

I didn’t really need to go into the office over the weekend. I could have accomplished just as much on my laptop in the comfort of my slippers at home. Though, in all honesty, avoiding Elizabeth was the intentional byproduct of my industrious two days away from the apartment. I hadn’t yet told her about Kat’s knit-night revelations or finding out that Quinn was the Boss or that Jem and Jon had engaged in
colitis-extremeous
. I didn’t know how to tell her and it just felt like too much and I didn’t actually feel ready to talk about it and I knew she would make me talk about it.

I justified my absence by insisting
, to myself, that I needed to finish up the billing presentation which I hoped that ‘the Boss’ would adopt as new business practice for Guard Security. However, now that I knew I would be making my pitch to Quinn instead of some unknown entity, I was beginning to have second thoughts about the initiative. I’d discussed it with Quinn previously, on the day he’d met me at Smith’s deli, not knowing he would be making the decision regarding whether it moved forward.

I felt like I now needed to prove myself. I didn’t feel like my job was really mine, like I’d deserved it. The combined pressure of performing at the client meeting and proving I deserved to work at Cypher Systems along with the thought of seeing Quinn for the first time in a week
, now as ‘the Boss’, caused my stomach to became like the hair trapped in bubblegum- heinous, untenable knots. I spent my time working tirelessly on the billing presentation, going home and losing myself in comic books until 1AM then waking up early to burying myself in work once more.

I didn’t know how I was going to face him. What would I say? What would he say? I had no roadmap for this situation. We’d held hands, we’d kissed, and I liked it. A lot.

On the Monday morning of the trip I was so exhausted Elizabeth had to shake me awake; she informed me that my alarm had been going off for seven minutes without me so much as reaching for the snooze button. I showered, braided my hair then twisted it into a bun on the crown of my head, and dressed in my black pants-suit in a haze.

At the last minute I decided to wear my glasses instead of contacts; I told myself this was because my hands were shaking too much to put them in. I went through my head-box-closet coping exercises several times in the taxi on the way to the airport, thankful to find myself almost detached by the time I arrived.

Steven met me at a prearranged spot with coffee, a blueberry scone, and a reassuring smile then guided me to the private airstrip, all the while telling me about a disastrous date from the weekend with a lawyer named Deloogle, at least, that’s how the name sounded. It seemed all his dates’ names rhymed with Google or Bing. It was not unusual for him to regale me with stories on Mondays regarding his weekend exploits. Typically the evenings always ended with some hysterical calamity.

I was so wrapped up in his story that I didn’t really notice where we were going. As we boarded the plane he handed my bag to an attendant and we took seats next to each other.

He reached the end of his story: “… and it was so disgusting I had to arrange for the carpet cleaners to come out and fix the spot on Sunday.” He shook his head, “That’s the last time I go out with someone who wears a live ferret as an accessory.”

I smiled and laughed then abruptly realized where I was. Since I hadn’t noticed my surroundings as I entered I didn’t know who else was already on board. The calm numb from before was pierced by a pang of awareness. We were seated near the front of the plane and I fought the urge to crane my head around to see the rest of the aircraft.  Instead of attempting to discern the occupants I concentrated on the interior of the jet.

I had no comparison as I’d never traveled via private plane but I found my surroundings to be impressive; everything looked new and shiny. The seats were beige leather, the trim and carpet were navy and the bulkhead was lined with elaborate wood paneling. Seats were clustered in groups of four facing each other: two facing forward, two facing backward to, I assumed, facilitate conversation during the flight.

An attendant walked over to us; she was very pretty and
, I guessed, in her mid-forties. She reminded me of the good humored flight attendants on Alliantsouth airlines who told jokes and winked at passengers.

“Can I get you two something to drink before we depart?”

I cleared my throat, “No thanks, I’m good. But- uh- do I have time to use the restroom before we leave?”

She nodded, “Sure do, hun. The head is at the back of the plane.” I smiled my thanks and stood to walk toward the back when I came face to face- or, rather- chest to chest with a solid man wall.

“Oh, sorry-“ I backed up a step and grabbed the seat to maintain my balance, my eyes automatically lifting to the face of the barrier.

I immediately regretted the movement when my gaze met that of Quinn McHotpants Sullivan’s.

By the power of Thor!

His hands reached out to my upper arms, presumably to steady me, and we stood looking at each other for a long minute; me gaping, him steadily watching me with an impassive mask and fiery blue eyes. He was even more devastatingly and unfairly handsome than I remembered. It didn’t help that he was wearing a nicely, obviously custom, cut black suit and white shirt and a stunning blue silk tie. 

I was the first to break the gaze.

I stepped back and out of his grip, letting my attention drop to the navy carpet, and unnecessarily fiddled with my glasses. I mostly succeeded gathering my wits, finding it helped to focus on how annoyed I was that, once again, the man’s mere presence turned me into a complete flustering kerfuffle.

Abruptly I thrust my hand forward in an offer to shake his hand, “Mr. Sullivan. It’s very nice to see you again.” I glanced up at him as he fit his hand into mine, ignoring how nice his skin felt against mine
and that stupid- yes,
stupid
because it was inconvenient and my vocabulary was suffering due to his mere presence- stupid shock of something like delightful pain when we touched. I tried to give him a professional, firm handshake.

“Ms. Morris.” Even though I felt a small twist of sadness at the formalness of his greeting, his voice sent little shivers down my back and I was
further set off kilter. His eyes moved over me in the same open, plain assessment that he always seemed to employ: lips, neck, shoulders, lower.

Our hands hung suspended between us, no longer moving, and I battled to keep myself from turning completely scarlet under his attention. I didn’t move to withdraw nor did I have any desire to break the contact. I felt certain this man had no idea what he did to me just by looking at me and holding my hand. For a split second I imagined that hand elsewhere on my body and I lost the battle against my blush.

I tried to cover my heated embarrassment and, as usual, started speaking without thinking, “This is a nice plane you have here.” his eyes lifted to mine abruptly, “I don’t know much about corporate or private jets. It seems like fuel efficiency is a real problem though as planes are just about the least fuel efficient means of transportation-“

Quinn tipped his head to the side, arresting my attention with his intense stare, “Are you saying you’d prefer to drive to Las Vegas?”

“Well trains can be very nice. Maybe you should invest in a corporate train. There was a study conducted by AEA Technology between a Eurostar train and airline journeys between London and Paris, which demonstrated the trains emitting 10 times less CO2, on average per traveler, than planes. Don’t forget, trains also have sleeping cars for… sleeping.”

Quinn’s mouth
curved in an almost non-existent smile, the shade of his eyes seemed to darken, “Planes can have beds too. Maybe I could have one installed on this plane for the next time we travel.”

“How would you decide who gets the bed and who has to sit in a seat?” I blinked at him.

He opened his mouth as though to respond but then suddenly shut it and withdrew his hand from mine, frowning at me, “Good point.”

The sound of someone clearing their throat pulled my attention away from Quinn; Olivia Merchant and Carlos Davies were standing to the side of us, watching our exchange. Carlos gave me a small smile, his eyes narrowed and moved between Quinn and me; but Olivia
, who had been the one to clear her throat, was frowning. I hadn’t noticed them approach. In fact, I hadn’t noticed anything but Quinn from the moment I collided into his chest.

“Excuse us, Janie. We’re trying to get through to our seats.” Olivia motioned with her hand toward the empty seats across from Steven and me.

“Oh, sorry.” I stepped to the other side to let them pass then ducked around Quinn, careful to avoid further eye or physical contact, as I sprinted toward the bathroom at the back of the plane.