The F-Word

Her eyes are widening. They’re interesting eyes. I always thought they were brown, but they’re not. They’re damn near black.

“You?”

“Well, yeah.” I grin. “I don’t know about the gorgeous part. Not the fantastic one, either. But you have to admit, I’m successful.” I look down at myself. My hands are rough looking, a couple of nails a little jagged after two hours spent with those doors, and there’s some glue on my jeans. I look up and smile. “I’m a little messy right now, but I clean up pretty good.”

“No!” Bailey shakes her head. “What I mean is, thank you. But I couldn’t possibly impose…”

“It’ll be fun.”

“Fun?” She looks at me as if I’m nuts. “Fun? A weekend with my family, with my cousin Violet and her obnoxious, about-to-be husband will be fun?”

“Is he really obnoxious?”

“Is the sky blue?”

“And Violet? No redeeming virtues?”

Bailey looks me straight in the eye. “Not a one.”

I chuckle. “Think of what a good time we’ll have, Bailey, rocking their smug little world.”

She stares at me. And stares. She’s going to say no, and for some crazy reason, no is not what I want to hear.

So I take a breath. Lean forward. I kiss her. Lightly. My mouth brushing over hers. Just brushing. It’s a friendly kiss—until she makes a little sound in the back of her throat and I feel her lips cling to mine. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s my imagination. It must be, because the entire thing lasts just a couple of seconds, but I feel a kind of thump in my chest, as if something’s interfered with my breathing.

Must have been all that working with old wood and glue.

“I know what you’re thinking,” I say brightly.

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She touches the tip of her tongue to the center of her bottom lip.

“You do?”

“Sure. You figure it’ll never work. That we won’t be able to fool anybody. But we will. We’re old friends. I know you know and you know me.”

“But we don’t,” she says. “Know each other. We’re not old friends. I’m your assistant. And you’re my boss. And we’d be pretending to be, you know, to be—”

Man. Didn’t I once see an adults-only movie with that plot?

This is definitely not the time to think about that.

“To be dating,” I say briskly. “And of course it will work. We’ll look comfortable together.”

“We will?”

“Yeah. Because we know stuff about each other. The kind of stuff that, you know, says we’re, uh, we’re a couple.”

Bailey shakes her head. Doubt is written across her face.

I roll my eyes.

“How do I take my coffee?” I ask.

“What?”

“Just answer the question. How do I take my coffee?”