Just Pretend (Love Comes To Town)

I come out of my reverie at a red light, to find myself glaring so hard at the older lady in the Toyota minivan next to me that she looks downright dismayed. The light changes and I give myself a shake.

Whoops.

I guess the situation is just getting to me. This stupid phone thing, but more than that, my job situation.

Mom wants me to do well, yeah, but she doesn’t think I can unless it’s on her terms, according to her definition of the world. I can almost hear her voice echoing in my head now: “Life is hard and unsteady. Get a nice, boring job that you hate, but pays the bills”. That’s what she did: a nine-to-five office management position that has her taking her first glass of wine minutes after getting home and her fifth right before bed. Not that I can really blame her, after what she went through before, but still.

She needs to get that I’m not her.

And I’m not Peyton either: stellar child and life-liver extraordinaire with her perfect job, perfect boyfriend, perfect little Pomeranian. I sound jealous because I am. It doesn’t help that, for whatever reason, despite eclipsing me in basically every way possible, Peyton still takes it upon herself to compete with me in basically everything, and make passive-aggressive comments the rest of the time. At least we haven’t been talking for the past few months—one problem off my back.

At any rate, here I am again at the boxy red-brick structure where we had dinner last night. All I have to do is drop this stupid phone off—with any luck the jerk was just at the club by chance and won’t be here now—go home, and get job hunting. By now, I’ve lost track of how many versions of my resume I’ve dropped off and sent off, and to how many places, but the first number would hover around 10 and the second around 250.

At the door, I pause. My car is one of the few in the lot that isn’t a pickup truck. Clearly this is before their opening hours, but will the front door even be open?

I give myself a determined nod. The guy on the phone said I could drop by. Besides, I fought the mid-morning traffic (who am I kidding, there’s always traffic in NYC) to get here. I am not going away empty-handed. Rather, I am going away empty-handed—I’m getting rid of this goddamn phone so I never have to speak to or set eyes on that jerk again.

One foot inside and I’m pausing again. As far as I can see, the stucco-walled interior looks like dead city, but screw it, I’m going in.

As I open the second set of doors, the shrill of power tools from further in echoes over. Must be from the renovations in the back.

I give the air an experimental sniff, trying to place what it is that I’m smelling. It even seems to smell construction-y in here too, though that could be my imagination.

“Hey,” a voice cuts through my daze. “You’ve got my phone.”

Him.

Shit.

So much for avoiding the jerk. He’s striding towards me, and yeah, jerk or not, my memory clearly didn’t do him justice. Sculpted body, powerful arms, chiseled jaw, rugged eyes with a glint that’s slightly sardonic—‘hot’ doesn’t even begin to cover it.

Hello, Earth to Sierra: Speak!

“Hey.” My voice comes out a croak, so I swallow, force my hand into my pocket then out, and hand over the phone. “Yeah.”

He takes it, our fingers brushing. Electricity ripples from where the slight contact happened.

He’s a jerk, Sierra. A complete, impolite, self-absorbed—

“Thanks,” he says, standing there.

OK, maybe not a complete jerk. But still, mostly a jerk. One that I should be getting away from stat.

“Right, well, glad to help.” Am I the only one thinking I’m sounding like some babbling schoolgirl? Maybe it’s because I can’t remember the last time I was so close to a guy this hot—maybe never? “I should be going now.”

I don’t expect any response, and I don’t get one. Clearly, whatever ‘moment’ I thought we had before was in my head.

I head for the door.

“Hey,” he says.

I pause.

“Sorry about before,” he continues. “I’ve just had the most insane last 24 hours.”

Is he actually… turning to eye him finds that he actually does look sorry. A bit.

Hmm. Maybe not a complete jerk after all.

“I’m Nolan,” he says, with a half-smirk indicating that he’s pretty damn pleased with himself.

Yeah, this guy oozes douche, though he is hot. OK, like 70% jerk, then.

“Sierra,” I say.

“Sierra,” he says, half-contemplatively, a slight tilt to his head. As if he likes the taste of my name on his lips.

Nolan, hmm. Do I like the taste of his?

Whoa there, girl. Clearly, I haven’t some good one-on-one time with my vibrator for far, far too long.