Fin’s heels clicked loudly on the marble floor as she went with him to a meeting room filled with all manner of electrical gadgetry. She sank into a soft leather chair you could conceivably live in and ran her hand over a table made from cool white stone. When she looked up, Cal was watching her, along with another man who shared his dark good looks, only taller, with longer hair and a rakish scruff.
“Fin, this is my brother Zeke.”
She shot to her feet, extended her hand to Zeke.
He took it and they shook. “Nice to meet you, Fin. You give good Marilyn.”
Zeke had Cal’s smile. On Cal, that smile said anything could happen, trust me, but on Zeke, it looked more like I’ve done a wicked thing; let me tell you about it in delicious detail.
“Fin has a microfinance charity,” Cal said to Zeke. He pressed a button on a center console of the table. “Camille. Would you bring coffee, please?”
“About this charity,” said Zeke.
“I thought we could help Fin with her pitch so she doesn’t need to be Marilyn anymore,” Cal said. He shrugged. A lazy move that might make you think he was a lazy man. It made her think of him shrugging off his suit coat, mounting the table, and crawling across it to kiss her, which was really, really unhelpful.
“Give us your pitch, Fin.” said Zeke.
She took a breath and steadied herself. This was it. “W—”
The door opened and the receptionist, Camille, came in with a coffee pot, cups and saucers, milk, lemon, and sugar.
After she left, Fin said, “W—”
And Cal said, “See? She needs help.”
“All I said was—”
“A W word,” said Zeke. “When, where, what, why.”
“Whoa.” Fin put her hand up. This wasn’t fair.
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“Yes, that, too,” said Zeke. “All very bad words to start with.”
“I was about to say—” She blanked. What was a good W word to start with? She hadn’t known there was a morality to W words. “Welfare.”
Zeke palmed his eyes. “Terrible word.”
“Worried.”
“Give us the pitch starting with the word worried,” Cal said.
“Worried that your charitable donations aren’t effective?”
Zeke groaned. “You sound like a late-night TV premature ejaculation commercial.”
She wanted to laugh. “I do not.”
Cal put his cup in his saucer very firmly. “You used the word charitable, and it’s a closed question. One minute, I’m thinking about how hot you are, and the next I’m thinking about albatrosses.”
“Albatrosses?”
“Albatrosses mistaking bottle caps for squid, how much plastic waste is swirling around in the Pacific Ocean, and what it will cost to clean it up. Anything else but what you just said.”
Cal thought she was hot. Imaginary fist pump. Yes!
“This is a professional thing. It’s not about what I look like.” And was fantasizing about having sex on the table.