Page 13 of Center of Gravity
I waited, the edge of the clipboard poking into my stomach. Tom honked the horn once.
“None of that,” he said, circling a finger in my direction.
“None of what?” I wanted him to say it, to say something that somehow acknowledged that he felt the pull too, regardless of how we were acting on the surface.
He hesitated. “Let’s keep it on the straight and narrow. You are my employee. You show up on time, you leave on time. You give me some warning if you can’t make it.”
I put on my professional face and swallowed back the flirtatiousness that kept trying to escape. Tom hit the horn twice this time, then a third time to let me know he meant business.
“That’s not a problem.”
Rob handed me a check and his card with his cellphone number on it.
“Day after tomorrow,” he repeated. “Let me know what time will work.”
“Will do.” I bent down to give Winslow a scratch, then headed toward the door, stopping when Rob called out after me. The bright blue and red box came sailing through the air, and I had to whip my arm up to catch it.
“Consider it a bonus,” he said, then he smiled. Like his laugh, this was a different species of smile. I’d seen only tight or polite. This one still had the same reserved curve, but there was genuine warmth in it.
I stuffed the Cracker Jack into the back pocket of my shorts and left before his smile could lose its bright gleam.
* * *
“How’s the tip?”Tom asked before I was even fully in the truck. That’s how it always went with him. He was all about the bottom line, whether it was getting laid or getting paid. I hadn’t yet looked at the check, so I glanced down at it. Rob’s handwriting was neat and precise, his signature in perfect, old-school cursive. And fuck me, I was not going to get hard over a dude’s handwriting, was I?
“It’s generous.”
Tom reached out for the check and snatched at it just as I laid it across my lap. I grinned and he rolled his eyes at me before focusing on the mirrors as he eased the truck out of the driveway. “One day you’ll give up.”
“Never say die.”
He laughed as he put the truck into drive and eyeballed the check, expression brightening when he saw the numbers.
“Man, I figured him for a cheapo the way he was so uptight.”
“I think he’s just going through a rough time.”
“Going through a rough time,” Tom mimicked. “Like you know him.”
“It’s just an impression. You can get an impression of a person.”
“Uh huh. I don’t think that’s all you’re getting.”
My shoulder hitched up. “He’s a good-looking guy.”
“You can’t bone all of our clients, dude. It’s not professional.”
I flapped my hand. “You’re one to talk. And I only boned one.” And in my defense, the guy was a student at Holly Brook I already kind of knew. We’d flirted through ten boxes’ worth of packing to move him from dorm to frat house. The amount of Greek T-shirts he had was obscene. His mouth had also been obscene. Best tip I’d gotten to date. But it wasn’t worth a repeat.
Rob didn’t strike me as the type for a one-night stand, which was my forte. Much less one withme, seeing as how he’d already made his point about keeping things professional.
“Besides,” I circled my finger in Tom’s direction. “You were ready to drop trou over Ms. Kemper.”
“Ms. Kemper?” Tom’s brows knit in confusion. I waited. Then he remembered and nodded, eyes lighting up as he nipped in his lower lip. “God, yeah. Tennis skirt lady. She had so much fucking china.” It had taken us hours to newspaper and bubble wrap what seemed like eighteen sets of heirloom china. She’d had a name and story for every pattern. I’d found it interesting, but Tom’s eyes had glazed over as he’d stared at her legs.
Once we were backat the office, the truck secure for the day, and all of the checks turned over to Franklin, our boss, we checked the board to see what was in store for us Monday.
Tom hovered over my shoulder, snapping cinnamon gum in my ear. “Oh hey, a straight-up junk haul.” He said it as if we’d hit a small jackpot. Since it was still the early part of summer, we’d been doing a lot of apartment moves as seniors shuffled off to their new lives.