Page 7 of On A Manhunt: Complete Series

brIDGET

I screamed.

In the middle of Kincaids, the bar’s outdoor patio loaded with people.

Not because I saw a mouse or a spider, but I just realized I’d sent a sex quiz to the guy who signed my paychecks, the same guy who I’d been lusting after for the past eight hours. It was more frightening than the scariest horror film ever made.

Worse than leaving MIT ashamed and broken. Worse than… anything that had ever happened to me, and there had been a lot.

Everyone on the deck stopped talking and stared, and I couldn’t be any more embarrassed if I tried. I stared at my email’s Sent folder, the recipient’s name crystal clear.

Maverick James.

Not Mallory Mornay.

The little paperclip and Sex Quiz file name confirmed the worst.

I looked up at Mallory, freaking out.

“Oh my God.”

Mallory snagged my phone while I wondered if it was possible to actually die from mortification.

“I just sent a sex quiz to Maverick James.”

“Is everything okay?” Payton asked when she came over.

The other women clustered around me and Mallory in a full circle, blocking out the entire bar. “Did you see a rat or something?” Nora wondered, glancing down at the floor.

I pleaded with my eyes to Mallory not to tell them what happened. I couldn’t bear it if all of them knew.

Being best friends since forever, she winked, then offered the group an eye roll and a toss of her blonde hair. “A sale on her favorite calculator ended yesterday,” Mallory said, waving a hand in the air. “You know how Bridge is about her electronics.”

If I was thinking clearly, I’d take time wondering why they bought into that lie so easily and went back to the high-top table where they’d been settled.

I hadn’t seen Maverick for hours. Not since he’d walked beside Hunter, the sheriff–yes, he’d been named after the town–as he escorted Jason to the patrol car.

Maverick had gotten into his own car and followed out of the lot.

I didn’t know if he’d gone to the station or gone to the job site as planned. Or both.

What Maverick had done had been exhilarating. Not only had my douchey boss been fired and kicked out of the state, he’d been called out because he hadn’t done any work and because he was a creep. I didn’t usually like confrontation, but this one had made me… hot.

He’d been like a cowboy in a white hat in a gun fight or a knight saving a maiden from a dragon.

Or a really hot man taking care of his woman.

Not that I was his woman. I wasn’t. Not at all.

But my panties had gotten wet from it. From the way Jemma fanned herself all afternoon, I was sure hers had too, but I didn’t want to think about that. In fact, I didn’t want any other woman thinking Maverick was hot.

Because I sure as hell did. There wasn’t a thing about Maverick James that I didn’t find attractive. None of it was diminished by him in a pink t-shirt either.

Was I any better than Jason, ogling and thinking naughty thoughts about a coworker? One who’d been nothing but kind to me? He’d read the email I’d mistakenly sent him and question my integrity. Perhaps even assume I was like Jason who sexually harassed people.

God, what if he thought I’d led Jason on? That his inappropriate words weren’t one sided?

It could be like MIT all over again. My professor had seduced me into his bed so he could take my theoretical math research and use it in a professional paper of his own, only discovering this after I submitted my thesis for review and been accused of plagiarizing. That had been bad.

My stomach lurched and so much adrenaline was pumping through my bloodstream that my fingers tingled.

I grabbed Mallory’s arm. “I have to get that email.”

She winced and pried my fingers off. “Easy there,” she said, looking over her shoulder and made a finger curling gesture to Payton, who came over with a shot glass filled to the brim with a clear liquid. Mallory passed it to me. “First off, drink that.”

“Getting me drunk isn’t going to help,” I snapped.

Her pale brow winged up. “It’s not going to hurt,” she countered.

Conversation on the deck returned as if some crazy lady hadn’t just made a scene.

“I’m going to lose my job,” I told her, staring at the shot, then tossing it back. I coughed, then winced as it burned all the way down. “Worse, Mal, he’s going to think I’m just like my professor.”

She leaned in close so all I could see was her. “Your professor lied, got you into bed and took your research and used it as his own. How is that even the same?”

Hearing her give a shotty recap of why I left MIT didn’t make me feel any better. “Maverick James will think Jason’s sexual harassment wasn’t one sided. I sent him a sex quiz. The title alone could get me fired. And if he reads it?”

I swallowed hard, willing the shot not to come back up.

“He’ll find it funny. I do. Unless you put his name on the last question.” Her eyes widened in panic. “Oh my God, please tell me you wrote you want to have sex with him.”

She was too excited about my stupidity for me to admit that if there was any guy I would want to sleep with, it would be Maverick James. But I kept that to myself.

“No, I didn’t put him.”

She stilled. Frowned. “Wait. Then who did you put? Are you hot for a local I don’t know about? I’m your best friend and you’re supposed to–”

“I put Jake Ryan.”

She blinked. Then laughed. “The hero from Sixteen Candles. You put in the exact same answer as Samantha Baker did in the movie.”

“I know. You were rushing me and he’s hot.”

“He wears a sweater vest.”

“He’s still hot and you know it.”

She sighed. “He is. But, God, Bridge… this would only happen to you.”

I ignored the fact that she was humored by my fuckup. “He told Jason there’s a zero tolerance policy for sexual harassment. Zero. I am going to lose my job,” I repeated. “I need that job. I mean, I can’t tell Lindy I dropped out of MIT so I can work for Eve at the coffee shop.”

“Lindy needs to chill the fuck out,” Mal countered.

My sister was wound tighter than anyone I knew and I’d never known her once, ever, chill the fuck out.

“Who cares if you lose that job? It’s been shitty from the start.

I mean, you can be a teacher. The Physics teacher at the high school is going on maternity leave.

Teenagers have to be better than sleazy bosses.

Besides, you’re the only person I know who loves that shit. Physics and math, not sleazy bosses.”

“While I agree with that, about Lindy chilling out, and the fact that I loved Physics class in high school, it doesn’t solve my problem.

Neither does the teaching job since it’s summer break.

I have to deal with the one I currently have, the one I think I currently have.

The only way to do that is to delete that email. ”

“But you didn’t name your boss as the guy you want to bang so you didn’t specifically sexually harass him.”

“Will you quiet down?” I breathed, glancing around.

“The music’s too loud for anyone to hear us, and besides, everyone in here is talking about banging.”

Probably true.

“You’re freaking out more than usual.” She held up her hand. “I’m not diminishing the issue with your professor, but not every guy is a dickwad like him. What’s the deal with Maverick James? I saw that he’s hot, and big, like break-your-vagina big.”

I winced and gave her the full story. “I ran into him at the coffee shop this morning.”

“So?”

I didn’t stop wincing. “I mean literally ran into him. I drowned him in my iced coffee.”

Mallory pinched her lips between her teeth to keep from laughing at me.

“Then he told me it was no big deal. Maverick held my hand and called me beautiful and baby and–”

“Maverick? Not Mr. James? Whoa. I think you should marry this guy.”

“Don’t write your maid of honor speech yet.”

“I’m your maid of honor?” she asked, a sappy smile on her face.

“At my not-real wedding? Yes,” I countered; my words laced with sarcasm. “Back to the point? I embarrassed myself this morning with the coffee and now this. I have to delete that email.” If my eyes could glow red, she’d finally get how serious I was.

She thought for a moment. “Fine. We have to get that email. How?”

A guy walked by and Mal took a moment to eye him up and down. “Speaking of banging…”

I tapped her on the forehead, gave her a pointed look. “He left his laptop at the office when he left earlier. He hadn’t come back for it when I came here. It’s probably still there. I’ll go on it, find the email and delete it.”

She tipped her head to the side and studied me.

“What?” I asked, wiping my mouth, thinking I dribbled the shot or something.

“Who are you and what happened to my best friend?”

I straightened my spine. “What? You think I’m Boring Bridget?”

She tucked her hair behind her ear. “No, you idiot. This is a reckless idea. You don’t do reckless. You calculate the risks on everything. Remember the time you analyzed the data on losing bikini tops on that water slide at Splash Mountain?”

It was a smart review because my fifteen-year-old self did not want to flash the entire water park because of a dangerous combination of velocity, angle of slope and durability of spandex.

“I’d rather show my boobs to this bar than have Maverick James see the email.”

Her mouth fell open because I was that serious. “What did you put in that sex quiz?”

I ignored her question. “I calculated the risk you’re talking about. It’s being fired. If I don’t delete that email, I will be fired.”

I remembered how serious Maverick was about Jason’s behavior. No chance he would let this slide with me. Or anyone.

“Okay, Brave Bridget,” she said, oddly triumphantly, hooking my arm through hers. “Let’s go get that email. Hopefully, he hasn’t read it yet.”