Page 30 of Unsupervised
“Right, Jesse. What’s up?” Please don’t fire me and make a terrible day worse.
“My father is going to retire in a few months.”
A sinking feeling starts in my stomach. Is the store closing?
“I know you’re also a student, but we wanted to offer it to you before hiring someone new.”
Shit, I’ve missed something. I need to get out of my head and listen. “I’m sorry, I didn’t…can you repeat that?”
Jesse tilts his head a little, looking me in the eye. “Are you okay?”
No, I’m making a moron of myself twice in ten minutes. It’s a personal record. Someone should make me a ribbon. “Yeah, sorry, I’m just tired and a little distracted. You said your father is retiring…”
“Yes, and when he does, I’ll need to hire someone full time. It would include full benefits, medical and everything. I wanted to see if you’d be interested.”
Working full time at the music store? As much as I’d love to say yes, I don’t know how much I can juggle when it comes to school.
“You would still continue to give piano lessons in the evenings, but I’d need you forty hours a week, including some weekends.”
“I—when would you need to know?”
“I don’t plan to interview until right before he’s ready to quit. You have time to think about it. I just wanted to give you a heads up if you might be interested.”
I’m interested. Way too interested. I love it here. It’s the perfect job for me, and I’ve already learned a lot. It’s the one area where I don’t feel out of place, like I’m fumbling through trying not to fail.
“Thank you so much for thinking of me. I’m interested, but I’ll have to think on it. Because of school and everything.”
Jesse nods with a smile. “Of course, we’ll talk about it again later.”
My bike ride home seems to take seconds. I’m so distracted by everything that’s happened today. The embarrassment of kissing Mr. Aldrich like that still makes me cringe, but that doesn’t mean I’m not replaying every second of that amazing kiss in my mind. He may not have expected me to kiss him, and he definitely regretted it after, but the way he responded sure wasn’t disappointing. He kissed me back every bit as much, got just as caught up and turned on as I did.
It isn’t until the red flashing lights catch my eye as I ride onto Violent Circle that I pull myself out of my head. Oh my god. Two fire trucks sit on the opposite side of the park, near our apartment.
Fear sends a shiver over me, and I pedal faster until I see a small group of neighbors gathered just inside the park fence, along with a few firefighters. A sigh of relief leaves me when I see Zara, Serena, and Remee standing by the park fence.
“What happened? Is someone hurt?” My bike gets leaned against the fence while I catch up with my friends.
All three turn to look at me, then burst out laughing. “He’s fine. He’s just an idiot.”
“Who?”
Serena points toward the swing set. “Marty.”
Marty, all six foot four of him, shirtless of course, stands in front of two firemen while they try to figure out how to help him out of… “Is he stuck in a baby swing?”
They crack up again, and I take a few steps, getting close enough to see that yes, he most certainly is stuck in one of the rubber baby swings. Both of his legs are jammed through the two small holes and how he got his ass and crotch to fit in the seat in the first place, I’ll never know.
“What was he doing?”
“He came over with Owen a few hours ago. They had some chocolate edibles. We were sitting on the porch and they decided they had to swing.”
“That doesn’t explain why he stuffed his ass in a baby swing.”
Owen walks up, slinging an arm around my shoulders. “The guy has an IQ of a chicken nugget. What are you going to do?”
“Uh-huh.” Remee eyes him. “And you didn’t encourage this in any way?”
The corner of his mouth tucks in, and he looks up, pretending to think. “Define encourage.”