Lord have mercy.
I blow out a breath, tossin’ sweaty hair strands away from my face as I do my best not to tap my foot with impatience.
Finally, he finishes. “Here,” he says as he hands the stylus and power pad back to me.
“Thank you so much,” I say with a relieved sigh.
That was a damn close one. I thought for sure that I—
“Shit on a piss paddle,” I curse as I look down at the time recorded on my power pad.
My blood pounds in my ears as I read the time. I’m two minutes too late.
Two bloomin’ minutes.
I don’t know if the man at the desk was tryin’ to get my attention for very long, but by the time my mind can register the fact that he’s speakin’, I look up at him numbly. “Huh?”
The man cocks his head like he’s studyin’ me or somethin’. I notice for the first time that he has sunny blond hair, and he’s covered in black and gray floral tattoos over the exposed expanses of his toned arms. I’m a sucker for tattoos. And toned bodies. And that stern face he’s givin’ me right about now. Yep, he’s definitely my type. Too bad I’m not meetin’ him under better circumstances, or I’d for sure be puttin’ on the moves.
“I said, do you normally barge into people’s offices without knocking?” he asks with an annoyed glare.
“Oh, uh, no,” I say, but then I sit down in the chair behind me, completely ignorin’ the fact that I wasn’t invited to do so at all. One look from him tells me that he’s not too happy about this, but I don’t care so much about my manners right now. My foot hurts, and my mind is whirlin’ faster than a tornado.
I’m gonna be fired.
“Fired?”
My eyes swing over to the man again, because I hadn’t even realized I’d spoken aloud. I hold up the power pad still in my hand and wiggle it back and forth. “I’m two minutes late with the delivery. My boss already told me, one more write-up and I’m done for.”
“Ah.”
He doesn’t say more, and I feel hot tears well up in my stormy eyes. “I really needed this job, you know?” I tell him on a sniff as though we’re good friends and not the complete strangers that we really are.
His own eyes widen, which I realize are the exact shade of butterscotch—my favorite candy. “What is happening right now?” he mumbles, both annoyed and wary.
The first tear leaks down my cheek. “It’s that damn bitch, Patricia!” I say, and I plop both the stick and the power pad onto the edge of his desk. His gaze follows the movement before flickin’ back up to me. I drag my injured foot up onto my opposite knee and yank off my sock to find a small gash where the stick cut into my skin.
Takin’ the top part of my sock, which still looks relatively blood and muck free, I wipe at the blood. Across from me, the man leans over so he can see.
“What are you doing?”
“I tripped over your damn stick out front,” I say, still tryin’ to clean myself up as much as one can with only the fabric of a dirty sock. “Damn, that’s a lot of blood.”
“Stop that,” he snaps before I hear him yank open a drawer. In the next second, he shoves a box of tissues and a flask toward me.
“Thanks,” I say, pickin’ up the flask with my free hand and poppin’ the top off with my thumb. I tip it back and chug.
The taste hits me, and the stuff is so bitter and rancid that I nearly spit it all out. Luckily, I’m a lady who knows how to swallow the bitter pills that life hands her.
“Ugh, that stuff tastes like it’s been chewed up and spit out,” I say with a grimace.
He cocks a blond brow. “It’s an acquired taste, but I meant that for your wound,” he drawls. “The alcohol will help sterilize it.”
“Oh, right.”
Sheepishly, I tip the clear liquid onto my foot, immediately lettin’ out a hiss as it meets the cut. I put the flask on the desk and grab one of the tissues, and I use it to dab at my foot until I get all the blood cleaned off. It’s not so bad to look at now.
“You cut it open on your heel as well,” he says, still leanin’ over to give his large, well-muscled self a better vantage point.
